How to Configure Teams Meeting Avatar Policies in PowerShell Using Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy

In Microsoft Teams, Mesh Avatars allow users to join video conferences with customizable 3D animated representations of themselves rather than broadcasting their live webcam feed. While avatars reduce “video fatigue” and provide an engaging visual alternative for camera-shy participants, enterprise environments and high-security organizations frequently require strict governance over their usage. In formal legal depositions, healthcare consultations, and regulated financial client meetings, corporate policy often mandates authentic live webcam feeds or strictly disables 3D avatar animations to ensure professional decorum. Microsoft 365 administrators regulate avatar capabilities through Teams meeting policies. This article explains how to inspect, configure, and assign meeting avatar policies across an organization in PowerShell using Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy.

Understanding Teams Mesh Avatar Governance in Meeting Policies

Mesh Avatars operate within the Microsoft Teams video rendering pipeline. When an authorized user activates their avatar, the Teams client renders real-time 3D animations driven by the user’s voice cadence and interactive reaction buttons without requiring a webcam stream.

Within Microsoft Teams PowerShell administration, avatar usage is regulated by the AllowAvatarsInMeetings parameter inside CsTeamsMeetingPolicy:

• $true: Meeting organizers and attendees covered by the policy can customize and activate their 3D Mesh Avatars during calls and meetings.
• $false: Avatars are disabled completely. The “Avatars” application and in-meeting avatar toggles are hidden from the Teams client interface.

Administrators can enforce this setting tenant-wide across the Global default meeting policy or deploy granular custom policies targeting specific user departments—permitting creative and engineering teams to use avatars while disabling them for executive leadership, legal counsel, and customer-facing support tiers.

Connecting to the Microsoft Teams PowerShell Module

To inspect and update meeting policies, launch an elevated PowerShell session and establish an administrative connection to your tenant:

Connect-MicrosoftTeams

Sign in using administrative credentials assigned the Teams Administrator or Global Administrator role.

Auditing Current Meeting Avatar Policy Settings

Before adjusting configurations, inspect the current state of avatar permissions across your organization. Query the default tenant-wide Global policy:

Get-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy -Identity Global | Select-Object Identity, Description, AllowAvatarsInMeetings

To review avatar settings across all custom meeting policies currently deployed in your tenant, execute:

Get-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy | Select-Object Identity, AllowAvatarsInMeetings | Format-Table -AutoSize

If AllowAvatarsInMeetings evaluates to True across all policies, any user licensed for Microsoft Teams can configure and use 3D avatars during meetings without restriction.

Enabling or Disabling Avatars Globally

If your organization decides that 3D avatars are inappropriate for your corporate culture or regulatory environment, disable avatars globally on the organization-wide policy:

Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy -Identity Global -AllowAvatarsInMeetings $false

Conversely, if avatars were previously restricted and your organization now wants to make them available to all employees to boost meeting engagement, enable them globally:

Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy -Identity Global -AllowAvatarsInMeetings $true

Creating and Assigning Custom Avatar Policies

In most modern enterprises, a hybrid policy approach is preferred. For example, you can maintain a restrictive global default while creating an exception policy for internal collaborative teams:

New-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy -Identity "Creative-Avatars-Allowed" -Description "Permits internal engineering and creative teams to use Mesh Avatars" -AllowAvatarsInMeetings $true

To assign this custom policy to an individual user, execute Grant-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy:

Grant-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy -Identity "[email protected]" -PolicyName "Creative-Avatars-Allowed"

To scale policy assignment across an entire department, bind the policy dynamically to an Entra ID (Azure AD) security group using New-CsGroupPolicyAssignment:

$GroupId = (Get-MgGroup -Filter "DisplayName eq 'Design and Engineering Department'").Id
New-CsGroupPolicyAssignment -GroupId $GroupId -PolicyType TeamsMeetingPolicy -PolicyName "Creative-Avatars-Allowed" -Rank 1

Verifying Policy Assignments and Client Behavior

To confirm which policy is actively enforced on a specific employee account, query the user policy assignment table:

Get-CsUserPolicyAssignment -Identity "[email protected]" | Where-Object { $_.PolicyType -eq "TeamsMeetingPolicy" }

Policy updates propagate to Teams desktop and web clients within 2 to 4 hours. Once enforced, users restricted by policy will find that the avatar selection button is removed from their pre-join video preview screen and in-meeting controls, preventing unauthorized virtual representations while maintaining full standard webcam and presentation capabilities.