Microsoft Teams Is Adding A New Way To Get To Know Your Coworkers

There's an inherent convenience to working from home that suits many, but it can also have significant downsides. The social element, for instance, is lost. Still, remote work and the well-known jingle of Microsoft Teams have become part of the daily routine for many. To help them get to know those people they work with, Microsoft has added a new feature to Teams. Or, rather, a familiar feature from Microsoft's 365 system is coming to Teams for the first time: People Skills.

First introduced in April 2025, the People Skills feature was built on the foundation provided by Viva's Skills. Microsoft described the former at the time as a powerful new tool for the broader Microsoft 365 landscape that "infers individuals' skillsets derived from user profile and activity mapped to a customizable built-in skill taxonomy." This powerful tool, available in a user's profile card, can be accessed from multiple locations, including Outlook desktop, People Companion, and 365 Copilot. However, it was not available on the profile card within Teams. This functionality was added to Microsoft's 365 Roadmap at the end of January 2026 and is scheduled to roll out to eligible users in March 2026. 

Through it, employees and employers alike will have easier access to functionality than ever and can use it to increase productivity and better understand each other's strengths and skills. Let's take a look at how People Skills works and why its implementation in Teams may be such a big deal. A lot of much-needed features are coming to Teams in 2026, and this will be substantial too.

Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in December 2016 in a deal that Forbes reports was valued at approximately $26 billion. The deal provided Microsoft with access to extensive information on employees' skills and how those skills fit into different roles and broader industries. People Skills can be seen as a large-scale, AI-driven extension of this concept. Through it, Microsoft Graph can use work data to identify a worker's skills and how they fit within their roles. This is how a People Skills profile is constructed for an individual; they can then choose which skills to add to their personal profile after reviewing the provided suggestions.

Microsoft notes that the functionality was employed from the beginning with "robust privacy and visibility controls for both admins and end users." It is not mandatory but is selected at the admin level in the Copilot Control System, with options to opt out or adjust its use. Adding the system to Teams profile cards within Microsoft 360 enhances usability by making it more accessible without requiring additional navigation. As a result, workers will be better able to identify the specific skills their colleagues consider when defining their roles and abilities. 

In collaborative projects and critical delegation, people can tackle the duties that suit them best. Efficiency and job satisfaction will likely improve across industries as this more convenient access to the system rolls out. Microsoft Teams drew controversy with an update that shared users' location with their boss, but the new People Skills functionality has real potential to transform the workplace.