Microsoft says it will now let third-party developers integrate apps into Teams video calls, including before, during, and after meetings
here's what's new in Microsoft 365 in July Tweets: Dion Hinchcliffe / @dhinchcliffe : Now @Microsoft is allowing 3rd-party apps to integrate with the @MicrosoftTeams meeting experience for the first time https://www.theverge.com/... The “meeting as platform” concept has real legs with the advent of #remotework. Expect some very interesting innovations. #FutureOfWork Tom Warren / @tomwarren : Microsoft Teams is opening its doors to third-party apps during video calls and meetings. That means you can get apps in the sidebar, notifications, and more. Pretty big change to the way video calling in Teams works right now. Full details here: https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This move is the latest step in a long opening of Teams: Microsoft let all developers publish Teams apps to the Office Store back in 2017, then deepened in-app integration with slash commands and a searchable Store in January 2018. What changes now is scope — apps are no longer confined to channels and tabs but can attach to the live meeting itself, before, during, and after the call.
The timing matters because remote work has made the video call the default workplace surface, and Dion Hinchcliffe's 'meeting as platform' framing captures why Microsoft is ceding sidebar real estate to outsiders. Months later it doubled down, expanding meeting-app support alongside low-code tools like Power Apps for Teams (November's expansion), while shipping meeting-experience features like breakout rooms and Headspace integration (September's virtual commute rollout).
First-order effects
- Third-party developers gain a distribution surface inside Microsoft 365 meetings for the first time — sidebar placement, notifications, and pre/post-meeting hooks become product slots they can compete for.
- Teams' meeting experience stops being a fixed Microsoft-designed flow; IT admins and users can now assemble their own call workflows from outside apps.
Second-order effects
- Rivals Zoom, Google Meet, and Slack face pressure to match an extensible meeting canvas, since enterprise buyers comparing suites will weigh ecosystem depth against raw video quality.
- Independent software vendors that built standalone scheduling, note-taking, and collaboration tools get pulled toward native Teams integration, shifting their roadmaps and pricing around Microsoft's platform gravity.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, productivity competition shifts from owning the app to owning the container: whoever hosts the meeting surface controls where third-party value is discovered and monetized.
- An extensible meeting layer also sets up the next consolidation phase — assistants and low-code agents operating across meetings rather than beside them, which is exactly the direction Microsoft's later Power Apps and Copilot moves point.
The trend: Collaboration platforms are turning the video meeting from a closed feature into an open extension surface, making ecosystem breadth the moat instead of the call itself.