Have you ever read something and thought to yourself “I’m sure I’ve seen this before”. That was our experience while reading about Microsoft’s new social network or rather, work network.

Dubbed Microsoft Viva Engage, this platform is “designed to help people and teams to be their best, have a voice, and feel included in the workplace”. Viva Engage builds on the existing capabilities of Teams and Microsoft 365 and is meant to bring people from across an organisation into one place.

Microsoft hopes that employers will use Viva Engage to share news, strategy, engage with employees and weigh in on conversations. For employees, Microsoft hopes the platform will allow them to share their work and ask questions. These are lofty ambitions but we have to wonder if anybody would really use this platform.

This is because Viva Engage is built on top of Yammer, Microsoft’s employee engagement platform. Browsing through the comments announcing this post, users were confused as to why Viva Engage even exists as Yammer is not going away. In fact, this Viva Engage platform only impacts the Communities app for Microsoft Teams and Outlook.

“The Yammer web experience and the native Yammer mobile apps will continue to be a part of Microsoft 365 SKUs and the same communities, storylines, and stories are made available through both Yammer and the new Viva Engage app. We are continuing to invest in Yammer and bring the powers of Yammer to Microsoft 365 and Viva,” Microsoft explained.

From the looks of it, Viva Engage and Yammer will operate together in some instances with Microsoft stating that any content created on Yammer.com or mobile will be viewable in Viva Engage.

“Likewise, content created in Engage will show up in Yammer native experiences. Viva Engage will also continue respecting any custom branding done for the Communities app. To use Viva Engage an organization must be licensed for Yammer,” said Microsoft.

To find out more about Viva Engage, head here.