Microsoft Teams is retiring one of its most recognizable pandemic-era meeting features.

Together Mode, the layout that placed participants into shared virtual scenes, will no longer be available beginning June 30, 2026.

For admins, the change is less about nostalgia and more about cleanup. Together Mode scenes, custom scenes, and seat assignments are going away, while gallery view becomes the main multi-participant layout for Teams meetings.

The shared-scene era is ending

Microsoft said in a Microsoft 365 Insider post that retiring Together Mode is part of a move to simplify meeting layouts, reduce behind-the-scenes complexity, and focus engineering work on video quality, stability, and performance.

Together Mode launched in July 2020, when video meetings were still becoming the default workday backdrop for many organizations. The feature used AI to isolate each participant’s head and shoulders from their background and place them into a shared scene, such as a conference room, auditorium, or custom-branded space.

That visual layer is what disappears. According to The Verge, the Together Mode toggle will be removed from the View menu as the change rolls out. Together-specific features, including scenes and seat assignments, will go with it.

A post on the Microsoft 365 Message Center Archive says that gallery view will remain the primary meeting layout.

Gallery mode does not recreate the shared-room look or custom options. It does, however, keep multi-participant meetings inside the layout Microsoft plans to maintain across Teams clients.