Microsoft has postponed a Teams feature that automatically shares a user’s physical work location, pushing the rollout to January 2026 amid rising concerns over workplace tracking.
Microsoft is giving hybrid workers a little extra breathing room before its next big – and highly controversial – Teams upgrade lands.
The company has delayed the rollout of a new feature that automatically reports your physical work location to colleagues and managers, after originally planning a December 2025 release. The update will now begin rolling out in January 2026.
The feature, which automatically sets a user’s location when they connect to their organization’s Wi-Fi, effectively lets Teams show whether you’re in the office, in a specific building, or nowhere near company premises.
If an individual is working from home, a café, or an Airbnb by the beach, the absence of that corporate Wi-Fi handshake will give the game away.
Microsoft pitches the upgrade as a productivity tool, saying it removes the need to manually check where teammates are sitting or call around the office to find someone.
Windows Central echoed that view, suggesting it will streamline collaboration by showing each employee’s approximate location on demand.
But many workers are likely to see something a little less rosy: a system that turns Teams into a quiet but persistent workplace tracker.
The move builds on Microsoft’s earlier introduction of building-level presence in Teams, another feature that can automatically reflect where an employee is located within their company campus.
The new system will be off by default, though administrators—not users—will decide whether to switch it on and require staff to opt in.
Whenever the feature does go live, Microsoft says it will be available to Teams users on Windows and Mac worldwide, meaning location transparency could soon be the new normal.
Microsoft delays Teams update that auto-reports employee location
