In December 2025, Microsoft started the rollout to enable chat initiation with anyone via an email address for users with one of the following Business licenses:
- Microsoft Teams Essentials
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic
- Microsoft 365 Business Standard
- Microsoft 365 Business Premium
The global rollout was postponed several times, with the most recent schedule targeting May 2026.
Microsoft informed a few days ago this rollout has been canceled.
Updated May 8, 2026: We are not releasing this feature at this time. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
If you enabled this configuration in a Teams Messaging policy for users with Teams Public Preview, this feature is no longer available.
Testing the feature with a Business-licensed user, using the same account that successfully started a chat in December 2025, confirmed this. Teams no longer finds external users without an Entra ID guest account.
The previous Teams Messaging policy setting no longer applies.
Organizations still wanting to chat with external users by email must create guest accounts for them first.
