Teams Phone Agent and the Queues App: Building a Lightweight Contact Center in Teams

In my August and September 2026 overview I said that if you only read one section, it should be Teams Phone. That section was long enough that it deserves its own post. Between Teams Phone Agent reaching general availability and a whole wave of Queues app features, Microsoft now has most of the building blocks for a lightweight contact center inside Teams Phone.

In this post I look at those building blocks as one stack instead of a list of separate features: what each piece does, what it needs, and how I would introduce them in a real environment.

The stack in three layers

The easiest way to think about it is three layers:

The front door: Teams Phone Agent answers the call, handles common questions and routes the caller with context.
The specialist: a custom voice agent built in Copilot Studio handles a specific business process, such as order status or an invoice balance.
The team: the Queues app is where representatives and supervisors handle the calls that need a human, follow up on missed calls and voicemails, and monitor how the AI layer is doing.

Underneath all of this sit the familiar Teams Phone building blocks: resource accounts, auto attendants and call queues. That is what makes it interesting for existing Teams Phone customers. You are not replacing your call flows, you are adding layers on top of them.

Layer 1: Teams Phone Agent

Teams Phone Agent is an AI calling receptionist that answers business calls with conversational AI. I first wrote about it in June, when it was still in preview. It is now generally available and started rolling out on September 30, 2026.

What it does:

Answers questions, grounded in the FAQ content and URLs your organization configures in the Questions and Answers tool. Configured URLs are refreshed daily.
Self-service appointments. Callers can book, reschedule, cancel or review appointments through the Appointments tool, which integrates with Microsoft Bookings.
Routes with context. When a person is needed, the call is transferred to the right person with AI-generated notes, so the caller doesn’t have to repeat themselves.
Always on and multilingual. Natural conversations in 60+ languages and locales (Learn currently lists 63), including nights and weekends.

Microsoft positions it for customer-facing lines such as bank branches, clinics, city halls and IT help desks: lines where staff lose a lot of time to the same repetitive calls.

What you need

Teams Phone licensing.
A configured Teams Phone resource account.
An applicable billing or spending policy. Teams Phone Agent uses usage-based billing through Copilot Credits, and usage-based billing must be set up for it to work. If the spending policies are missing or there are not enough Copilot Credits, Teams Phone Agent falls back to working as a regular auto attendant until credits are available again.

Setup is done in the Teams admin center under Voice > Auto attendants > Add > Teams Phone Agent. That location tells you a lot: Microsoft sees Teams Phone Agent as an evolution of the auto attendant, not as a separate product. Create the Questions and Answers and Appointments tools (and any Copilot Studio agents you want to hand off to) before you start the wizard.

A few things from the Learn documentation that are easy to miss:

Transfers from an auto attendant, a call queue or another Teams Phone Agent to a Teams Phone Agent must be resource account based. Voice app based transfers are not supported in those scenarios.
Audio file greetings, force listen and announcement menu destinations are not supported.
Voice inputs are always on when Teams Phone Agent is enabled, and the default maximum call length is 4 minutes (configurable, with a custom disconnect message).

My take: the technical setup is the easy part. The real work is the content. The agent is grounded in the FAQ files and URLs you give it, so outdated or contradictory content on your website ends up in the answers your callers hear. Before you go live, have someone own that content and review it like you would review an IVR script. And because billing is usage-based, agree upfront who owns the Copilot Credits budget and set a spending policy, so the first busy month doesn’t come as a surprise.

Layer 2: Custom Copilot Studio voice agents

For processes that go beyond answering questions and booking appointments, makers can build custom voice agents in Copilot Studio and connect them to Teams Phone. This is available through the Frontier Program preview.

Specialized workflows, for example purchase-order status or invoice balances, handled in natural conversation.
Handoff from Teams Phone Agent. The front-door agent passes the caller to the custom agent when a workflow needs it.
Direct dial. You can also assign the voice agent to a Teams Phone resource account, so callers reach it directly.
Billing is separate, under the Copilot Studio consumption model.

A good example from Microsoft’s own material is a retailer that lets callers check order status or start a return, either through a handoff from Teams Phone Agent or by dialing the agent directly.

My take: treat this as early access, not as something to put in production on a critical line yet. Frontier means capabilities, preview pricing, availability and service limits can still change before general availability, and a Microsoft 365 Copilot license is required to join the Frontier Program. It is the right moment to build a proof of concept for one well-defined process, so you know what it takes once it goes GA. Also keep in mind you now have two separate consumption meters: Copilot Credits for Teams Phone Agent and Copilot Studio consumption for the custom agents.

Layer 3: The Queues app

To use the Queues app, users need both a Teams Phone and a Teams Premium license and must be voice enabled. It runs on Teams desktop (Windows and Mac), VDI, iOS and Android, and touch Teams phones, but not in the web client. This quarter it got the biggest update since it launched. I group the updates into four themes.

Shared work instead of individual work

Shared call history. The whole queue sees one shared list of missed, incoming and outgoing calls plus voicemails, instead of each representative only seeing their own. Admins choose whether all queue members or only authorized users get access. Rolling out. (ID 530579)
Resolution status. Representatives and supervisors can mark missed calls and voicemails as Unresolved, In progress or Resolved. A shift handover can filter on Unresolved and skip what someone else is already working on. Rolling out.
Auto attendant shared voicemails. Voicemails left through an auto attendant now show up in the Queues app next to call queue calls and voicemails, instead of waiting in a separate mailbox. Rolling out. (ID 567457, MC1443511)
Queues app on Teams mobile. Representatives can stay opted in to their queue, review missed calls and voicemails with context, and call back from their phone. Built for people on a shop floor, in a branch or between sites. Rolling out. (ID 559386, MC1279071)

Shared call history is the foundation for almost everything else in this list, and an admin has to turn it on. Without it, resolution status and the recap features have nothing to work with. Per call queue or auto attendant it shows the last 3,000 entries or 6 months of calls.

Recording, recaps and Copilot

Automatic recording and transcription for call queues. Admins enable it per queue and decide who can access the recordings. Recordings are stored in SharePoint and reached through call recaps in shared call history. Rolling out. (ID 565215, MC1401299)
Intelligent call recap. Recorded or transcribed queue calls get AI-generated notes with key discussion points and follow-up actions, from the Recap tab in the call history. Rolling out. (ID 569017)
Copilot in shared call history. Users with Copilot can open Copilot Chat from the Recap tab and ask questions about a recorded call, without replaying the recording. Requires a Copilot license and a recorded call. Rolling out. (ID 568933, MC1461160)
Customize recording and transcription notifications. Admins can tailor the notification text users see when recording or transcription starts in Teams VoIP calls, in the Teams admin center. Rolling out. (ID 567302, MC1426709)

These features depend on each other. Copilot needs a recap, the recap needs a recording or transcript, and automatic recording is what makes sure there is one for every call instead of only when someone remembers to press the button.

Some details from Learn that matter when you set up automatic recording:

Recording starts when a representative answers the call queue call and stops when the call ends. The same feature also exists for Teams Phone Agent, where recording runs while the agent handles the call.
It works with an automatic recording template that points to a SharePoint site. The Teams admin who assigns the template must also be a SharePoint site administrator for that site, and changing the site structure, file names or permissions afterwards can break recording.
Shared call history must be enabled on the queue, otherwise authorized users and representatives can’t reach the recordings in the Queues app.
Explicit recording consent must be Off for automatic recording on call queues. That is listed as a known issue, so check it against your own consent policy.

My take: this is where I would slow down, especially here in Europe. Recording every call in a queue has privacy and compliance implications. Involve your privacy officer and legal team before you enable automatic recording, make sure callers are informed (for example in the queue greeting), and decide on retention for the recordings in SharePoint. The customizable notification text helps you align the disclosure with your policy, so review that wording at the same time.

Supervisor control and reporting

Monitor Teams Phone Agent in the Queues app. Supervisors see how Teams Phone Agent handles calls from the Queues app dashboard: call volume, how calls are handled across the service line, and service levels such as the average time callers spend with the agent. Public preview.
45-day call history reporting. Supervisors and approved viewers can analyze up to 45 days of call history, up from 30. Reports open on the last 7 days by default. Rolling out. (ID 547825)
Authorized users manage call queue settings in Teams. Supervisors and team leads set up as authorized users can change key call queue settings directly in Teams, view reports and monitor agent calls, without raising a ticket with IT. An admin adds them as authorized users on the call queue first. Rolling out.

The Teams Phone Agent monitoring is the piece that ties layer 1 to layer 3. It gives supervisors a human view on the quality of AI-assisted service, which you need before you let the agent take more of the calls. It is still in public preview, so expect the metrics and the experience to change before GA.

According to Learn, authorized users can be allowed to control call queue membership, auto attendant and call queue greetings, call routing rules and auto attendant hours of operation, which you set up through voice applications policies. One catch: if you nest auto attendants or call queues without a resource account, authorized users can’t edit them.

For authorized users, decide upfront which settings team leads should own and which stay with IT. Delegating day-to-day changes is a big win for the business, but only if the guardrails are clear.

Proving adoption

Queues app adoption in the Teams Premium usage dashboard. Admins can see how many people actively use the Queues app in the Teams Premium usage dashboard in the Teams admin center. Rolling out.

This one sounds small, but it matters if you run a Teams Premium trial. Microsoft notes that usage during the 90-day trial determines eligibility for the follow-on discount, so it pays to track adoption from the first week.

Two updates outside the Queues app touch the same scenario:

Teams phones, 1449/1.0.94.2026226711 and earlier August and September builds (Poly, Yealink, AudioCodes) fix calls to call queue and auto attendant resource accounts from line keys and sidecars failing. If your reception or service desk uses desk phones with line keys to queues, make sure they are on a current build.
Calls app history on the roadmap: two new items in development for November 2026, multi-line call history tabs in the Calls app (570962) and upgraded call history in the Teams Calls app (570843).

How I would roll this out

Based on how the features depend on each other, this is the order I would follow:

Check licensing and prerequisites. Teams Phone for everyone involved, Teams Premium for the Queues app users, Copilot licenses for those who should use Copilot on calls, and usage-based billing with a Copilot Credits budget and spending policy if you plan to use Teams Phone Agent. Also check that your auto attendants and call queues have resource accounts, which you need for authorized users and for transfers to Teams Phone Agent.
Turn on shared call history for the queue and introduce resolution status, with agreements in the team on what each status means.
Add auto attendant shared voicemails and the mobile app, so the queue becomes the single place for follow-up, also for people who are not at a desk.
Sort out compliance, then enable automatic recording per queue, with the notification text, consent settings, SharePoint site and retention settled. Intelligent call recap and Copilot follow automatically once there are recordings.
Delegate queue settings to team leads as authorized users and let them use the 45-day reporting for staffing.
Pilot Teams Phone Agent on one line with good FAQ content, and use the Queues app dashboard to monitor it before you widen the scope.
Build a Copilot Studio voice agent proof of concept for one process, while it is still in Frontier preview.

Why this matters

For a long time the answer to “we need shared call history, recordings and a supervisor view” was a separate contact center platform. For many organizations, especially service desks, branches and municipal front offices, that was more platform than they needed. With Teams Phone, Teams Premium and Teams Phone Agent, a lot of that now sits in Teams itself, on top of the call queues and auto attendants they already have.

It is not a full contact center, and it doesn’t try to be. But for teams that mostly need to stop losing calls and voicemails, share the workload and get some AI help on the front door, it is worth taking a serious look at what is now possible before you start a contact center project.

For the full overview of the August and September updates, read my August and September 2026 post. For setup details, see Microsoft Learn: Set up Teams Phone Agent, Plan automatic recording, Plan shared call history and Manage the Queues app. Also check Microsoft’s posts on Teams Phone Agent and collaborative calling in the Queues app. As always, release dates and timings are subject to change.