What licence does Teams live translation actually require?
Teams Interpreter requires Microsoft 365 Copilot, not Teams Premium. This is the most common and most expensive surprise — Copilot is roughly three times the cost of Premium, and every participant who needs the feature has to have it.
This is the single most misunderstood requirement in the category, and it is usually discovered after a budget has been approved.
The requirement
Microsoft 365 Copilot. Not Teams Premium.
Teams Premium — around $10 per user per month on annual billing — is not sufficient for Interpreter. The prerequisite is Microsoft 365 Copilot, roughly $30 per user per month.
For organisations that budgeted for Premium, the real entry cost is about three times what was planned. Microsoft documents this in the Interpreter agent admin prerequisites.
The three other limits, all often discovered late
1. External guests and anonymous users are excluded. Anyone joining without a licensed account in your tenant cannot use it. That covers most client calls, supplier calls, candidate interviews and partner meetings.
2. It does not work in ad hoc meetings, webinars or town halls. Scheduled meetings only. If your case is the unscheduled call or the all-hands, Interpreter is not available regardless of licensing.
3. Recordings do not keep it. Microsoft’s own support documentation states that meeting recordings capture only the original meeting audio and do not include interpretation audio, and that translated transcripts disappear when the meeting ends.
For a distributed team where most people watch afterwards, that last one removes most of the value — and it is the limit least often checked before purchase.
Language coverage
10 languages. Check the current list against your actual needs rather than assuming coverage; teams spanning Polish, Turkish or Vietnamese frequently find themselves outside it.
When Teams Interpreter is the right choice
- Internal meetings only
- Two languages, both supported
- Everyone already has Microsoft 365 Copilot for other reasons
- Scheduled, not ad hoc
- The live session matters; the recording does not
If you have already bought Copilot, the marginal cost is zero and you should use it. That is a real scenario in large enterprises.
If any of those do not hold
Buying Copilot solely to get translation is an expensive route to a feature with four significant limits. Before doing it, price the alternative honestly against your actual meetings — particularly if they involve external participants, more than two languages, or recordings anyone watches later.