Task Chat In, Task Comments Out: A Shift in Planner’s Communication Model

In a Planner licensing change, Microsoft will be making available a new feature, Task Chat, as a service plan for several paid Planner licenses.

Centralizing ad-hoc communication like this around Teams makes sense, and this seems to effectively be what this does. My assumption (though to be confirmed) is that this will be accessible with other Teams data in other experiences. You can see MC1194627 in Message center for more information on this.

However, this comes shortly after the announcement of another task-based communication mechanism for Planner retiring, Task comments. This allows comments to be added to tasks and is included for all Planner users including those granted it just through a Microsoft 365 license.

While these are two different features right now it appears that the ledger moves the substance of task-based communication from being something granted to any Planner user to those who have specific add-on licenses. There is still time though for more announcements to change this interpretation.

There are upsides and downsides with SaaS offerings. One of the most obvious upsides is the lack of friction in new features arriving. But one of the biggest downsides can be a feature you rely upon in your flow of work vanishing without much fanfare - something you'd likely not let happen in your organization when installed static versions of software were a thing.

First posted on Linkedin on 12/18/2025 -> View Linkedin Post Here