Microsoft has announced an ad-free update for Skype, now headed to testers in the company's Insider program. However, this update is unlikely to appease users who are still missing features previously dropped from the once-premier chat app.
In the announcement for Skype 8.125.76.201, Microsoft enthused: "We're excited to announce that Skype is now ad-free!
"Our latest update removes all ads from Skype channels and the entire Skype platform, ensuring a smoother, decluttered and more enjoyable user experience."
It's a curious move, especially since Microsoft continues to integrate ads into many other aspects of the Windows experience.
First spotted by Windows Latest, the update eschews adding features that users appear to actually want, such as a return of the "Split View" option, in favor of yet more AI-powered functionality in the form of a "revamped AI image creation experience."
Hop into the AI image creator from the chat window or the top bar, type in what you want to see, fiddle with the settings, and hey presto – an image that most chat participants will be able to guess you generated using AI.
While shoveling as much AI as possible into a product appears to be Microsoft's current strategy, the Skype team's insistence that it has "prioritized your feedback to create a more streamlined and pleasant environment across all platforms" will ring a little hollow with users.
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As one user, trying to stick with the version before the latest removal of the Split View functionality, wrote: "I'm on version 8.96.0.409 with split view and I got a notification today in Skype: 'Immediate Action Required! To enhance your security and Skype experience, we will be retiring this Skype version, and you will be required to update it by September 15, 2024.'
"It's more than a year without the feature in newer versions and that's the most voted topic on Skype Feedback Hub. Will Split View come back before September 15, 2024?"
For users for whom Skype is now a distant memory, Split View was a useful function that permitted a user's contact list to be in one window, and each conversation in separate windows. The feature was axed when Microsoft "modernized" the Skype app, but it was reinstated in 2019.
By 2023, the feature was removed again amid reports of performance issues and crashes.
Microsoft has yet to respond to the request. All we can say is that there is no AI in Split View. ®