Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described in which beamforming may be configured at a user equipment (UE) for narrowband communications. The UE may be a narrowband UE that may provide an indication to a base station that the UE is capable of performing beamforming communication for a unicast channel transmission. Such an indication may be provided in response to the UE receiving a non-beamformed broadcast channel transmission from the base station via a first carrier. The base station may receive the indication and configure the UE with a beamformed narrowband communications scheme. Such a beamformed formed narrowband communications scheme may be used for narrowband downlink shared channel communications, narrowband downlink control channel communications, or combinations thereof. In some cases, beamformed communications may be configured on a different carrier than the first carrier. The base station and UE may then communicate using beamformed transmissions.