What is Viva Engage (formerly Yammer)?

Your communications director posts an important announcement on Teams on a Monday morning. By Thursday, half the Drummondville plant still hasn't seen it: the message was buried under the chatter of an ongoing project. This is exactly the problem that Viva Engage, formerly Yammer, was designed to solve.

The figures cited come from Microsoft and the firm McKinsey; they describe global trends, not the specific reality of your organization.

According to Microsoft, in its February 2023 announcement, 51% of employees surveyed for the Work Trend Index say their relationships outside their immediate team have weakened since the shift to hybrid work.

What is Viva Engage and what happened to Yammer?

Viva Engage is the Microsoft 365 enterprise social network, derived directly from Yammer: Microsoft announced the retirement of the Yammer brand on February 13, 2023, and the rebranding took place throughout 2023 without any data migration. The product was not replaced by other software. It was renamed, redesigned, and integrated into the Microsoft Viva employee experience platform.

Often compared to a Facebook for business, the tool promotes the sharing of news, announcements, and photos within an employee community. At PlanAxion, where consultants work at different client sites, this is what first interested us: informing the entire team without relying on a single office.

A few key figures to put the tool in context, taken from Microsoft press releases and its official FAQ:

• 2008: Launch of Yammer by David Sacks, initially to address an internal communication need within his own company.
• June 25, 2012: Microsoft announces the acquisition of Yammer for $1.2 billion USD, at a time when the service had over 5 million corporate users.
• February 13, 2023: Microsoft announces that all of Yammer is becoming Viva Engage and that the Yammer brand is being retired.
• Late 2023: The Viva Engage app in Outlook replaces the former Communities app.

How does Viva Engage differ from Teams and email?

Teams is for real-time teamwork, email is for targeted exchanges, and Viva Engage is for open communication across the entire organization. A Teams conversation disappears into the channel feed within hours. A Viva Engage post remains searchable, commentable, and visible to colleagues who don't know each other.

This is no small detail. McKinsey Global Institute estimated as early as 2012 that a knowledge worker spends about 28% of their week managing emails and nearly 20% searching for internal information or the right person. A well-maintained internal social network tackles the second portion, not the first.

In practical terms, the question to resolve before any deployment is the same as for a project communication plan: what message goes where, and who needs to see it. Without this rule, you end up with three channels saying the same thing, and no one knows which one to read.

Which Viva Engage features are actually useful for internal communication?

Five functions do the heavy lifting: communities, announcements, the personal feed (storyline), Q&A with marked best answers, and live events. The rest—campaigns, leadership corner, and advanced analytics—are part of the Viva suite and are primarily of interest to large organizations.

The collaborative space remains the foundation. It allows employees within the same organization to collaborate even when they don't know each other or don't work in the same location: sharing ideas, knowledge, and news across the entire company rather than just one office.

The microblog, now called storyline, allows you to publish an internal-only post that is more detailed than an email and read by people who have chosen to follow it. File, image, and link sharing, along with messaging and the security inherited from Microsoft 365 (compliance, eDiscovery), round out the package.

Since 2025, Microsoft 365 Copilot has been available in Viva Engage to summarize discussion threads and find information, provided you have the corresponding Copilot license.

What does the transition from Yammer to Viva Engage mean for your organization?

For most organizations, there is nothing to migrate: the communities, conversations, and files remain the same, and according to Microsoft’s FAQ, existing Yammer licenses still provide access to Viva Engage. What changes is the entry point. The tool now lives within Teams, Outlook, and on the web, and old Yammer links are automatically redirected.

The real work isn't technical. An enterprise social network that was empty in 2019 will remain empty in 2026 under its new name. The rebrand is an opportunity to relaunch communities, appoint moderators, and decide what should no longer be handled via email.

Renaming Yammer didn't fill any communities: an internal social network thrives on what leadership chooses to share there first.

This is a change management issue, not a licensing one. If managers continue to announce decisions via email, employees will continue to look for information in their inboxes.

How can you deploy Viva Engage without creating a ghost town?

Start with three useful communities, a clear usage policy between Teams and Viva Engage, and a leader who posts personally every week. A manufacturing SME in the Montérégie region doesn't need twenty communities. It needs a company news channel, a leadership Q&A channel, and one channel per site or plant.

Then, measure engagement, not just the number of posts. If an announcement about a new remote work policy is viewed by 40% of employees in one week, you know where to reach the remaining 60%. That is more reliable than assuming an email has been read.

Finally, distinguish communication from task tracking. Announcements go in Viva Engage; the resulting actions go into a tool like Microsoft Planner. Mixing the two is the fastest way to lose both.

Should we still be talking about Yammer in 2026?

No, except to find your old links and training materials: the product is called Viva Engage, it is integrated into Teams and Outlook, and it remains the Microsoft 365 tool for organization-wide communication. The right question is no longer "what is Yammer?" but "what message deserves to be seen by everyone, and where should we post it?"

Frequently asked questions

Does Yammer still exist?

No, not under that name. On February 13, 2023, Microsoft announced the retirement of the Yammer brand and its replacement by Viva Engage. Existing communities and conversations were preserved. According to the official Microsoft FAQ, the product has remained largely the same: the name and interface have changed, and features have been added since.

Is Viva Engage included in Microsoft 365?

Basic features are accessible with a Viva Engage license or the legacy Yammer license included in most Microsoft 365 enterprise plans, according to the Microsoft FAQ. Leadership Corner, campaigns, and detailed analytics require the Viva suite or the Communications and Communities module. Check your plan before promising these options to your teams.

What is the difference between Viva Engage and Microsoft Teams?

Teams is for real-time teamwork: chat, meetings, and project files. Viva Engage is for organization-wide communication: leadership announcements, interest-based communities, and open Q&A. In fact, Microsoft presents Viva Engage as the social fabric of Microsoft 365, accessible directly within Teams, Outlook, and on the web.

What happens to content published in Yammer before 2023?

It remains accessible in Viva Engage. Microsoft indicated that no features or data were lost for Microsoft 365 customers during the rebrand, and that old Yammer links would be redirected. External Yammer networks remain visible from the Teams app, but participation takes place via the Viva Engage web experience.

Moving from the tool to its adoption

A communication platform does not guarantee adoption. If your IT project requires clarifying roles, preparing teams, and supporting new practices, our change management support connects these actions to the go-live. It is about organizational adoption, not selling Microsoft training or certifications. Present the planned change and the teams involved to define the next step.