Microsoft Teams Adds Audio-Only Recordings: A Simpler Option or a Strategic Signal?

So, audio only recording is coming to Teams.

I'm sure many will want to have audio only recordings of meetings for a whole variety of reasons.

However, my mind jumps to two connected questions.

Since the advent of Copilot analysis of Teams meetings, users have been suggesting AI review that would rely on the visual rather than audio aspect of the meeting - body language, expressions etc - without maybe realizing that all this analysis is based solely on a transcript.

With this update, is it confirming that Microsoft has no intention of adding this visual layer to Copilot's meeting understanding (an upcoming feature to analyze the visual of screen shares was recently removed from the roadmap)? Or maybe it's a foundation step to a state where Copilot can "see" much more of those meetings where we do choose to record the video?

Or maybe I'm just reading too much into this? What do you think?

First posted on Linkedin on 10/18/2025 -> View Linkedin post here