Wire
The year in review: What we worked on in 2023
A brand new standard for end-to-end encrypted messaging, federated secure messaging and a new Android app. Only some news from Wire in 2023.
Wire's Journey and Future Vision
As 2024 draws to a close, we’re looking back at ground breaking year for Wire and the ever-evolving world of secure communication and collaboration. From innovations like Message Layer Security (MLS) to our strategic investments, it’s been a year of growth, milestones, and setting the stage for an ambitious future.
Here’s a recap of what Wire achieved this year to make your work life easier and still as secure as it gets. Get a sneak peek into the exciting developments coming in 2025, all driven by our unwavering commitment to security, privacy, and user experience.
🍾 Let’s Raise a Glass to a Year of Big Ideas and Bold Achievements! 🥂
Boosting Uncompromising Security with MLS and ID Shield
Early this year, the team achieved a long-anticipated goal: the successful implementation of MLS. This cutting-edge encryption protocol enhances security across the platform, ensuring Wire stays at the forefront of privacy-first communication for years to come and makes your daily work a lot smother, especially in larger groups to keep your team productive. Complementing this, we introduced ID Shield, a new feature bolstering device-level verification, giving you added peace of mind. ID Shield keeps the impersonators at bay, and insider threats are relegated to the folks using traditional collaboration tools.
These advancements are part of our promise of keeping Wire secure and transparent.
In essence, these upgrades don’t just make your communication safer — they make it faster and more reliable for the ways people actually work and communicate.
Trusted Partnership — Not Just Another Customer
Teaming up with the German government has been a game-changer, pushing Wire to the forefront of innovation beyond secure communication. Together, we’ve been able to future-proof security and performance with; solidifying Wire’s position as THE best solution for secure collaboration.
Through an unparalleled level of cooperation during product development, we gained deep insights into the unique requirements of government users. This relationship empowered us to deliver cutting-edge features such as federation, MLS, and ID Shield breakthroughs that represent the most meaningful advancements in security for those who rely on it most.
The strong bond between Wire and our governmental partners has culminated in a landmark achievement: the first fully capable MLS implementation for a mainstream messenger. This was no small feat. We prioritized integrity over shortcuts, ensuring that the full Wire experience is seamlessly integrated with MLS. This milestone is not just a testament to Wire’s innovation but also a shared victory with our government partners, whose invaluable feedback and setting of ambitious challenges guided us throughout the process.
Moreover, this partnership has offered us profound understanding of how governmental employees use Wire in their daily work—insights that have driven us to refine and elevate the user experience, maximizing efficiency and effectiveness.
Without our partners at the the German government, Wire would not have been able to bring MLS, ID Shield, or federation to life.You’ll be benefiting from these fantastic upgrades soon, demonstrating that even the most complex systems — spanning large groups and distributed backends — delivering delightful and smooth interactions without ever compromising your security. Imagine federated, end-to-end encrypted MLS groups with over 2000 participants . Wire makes it possible.
Next-level User Experience, No Matter the Device
Security might be our sweetspot, but benefits for you are the bridge to making it accessible. In 2024, we rolled out major upgrades:
Wire for web received a sleek redesign to make the navigation on your desktop more intuitive and the interface future-ready.
You can look forward to the same improvements on iOS, with updates aligning across platforms for seamless interaction.
You might have already noticed the huge jumps in calling video quality and screen sharing. Usability improvements took center stage by allowing you to have a call on a separate screen and easily switch audio and video devices.
Adding that extra touch with fun features like message reactions, sending GIFs directly from your keyboard, or sending sketches on your mobile device added a touch of interactivity without compromising security.
You can reply more easily and efficiently to messages on Android – using the swipe-right feature.
We’ve also been developing on the side additional functionalities to protect people in extremely demanding environments and protect their digital footprint.
We’ve got some early holiday gifts for you in the form of features like hand-raising and in-call reactions that are set to make collaboration even smoother.
The recap: These upgrades combine Wire’s trademark security with a focus on user-friendly design, making it easier and more enjoyable to stay connected and productive.
Finding our Voice - Getting the Word Out about Wire
With our technical foundation in next-gen status, we took time to give ourselves a makeover. A complete overhaul of our website ensured that our value proposition is communicated clearly, professionally, and enjoyably, as we get our voice and expertise out there – for example, in blog posts like this – which lets us better connect with our user base, investors, innovators, and potential customers.
We don’t just want to get to know you, we want you to know us better and the passion that goes into building Wire.
Leveling Up through Winning Partnerships
We are happy about our new strategic partnership with Schwarz Group – giving your organization more options to deploy Wire, for example, via STACKIT. Their decision to deploy Wire across half a million employees proves our scalability across big enterprises and commitment to European data sovereignty.
To improve enterprise support, we work on a project called SCALE (Secure Collaboration Architecture for Large Enterprises). Next year, Wire will support dedicated teams with more than 500.000 members and administrative capabilities that are unique in the market without compromising security.
Your 2024 Improvements Recap
MLS on Wire Cloud – MLS is the key to enabling upcoming innovations in 2025.Federation capabilities – Wire's largest customers enjoy their own instance of Wire, self-hosted or provided as Enterprise SaaS. Thanks to federation, they are not isolated islands anymore! They can now connect with any team or personal user of Wire Cloud, or other Enterprise customers of Wire. Interested? Please reach out!
You can transfer a personal account to a team account – enabling people to create or join a team to enjoy all the benefits.
Cross-platform backup solution – you can create and restore backups on and from all your devices, like from macOS to Android.
By addressing both enterprise-level needs and individual concerns, Wire is secure and future-ready, user-friendly, and ready for growing needs.
Looking Ahead: Innovations in 2025
We’ve got even more exciting improvements for you and your organization to make work and team life smoother and more productive. Read what’s on the horizon:
Reconcile End-to-End Encryption and World Class Collaboration
Building on top of MLS and federation, we can now tackle features that used to be only feasible without end-to-end encryption. At Wire, we love challenges and take on the crazy journey to deliver – unlike unsecured competitors – the highest security standard for messaging and call security with an enjoyable user experience for you and our millions of daily users.
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Channels – They expand the capabilities of our current group conversations (open or closed, listed or not). Large teams and organizations can manage their work better, connecting people across teams and directing them to the right place to ask questions or share updates. Powered by MLS, channels can support a huge number of people with full end-to-end encryption (E2EE). And there’s a twist — no more fear of a blank page! You’ll learn more early next year. Rest assured, E2EE will always be ON for every conversation you have in Wire.
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Threads – As groups get bigger, conversations can quickly get off track, and only a few people stay engaged. Often, this leads to private chats, which leaves others out of the loop and limits their ability to stay informed or contribute. To address this, we’re introducing threaded messages. Now, you can dive into specific topics within the main conversation, so only those interested will get updates, while everyone else can join in if they want.
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Expanded Integrations API Framework – You get the Roblox of business APIs. We’re enhancing our integration features by adding more detailed controls over what permissions a service can have within a team. This added control will allow you to improve your daily workflows with time-saving automation without compromising the security and privacy of your conversations. In early 2025, Wire will release a new SDK to help developers integrate with Wire – including a new marketplace app to find and use integrations easier. Drop us a message to be in the first beta test!
Ready for the Largest Organizations
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Onboarding – Get a smooth start, even with hundreds of thousands of members in your organization. Wire autodetects whether a person belongs to an organization and automatically connects to even federated instances.
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Enterprise Directory – When you work in a large organization, you will interact with many colleagues. Tricky to find the right person in the right branch and department? And what can you do when your usual contact is on a long-term leave? Who are their colleagues? Their boss? With our extended support to SCIM 2.0 Enterprise Fields, you can always find the right contact without extra organization costs to your IT administrators.
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Admin Console – Enterprise administrators will have access to a new management interface. This portal will allow admins to create and manage teams, set up SCIM integrations and SSO at the organization level, and configure general policies for their Enterprise instance — whether self-hosted or SaaS. Organization admins can oversee all teams and delegate tasks to local team admins, giving IT teams the flexibility they need to support people efficiently.
- Enterprise Policies – Wire will add a Policy Engine to help IT administrators and security teams enforce the operational best practices and compliance requirements of your company. Admins can define instance-wide rules for all teams, channels, conversations, files, groups, and members, effectively enforcing compliance for your whole organization very easily.
Wire Secure File Sharing Coming Soon!
We’re introducing a revolutionary way to securely share and manage files. This feature empowers you to maintain full control over data ownership and accessibility while seamlessly integrating with team workflows. This is a game-changer as it combines security, control, and convenience in file sharing and management.
Refining the Everyday User Experience
Changing how you can use Wire in your day-to-day. In 2025, you can expect:
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Text formatting tools for easier message customization – no more googling for that markdown command.
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A faster way to insert emojis directly into messages – gone are the days of searching emoji names.
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Bridging the gap between the demand for AI tools that have a direct and measurable benefit without compromising security or data ownership – expect exciting announcements.
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Global search – Find everything you need in any conversation in seconds.
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Picture in Picture – Keep your video call while going through your messages.
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Our user growth leads us into new regions and expands our cloud infrastructure for lower latency and higher performance.
These updates are part of our commitment to ensuring that security and usability go hand in hand.
We're enhancing every detail of your experience to elevate comfort and joy. Creating a better, more intuitive messaging and file-sharing workspace for all – a product people love to use.
A Vision for the Future
Wire is more than a communication platform — it’s a promise that privacy doesn’t have to come at the sacrifice of usability. With innovations like Wire Cells, enterprise tools like SCALE, and everyday enhancements for everyone. 2025 Wire will push boundaries while staying true to our core mission – always protect what matters with the most secure and easy-to-use collaboration platform.
Thank you for being part of our journey in 2024. A toast to a successful year, and together, let’s make 2025 a year of even greater possibilities.