Let’s be honest, for millions of businesses, Microsoft Teams is the default collaboration tool. If you’re already in the Microsoft 365 world, it feels like the natural, almost unavoidable choice for keeping your team connected. It’s the digital water cooler, meeting room, and filing cabinet, all in one app.
But just because it’s the default, does that make it the best? This Microsoft Teams review is going to pull back the curtain. We’ll look at its core features, from everyday chat to the nitty-gritty admin controls. We’ll also break down the pricing and see how it performs in the real world, paying close attention to what it can ,and can’t ,do for internal support teams.
What is Microsoft Teams,?
Microsoft Teams is more than just the app that replaced Skype for Business. It’s a platform designed to bring workplace chat, video meetings, file storage, and all your other apps into one shared space. It’s essentially the glue that holds the Microsoft 365 ecosystem together.
At its core, it’s built around a few key ideas to handle team collaboration. You’ve got your persistent chat channels for ongoing projects, so you don’t lose track of important conversations. Then there are high-quality video meetings for getting everyone on the same page. It also handles file sharing and real-time editing, thanks to its deep connection with SharePoint and OneDrive. And to top it off, there’s a huge marketplace of app integrations so you can plug your favorite tools directly into your workflow.
A detailed Microsoft Teams review of its core features
To figure out if Teams is the right tool for you, we need to get past the marketing fluff. Let’s dig into the features that you’ll be using day in and day out.
A Microsoft Teams review of communication and collaboration
At its heart, Teams is all about talking to each other, whether that’s through quick messages or scheduled meetings. You have your standard one-on-one and group chats for direct pings. Then you have Channels, which are dedicated spaces inside a "Team" for specific topics or projects. This setup is great for keeping discussions focused and on-topic, and the threaded conversations help prevent important details from getting buried in a sea of chatter.
That said, if you browse user reviews on sites like PCMag or Capterra, you’ll notice a common theme. While the interface is professional, many find it a bit sterile and less intuitive than more colorful competitors like Slack.
When you need to talk face-to-face, the meetings and calling tools are solid. The video and audio quality are reliable, and you get all the features you’d expect: screen sharing, custom backgrounds, and ,on the paid plans ,meeting recordings and transcriptions. The number of people who can join and how long meetings can last are pretty generous, making it a good fit for everything from quick team huddles to big company-wide webinars.
A Microsoft Teams review of file management and integrations
One of the biggest draws of Teams is how it works with OneDrive and SharePoint. Every file you drop into a channel gets automatically saved in a corresponding SharePoint folder. This makes it easy to find and co-edit documents with your team.
But this is also where things can get confusing. A lot of users find the file system a bit of a maze because it isn’t immediately clear that the "Files" tab in Teams is just a window into a completely separate SharePoint site. Finding a specific file can feel like a bit of a treasure hunt if you don’t already understand how it’s all connected in the background.
Beyond Microsoft’s own apps, Teams has a massive app marketplace with over 2,500 integrations. You can connect tools like Trello, Salesforce, and Jira right into your workspace. But here’s the catch: even with all those apps in one place, you still have to manually hunt for information scattered across them. Answering a simple question can mean jumping between three different tools. That’s where an AI assistant that can connect to all your knowledge can make a real difference. For example, eesel AI enhances Microsoft Teams by linking to all your company knowledge sources ,like Confluence, Google Docs, or your help center ,to give employees instant answers right inside their Teams channels.
A Microsoft Teams review of administration and security
For IT admins, the Microsoft 365 admin center is the control panel for everything Teams. It’s incredibly powerful, giving you fine-tuned control over users, security rules, and other settings. This level of detail can also be its own worst enemy. As many reviews point out, it can be pretty intimidating for new admins to find their way around.
Where Teams really stands out is security. It’s built on Microsoft’s enterprise-level infrastructure, so you get end-to-end encryption, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and compliance with major regulations like GDPR and HIPAA. For any organization where security is a top priority, this is a huge plus.
Pricing and plans explained
Microsoft Teams comes in a few different packages. There’s a free version, a standalone subscription, and of course, it’s bundled with Microsoft 365 plans. The free plan is surprisingly good for personal use or really small teams, but you’ll miss out on key features like meeting recordings, transcriptions, and the advanced admin tools. Those are all reserved for the paid plans.
It’s a good idea to know what you’re getting at each level. The standalone "Essentials" plan is a solid starting point, but the real value is unlocked when you get it as part of the full Microsoft 365 suite.
| Plan | Price (Billed Annually) | Best For | Key Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Teams Free | $0 | Individuals & Personal Use | Up to 60-min meetings, 100 participants, 5GB storage, a basic chat & collaboration. |
| Teams Essentials | $4.00/user/month | Small businesses needing core meeting features | Up to 30-hour meetings, 300 participants, 10GB storage, meeting recordings, whiteboard. |
| M365 Business Basic | $6.00/user/month | Businesses needing M365 web apps | Everything in Essentials + 1TB storage, live captions, web versions of Office apps. |
| M365 Business Standard | $12.50/user/month | Businesses needing full desktop apps | Everything in Basic + Desktop versions of Office apps, webinar hosting, customer appointment management. |
Here’s one very important thing to consider: the cost of Microsoft’s native AI. If you want to add Microsoft Copilot to your plan, you might want to take a seat. It’s an extra $30 per user, per month, which can easily put advanced AI out of reach for a lot of businesses.
Performance, usability, and AI capabilities: A critical Microsoft Teams review
A tool can have all the features in the world, but what really matters is how it feels to use it every day. Let’s get into the practical side of the user experience and the reality of using AI within Teams.
User interface and performance
If you look at user feedback from places like Trustpilot and Capterra, a clear picture emerges. The UI is professional and gets the job done, but it can also feel cluttered, clunky, and slow. Many people report that Teams is a resource hog, eating up a lot of RAM and CPU power, which can bog down even decent computers.
While the massive feature set is a plus, it also leads to a steep learning curve. New users often get lost trying to navigate the different tabs, find the right settings, or just understand the difference between a team, a a channel, and a chat. It’s a powerful tool, no doubt, but it forces you to work its way.
The reality of AI in Teams, Copilot and its limitations
Microsoft is heavily promoting its AI assistant, Copilot, as a revolutionary add-on for Teams. And it does offer some genuinely useful stuff, like AI-powered meeting summaries, automated notes, and real-time help during calls. It’s great for making your meetings more productive.
But when you look at it from a broader support perspective, you start to see the cracks.
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The Cost is a Killer: That $30/user/month price tag is a huge hurdle. For a support team of any real size, the cost of giving everyone Copilot access can become astronomical.
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It’s a One-Trick Pony: Copilot is almost entirely focused on meetings. It doesn’t do much to help with the flood of repetitive questions that clog up internal support channels like
#it-supportor#hr-questions. It can summarize a conversation, but it can’t actually solve an employee’s problem on its own. -
The Setup Isn’t Simple: You can’t just flip a switch and have Copilot running perfectly. It takes administrative planning and user training to really get it working well, which adds to your team’s workload.
Enhancing teams with specialized AI for internal support
This is where Teams, by itself, just doesn’t cut it. For support teams using channels to manage employee questions, the workflow is often a mess. Agents burn through valuable time digging for answers in different systems or pinging colleagues, all while employees are left waiting.
This is exactly the headache that eesel AI’s AI Internal Chat was designed to fix. It acts as a specialized AI that plugs right into your Microsoft Teams integration. Instead of just summarizing meetings, eesel AI actually learns from your company’s knowledge, no matter where it’s stored. That includes documents in Confluence, SharePoint, Google Docs, PDFs, and even old help desk tickets.
The result? When an employee asks a common question in a support channel, eesel AI jumps in with an instant, accurate answer, deflecting the ticket before a human agent even has to look at it. It turns a simple chat channel from a waiting line into an automated, 24/7 support hub.
Microsoft Teams review verdict: Is it right for your business?
So, after all that, what’s the final call? Microsoft Teams is a beast of a platform, but whether it’s the right one for you really depends on your company’s needs and what tech you’re already using.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| All-in-one platform (chat, meetings, files) | User interface can feel complex and cluttered |
| Deep integration with Microsoft 365 suite | Sucks up a lot of system resources (RAM/CPU) |
| Strong security and compliance features | Confusing file management backend (SharePoint) |
| Scales well for large companies | Native AI (Copilot) is a very expensive add-on |
| Who is it best for? |
Microsoft Teams is a no-brainer for businesses that are already all-in on the Microsoft ecosystem. Big companies that need top-notch security and compliance will also find it to be a great fit. If you’re trying to get all your communication and collaboration under one roof, Teams is tough to beat.
Who might want to look elsewhere?
If you’re just looking for a simple, lightweight chat tool, you’ll probably find Teams to be overkill. Teams that prefer a more modern, intuitive UI often drift toward Slack. And most importantly, if your business needs powerful, affordable support automation without paying the hefty Copilot tax, you should seriously consider adding a specialized AI tool on top of Teams.
Microsoft Teams review conclusion: Go beyond collaboration and automate your support
Microsoft Teams is a major player in the world of workplace collaboration. It offers a powerful, if sometimes complicated, set of features that can be the backbone of any modern company. But you only unlock its full potential when you address its weak spots ,especially when it comes to providing fast, scalable internal support.
While Teams brings all your conversations together, eesel AI makes those conversations smarter. By adding an AI that can automatically answer repetitive questions, you can transform your support channels from frustrating queues into helpful, self-service hubs. Try eesel AI for free and see how you can give your internal support on Microsoft Teams a major upgrade.
Frequently asked questions
It’s a common concern, as Teams can be resource-intensive due to its many integrated features running at once. While it’s generally stable for daily tasks, many users do report that it feels slower and more cluttered than lighter, more focused applications.
Yes, the $30/user/month for Copilot is steep, and it’s primarily focused on summarizing meetings. For automating answers to repetitive employee questions in channels, specialized third-party AI tools offer a more affordable and targeted solution.
For most small businesses, the M365 Business Basic plan offers the best value. It unlocks critical features like meeting recordings, increased storage, and web versions of Office apps, providing a full-featured experience that’s a major step up from the free plan.
There is often a learning curve because the file system is secretly powered by SharePoint, which isn’t obvious to new users. While basic drag-and-drop sharing is easy, non-technical users may initially find it difficult to navigate the underlying folder structure without some guidance.
The biggest limitation is that Teams is a communication channel, not a support automation tool. It lacks a native, cost-effective way to automatically answer common questions, which means your support agents can get bogged down handling repetitive requests manually.
