Microsoft Mesh
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| Microsoft Mesh | |
|---|---|
| |
| Information | |
| VR/AR | Mixed Reality |
| Developer | Microsoft |
| Platform | Microsoft Azure |
| Device | HoloLens 2, VR headsets (Meta Quest), smartphones, tablets, PC |
| Type | Experience |
| Play Area | Room-Scale |
| Release Date | March 2, 2021 (announced, preview); January 24, 2024 (general availability); retired December 1, 2025 |
| Infobox Updated | September 29, 2026 |
Microsoft Mesh was a mixed reality collaboration platform from Microsoft, built on the company's Azure cloud, that let people in different places meet in shared 3D spaces as avatars or as holographic captures of themselves. Microsoft announced it at its Ignite conference on March 2, 2021, with a preview app for HoloLens 2 and an enterprise version of AltspaceVR as the first Mesh-enabled experiences.[1][2]
Microsoft later moved Mesh toward workplace meetings in Microsoft Teams. It entered preview in October 2023 and became generally available on January 24, 2024, as immersive spaces inside Teams meetings plus a standalone Mesh app for PC and Meta Quest headsets.[3][4] Microsoft retired the Mesh toolkit for Unity on June 24, 2025, and on December 1, 2025, it retired the Mesh PC and Quest apps, Mesh on the web and the "Immersive space (3D)" view in Teams meetings, replacing them with immersive events in Teams.[5][6]
Description
Microsoft Mesh was a mixed reality platform built on Microsoft Azure that let people collaborate in a shared, holographic space across devices. At launch, participants appeared as avatars; Microsoft said that over time users would be able to use holoportation to project themselves into these spaces as their most lifelike, photorealistic selves.[1]
Microsoft's March 2021 technical overview said users could join through head-mounted displays such as Microsoft HoloLens, HP Reverb G2 and Oculus Quest 2 (Meta Quest 2) for a 3D experience, or take part from a 2D viewpoint on iOS and Android phones and tablets, PCs and Macs.[2]
The Mesh SDK supported Unity alongside native C++ and C# at announcement, and Microsoft said it would add support for Unreal Engine, Babylon, and React Native "in the coming months".[2]
Microsoft described Mesh as the result of years of its research and development in hand and eye tracking, HoloLens development, persistent holograms and AI models for expressive avatars. The company pitched it for distributed design reviews, remote assistance, training and virtual social gatherings.[1]
History
Announcement at Ignite 2021
Mesh was unveiled at the Microsoft Ignite digital conference on March 2, 2021, in what Microsoft called its first keynote designed entirely for mixed reality. Microsoft Technical Fellow Alex Kipman narrated the opening as a holoportation of himself, and attendees could watch as avatars in a shared holographic world.[1] Kipman said: "You can actually feel like you're in the same place with someone sharing content or you can teleport from different mixed reality devices and be present with people even when you're not physically together."[1]
Three partner projects were shown at the launch. OceanX announced a Mesh-enabled "holographic laboratory" on its research vessel OceanXplorer, where scientists could view 3D holograms of areas explored by its deep-sea vehicles; filmmaker James Cameron took part in the presentation. John Hanke, chief executive of Niantic, showed a proof-of-concept of Pokémon Go running on HoloLens 2. Cirque du Soleil co-founder Guy Laliberté appeared by holoportation to discuss Hanai World, a social mixed reality platform being developed by his company Lune Rouge.[1]
Mesh for Microsoft Teams
At Ignite on November 2, 2021, Microsoft announced Mesh for Microsoft Teams, which combined Mesh with Teams and was scheduled to begin rolling out in preview in the first half of 2022. It was to add personalized avatars that could stand in for a camera feed in ordinary meetings, and immersive 3D spaces for meetings and social events, on devices ranging from smartphones and laptops to mixed reality headsets. Microsoft said the first avatars would use audio cues to animate facial expressions and hand movements, and that it later planned to use AI and camera input to mimic users' head and facial movements.[7][8] The same announcement described Accenture's "Nth Floor", a virtual campus built from Mesh-enabled immersive spaces that the consulting firm had developed with Microsoft; during the COVID-19 pandemic Accenture began onboarding new hires in a shared virtual space called One Accenture Park.[7][8]
AltspaceVR closure
In January 2023, shortly after confirming that it would lay off 10,000 employees, Microsoft announced that it would shut down AltspaceVR, the social VR platform it had acquired in 2017, on March 10, 2023. Microsoft said it was "focusing our VR efforts on workplace experiences" and looked forward to "our launch of Microsoft Mesh, a new platform for connection and collaboration."[9] Road to VR reported that the same layoffs eliminated the team behind the Mixed Reality Toolkit (MRTK), Microsoft's open-source toolkit for cross-platform XR development in Unity.[10]
Preview and general availability
On September 26, 2023, Microsoft announced that Mesh would enter preview in October 2023 and become generally available in January 2024. The preview covered immersive spaces in Teams, the Mesh app for PC (through the Microsoft Store) and for Meta Quest (through App Lab), the Mesh toolkit for Unity developers and a no-code editor for customizing events. Takeda, Accenture, DXC Technology, PwC, Telefonica and the World Economic Forum were named as organizations already using Mesh.[3]
General availability in Teams began on January 24, 2024, and Microsoft said the Mesh app would reach the Meta Quest Store the following day.[4] Microsoft's announcement cited Takeda's "Hirameki Garden" environment for company town halls, Accenture's "One Accenture Park", which it said had been used to onboard more than 300,000 new hires, a bp project for expert collaboration, and a digital replica of a Mercy Ships hospital ship used for volunteer training.[4]
Retirement
A notice added to Microsoft's Mesh toolkit repository states that the toolkit was retired effective June 24, 2025. From that date, publishing new environments with the toolkit was no longer supported, and environments published earlier could not be edited with it; Microsoft said it planned to move all customization to an in-app, no-code experience.[5] Microsoft later stated that "As of December 1st, 2025, Microsoft will retire the Immersive space (3D) view in Teams meetings, Microsoft Mesh on the web, and the Microsoft Mesh PC and Quest apps", to be replaced by immersive events in Teams.[6] Mary Jo Foley of Directions on Microsoft reported in July 2025 that Microsoft described the change as Mesh "evolving".[11]
After the December 1, 2025 cutoff, the Mesh PC and Quest apps no longer worked and the mesh.cloud.microsoft site was taken down.[12][13] Immersive events in Teams run in the Teams desktop app on PC and Mac and in the Microsoft Teams Immersive app on Meta Quest 3, with attendees represented as avatars in customizable 3D environments.[14] According to The Register, hosting an immersive event requires a qualifying commercial Teams license and a Teams Premium license, while co-hosting or attending requires a standard Teams license.[12] Computerworld described the hosting requirement as a Teams Premium subscription or a "qualifying commercial Teams license".[15]
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| March 2, 2021 | Mesh announced at Ignite; Mesh app preview for HoloLens 2 and Mesh-enabled AltspaceVR[1] |
| November 2, 2021 | Mesh for Microsoft Teams announced, with preview planned for the first half of 2022[7] |
| March 10, 2023 | AltspaceVR shut down; Microsoft cites its focus on Mesh[9] |
| October 2023 | Mesh preview in Teams, on PC and on Meta Quest[3] |
| January 24, 2024 | General availability in Microsoft Teams[4] |
| June 24, 2025 | Mesh toolkit retired; toolkit repository archived[5] |
| December 1, 2025 | Mesh PC and Quest apps, Mesh on the web and the Immersive space (3D) view in Teams retired; replaced by immersive events in Teams[6] |
Features
Platform capabilities (2021)
Microsoft's 2021 technical overview described Azure as the core of the developer platform, with Azure Active Directory and Microsoft Accounts for sign-in and the Microsoft Graph carrying users' connections and content into sessions. It listed four AI-powered capabilities:[2]
| Capability | Microsoft's description |
|---|---|
| Immersive presence | Avatars driven by the inside-out sensors of devices, with an avatar rig and customization studio; photorealistic 360-degree holoportation using outside-in sensors such as the Mixed Reality Capture Studio or depth-sensed images from Azure Kinect[2] |
| Spatial maps | Merging each device's local view of the world into a shared map so that holograms can be anchored and persist across time, space and devices; Microsoft said the maps could work in places without GPS access[2] |
| Holographic rendering | A per-scene choice between local rendering and cloud-connected remote rendering, with support for most 3D file formats[2] |
| Multiuser sync | Sharing pose updates, motions, expressions and hologram transforms between participants within 100 milliseconds of latency, with spatial audio[2] |
Current Mesh-enabled Apps (at the March 2021 announcement):
- HoloLens Mesh App
- AltspaceVR
Future Mesh-enabled Apps (planned in 2021):
- Microsoft Teams
- Microsoft Dynamics 365
- Partner Apps
Mesh in Teams and the Mesh app (2023-2025)
In the version that reached general availability in 2024, Mesh had several parts: ready-made immersive spaces that could be opened from a Teams meeting, the Mesh app for PC and Meta Quest for larger events, a no-code editor for customizing environments with an organization's branding, videos and presentation content, and the Mesh toolkit for Unity developers who wanted to build custom interactive experiences.[4] Features included customizable avatars, spatial audio with multiple audio zones so that separate conversations could happen at once, seat assignments, live reactions and hand raising, and access to Teams chat and shared content.[3][4]
At general availability, immersive spaces in Teams were included with Teams Essentials, Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard and Business Premium, Microsoft 365 E3 and E5, and Office 365 E1, E3 and E5 licenses.[4] When announcing the preview, Microsoft said a Teams Premium license would be required to use the Mesh app.[3] According to Directions on Microsoft, Mesh events could hold up to 330 people for events such as town halls, while immersive meetings in Teams hold up to 16.[11][12]
The Mesh toolkit was a Unity package (com.microsoft.mesh.toolkit) distributed through a scoped npm registry, with Mesh 101 and Mesh 201 tutorials and sample projects published in a public GitHub repository under the MIT License.[5] Its GitHub release history runs from version 5.2312.1 on October 5, 2023, to version 5.2414.143 on April 9, 2025; the repository was archived on June 24, 2025.[16][5]
Preview access (2021)
During the 2021 preview, Microsoft Mesh was available in limited free preview. Users could complete a Register Interest form, download the Mesh app for HoloLens 2, and request access to host events in Mesh-enabled AltspaceVR. Developers interested in building Mesh-enabled apps were directed to the Mixed Reality Developer Program to receive updates and be notified when the Mesh public preview began.[17][18]
System requirements
During the 2021 preview, the Mesh App required a HoloLens 2 headset. Mesh-enabled AltspaceVR could be used on a number of devices including HTC Vive, Oculus Quest and Rift products, Windows Mixed Reality, and PC.[18]
| Period | Mesh experience | Supported devices |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 preview | Mesh app | HoloLens 2[18] |
| 2021 preview | Mesh-enabled AltspaceVR | HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Rift S, Quest and Quest 2, Windows Mixed Reality, PC[18] |
| 2024-2025 | Immersive spaces in Teams, Mesh app | PC and Meta Quest headsets[4] |
| From December 2025 (successor) | Immersive events in Teams | Teams desktop on PC and Mac; Microsoft Teams Immersive app on Meta Quest 3[14] |
Reception
In July 2025, Directions on Microsoft analyst Jim Gaynor said that "mixed reality just didn't become the big opportunity that Microsoft hoped at the time", and Foley wrote that the Mesh platform "never really caught on".[11] Computerworld quoted Metrigy president Irwin Lazar, who expected virtual reality tools to remain a "niche market" used mainly for training, product demonstrations, engineering and design, and customer engagement, not general-purpose meetings. The same article noted that Microsoft had stopped producing HoloLens 2 in 2024.[15] The Register placed the retirement alongside the end of HoloLens and Microsoft's shift of attention to AI and Copilot.[12]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Jennifer Langston (2021-03-02). ""You can actually feel like you're in the same place": Microsoft Mesh powers shared experiences in mixed reality". Microsoft Source. Microsoft. https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/innovation/microsoft-mesh/. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Nishant Thacker (2021-03-02). "Microsoft Mesh - A Technical Overview". Microsoft Tech Community, Mixed Reality Blog. Microsoft. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/mixed-reality-blog/microsoft-mesh-a-technical-overview/ba-p/2176004. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Nicole Herskowitz (2023-09-26). "Connect in new ways with Microsoft Mesh". Microsoft 365 Blog. Microsoft. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2023/09/26/microsoft-mesh-enters-preview-in-october-including-a-new-teams-experience/. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 Nicole Herskowitz (2024-01-24). "Bring virtual connections to life with Microsoft Mesh, now generally available in Microsoft Teams". Microsoft 365 Blog. Microsoft. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2024/01/24/bring-virtual-connections-to-life-with-microsoft-mesh-now-generally-available-in-microsoft-teams/. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 "Mesh-Toolkit-Unity". GitHub. Microsoft. https://github.com/microsoft/Mesh-Toolkit-Unity. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 "Microsoft Mesh". Microsoft Adoption. Microsoft. https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/mesh/. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 John Roach (2021-11-02). "Mesh for Microsoft Teams aims to make collaboration in the 'metaverse' personal and fun". Microsoft Source. Microsoft. https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/innovation/mesh-for-microsoft-teams/. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Frederic Lardinois (2021-11-02). "Microsoft Teams gets 3D animated avatars, because metaverse". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/02/microsoft-teams-gets-3d-animated-avatars-because-metaverse/. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Igor Bonifacic (2023-01-21). "Microsoft will shut down AltspaceVR on March 10th". Engadget. https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-will-shut-down-altspacevr-on-march-10th-232434724.html. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ Scott Hayden (2023-03-09). "Microsoft is Shutting Down Pioneering Social VR Platform 'AltspaceVR' Tomorrow". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/microsoft-social-vr-xr-interface-layoffs/. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Mary Jo Foley (2025-07-10). "Microsoft Is Finally Nixing its Mesh Mixed-Reality Efforts". Directions on Microsoft. https://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/microsoft-is-finally-nixing-its-mesh-mixed-reality-efforts/. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Richard Speed (2025-12-02). "Microsoft mops up Mesh after another metaverse misfire". The Register. https://www.theregister.com/software/2025/12/02/microsoft-mops-up-mesh-after-another-metaverse-misfire/2385405. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ Chris Paoli (2025-12-11). "Teams Gains 3D Meeting Capability as Microsoft Retires Mesh Platform". Campus Technology. https://campustechnology.com/articles/2025/12/11/teams-gains-3d-meeting-capability-as-microsoft-retires-mesh-platform.aspx. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 "Get started with immersive events in Microsoft Teams". Microsoft Support. Microsoft. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/get-started-with-immersive-events-in-microsoft-teams-a69189df-39c7-478f-a335-0aef7c4e5781. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Matthew Finnegan (2025-12-03). "Microsoft retires Mesh app, launches 'immersive spaces' for Teams". Computerworld. https://www.computerworld.com/article/4100319/microsoft-retires-mesh-app-launches-immersive-spaces-for-teams.html. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ "Releases - microsoft/Mesh-Toolkit-Unity". GitHub. Microsoft. https://github.com/microsoft/Mesh-Toolkit-Unity/releases. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ "Microsoft Mesh (Preview) overview". Microsoft Docs. Microsoft. 2021-04-28. https://web.archive.org/web/20210915000000/https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/mesh/overview. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 "Get started with Microsoft Mesh (Preview)". Microsoft Docs. Microsoft. 2021-10-14. https://web.archive.org/web/20210915000000/https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/mesh/get-started. Retrieved 2026-09-29.