Zoom is investing in artificial intelligence and launching a new suite of ‘agentic’ AI features on its Zoom Workplace platform. This expansion builds upon the AI Companion, launched last year. It aims to make the tool proactive in assisting its users.
The key additions are a Custom AI Companion paid add-on, Zoom Tasks, Voice Recorder to record in-person chats and AI-driven scheduling. These new capabilities are designed to automate and streamline workflows to free up users to focus more on high-value work.
Our goal is to continue pushing the boundaries of innovation in order to provide our customers with the best AI-first solutions to drive productivity and collaboration.
Jeff Smith is the head of Product for Workplace AI Meetings and Spaces for Zoom.
Create a curated task list AI Companion will automatically assign tasks based on meeting summaries, chat messages, or prompts in docs, mail, or chat.
Complete tasks faster AI Companion can also provide insights and suggest next steps to help users complete their listed tasks more effectively.
Increase visibility and follow-through Tasks are shared and assigned between accounts. AI Companion provides summaries that keep everyone updated via the central task tab. Zoom Tasks are now available within Zoom Workplace plans. However, the AI Companion features require eligible paid plans. Voice Recorder for in-person meetings
Zoom extends AI Companion benefits beyond virtual meeting with Voice Recorder. This mobile feature (coming later to Rooms) transcribes and summarizes face-to-face discussions, as well as capturing action items.
Custom AI Companion
The new Custom AI Companion is a tool that allows businesses to customize AI agents and skills. Zoom AI Studio is a low-code builder that allows AI Companion’s capabilities to be tailored to specific business workflows and needs.
Bring Your Own Index (BYOI)
Part of the customisation push, BYOI lets organisations connect AI Companion to their enterprise data sources like project tools, cloud storage, or CRM systems via Amazon Q Business or Glean.
This allows the AI to pull relevant context from company data during interactions.
Custom Avatars for Zoom Clips
Users can now create an AI-generated avatar of themselves for Zoom Clips. Provide a script, and AI Companion generates the video clip, saving recording time – particularly useful for scaling asynchronous updates.
Zoom notes security measures like gesture checks and AI watermarking are included.
Pricing and Availability
The Custom AI Companion add-on is available now for US$12 per user per month (Australian pricing TBC, check local availability).
Custom Avatars for Clips are included with this add-on, with a separate purchase option planned for May. Zoom Tasks is available now within relevant Zoom Workplace plans.
Platform Enhancements
Zoom is also refining existing tools:
Team Chat: Improved translation to English from eight languages using Zoom’s own Small Language Model (SLM), plus the ability to mention non-channel members.
AI Scheduling: Ask AI Companion to find optimal meeting times for multiple participants across the platform and draft agendas.
Meetings: Private group chats can now be created within meetings for specific subsets of participants.
Whiteboard: Easily convert boards from Miro, Mural, and Lucid; AI Companion can now summarize Whiteboard content.
Zoom Phone: Online Fax consolidates fax/SMS/calls; AI Companion summarizes voicemails in the Microsoft Teams integration and call summaries appear in the Salesforce app.
Workvivo: Workvivo AI (powered by AI Companion) assists with writing posts, finding answers, and creating surveys.
Boosting Sales and Support Teams
Zoom CX gains new workforce management features for better agent scheduling and forecasting across channels.
Zoom Revenue Accelerator introduces AI playbooks to enforce sales methodologies (like BANT or MEDDICC) and Deal Explorer, allowing natural language queries for sales insights across the deal lifecycle.
Tailored Solutions for Specific Industries
Zoom is launching dedicated Workplace versions for specific sectors. Zoom Workplace for Frontline offers a mobile-centric solution for retail, healthcare, and manufacturing, while Zoom Workplace for Clinicians partners with Suki to provide AI-generated clinical notes.
Zoom continues its aggressive integration of AI across its entire suite, aiming to make communication and collaboration smarter and more automated for businesses.
