Microsoft wants to breathe new life into Skype and is apparently working on a complete overhaul of the formerly popular chat all-rounder. Because as the Online magazine WindowsLatest reported, a new preview version has been released for participants in the “Skype Insider Program” – with some interesting new features.
Skype is finally ad-free
First and foremost, Microsoft has banned the often-criticized advertising from the messenger in the new version. This is not only intended to bring order to the screen, but also to improve performance. However, the messenger is not yet completely ad-free. In the test version, ad blocks still appear occasionally in the “channels” where content from Microsoft’s own news network MSN is displayed. Advertising that is played from linked news sites can therefore leak into the otherwise “ad-free” Skype.
Cross-platform and with AI
A real innovation is the integration of the artificial intelligence Copilot directly into Skype. For now, it is only available as an image creation tool and can be accessed via its own chat window. It is not known at this point whether Copilot will also be available as a chatbot. To ensure that as many users as possible can use Skype, Microsoft wants to make the messenger service available across platforms in the future, not just for Windows users. This means that new clients for Android, Linux, iOS and macOS are also planned. So far, such broad compatibility has only been known for Skype for Business.
Old love doesn’t rust?
It remains to be seen what other features the change of course will bring with it for the “new” Skype. Company sources say that Microsoft wants people to fall in love with Skype again. But the Redmond-based company will probably have to work a little harder to achieve this, as there is more than enough popular competition on the market for private and professional users, such as Discord, Slack, WhatsApp and the like.
