Zoom Introduces Cross-Platform AI Features, Including Avatars and Meeting Scheduling, Aiming to Compete with Verticalized Meeting Startups
At its recent Zoomtopia conference, Zoom unveiled an array of innovative products designed to enhance user experience across various meeting applications. Among the launches are an advanced AI companion that can operate seamlessly across multiple platforms, as well as features such as personalized notes, AI-driven scheduling, and lifelike AI avatars reflecting users’ likenesses.
The company has previously offered an AI bot for recording and transcribing Zoom meetings. However, the rapid advancements of cross-application meeting notetakers like Read AI, Otter, Fireflies, Granola, and Circleback have necessitated Zoom to extend its AI companion’s compatibility to platforms beyond its own, including Google Meet and Microsoft Teams. Furthermore, Zoom will now allow users to take notes during in-person meetings.
Inspired by Granola’s approach, Zoom users will soon be able to jot down their own notes during meetings, which AI will then expand and structure at a later stage. Additionally, the platform will introduce cross-platform search capabilities, enabling users to access information from across Google and Microsoft’s platforms.
The company is also set to roll out calendar-related features, including an AI Companion for finding suitable time slots for all participants and suggesting meetings that can be skipped. Notably, calendar tool Clokcwise introduced a similar feature last year to resolve scheduling conflicts.
Proactive meeting recommendations, such as suggested tasks and agenda items for preparation, and a group AI assistant for collaborative purposes, are also on the horizon.
Zoom will soon introduce photorealistic avatars to its platforms, an initiative they have discussed for some time. Earlier this year, Zoom’s CEO, Eric Yuan, used one during their quarterly call. These avatars mimic users’ actions on video and are particularly useful when users are not camera-ready. However, the misuse of these personas poses potential deepfake risks that could prompt corporate IT departments to disable them.
The feature is expected to be available for consumers by the end of the year.
In addition, hosts will soon have access to use Zoom Clips, its asynchronous video tool, and AI avatars to greet people in waiting rooms and explain meeting purposes.
AI will also play a key role in new live translation features.
Furthermore, Zoom is set to launch an upgraded web interface that will prominently feature its AI companion, along with other AI-driven functionalities such as a writing assistant for drafting emails and documents, and a deep research tool.
Finally, Zoom will allow for the creation of custom AI agents, support for higher bit rate and 60fps for Zoom meetings, and a new Zoom video management tool to manage video assets.
