Zoom, the well-known online meetings platform, has launched the Zoom AI Companion, formerly known as Zoom IQ. This generative AI digital assistant is now available at no extra charge for customers using the paid services of their Zoom accounts. The AI Companion aims to fortify Zoom’s vision of providing boundless human connection on a single platform, focusing on enhancing user productivity, skill enhancement, and overall team efficacy.

A major development alongside this is the rebranding of Zoom’s conversational intelligence software, formerly Zoom IQ for Sales, which will now be called Zoom Revenue Accelerator.

Since its initial introduction of generative AI in early June, Zoom reports that thousands of firms have reaped the benefits from free trials of features like Team Chat compose and Meeting summary. This autumn, Zoom plans to extend its generative AI provisions across the platform with the AI Companion. This decision stems from Zoom’s federated approach to AI which amalgamates its own expansive language models with third-party models from Meta Llama 2, OpenAI, and Anthropic.

Zoom’s AI Companion promises to provide an efficient, real-time digital assistant capability, enhancing collaboration and productivity. This AI-powered feature is set to be incorporated across the platform, covering Meetings, Team Chat, Phone, Email, and Whiteboard, with additional features planned.

Smita Hashim, Zoom’s chief product officer, expressed the company’s dedication to tangible AI products that add value and disrupt standard industry pricing models. She emphasised the drive to offer Zoom AI Companion without extra costs for paid account holders, framing it as a significant value addition in the present challenging climate.

Zoom has always prioritised user trust, safety, and privacy. Last month, the company affirmed that it does not exploit customer data like audio, video, chats, and other content to train its AI models. Moreover, the AI Companion feature is switched off by default, granting account owners and administrators the discretion to activate AI functionalities.

The AI Companion is poised to revolutionise modern working practices:

  • Zoom Meetings will offer features like smart chapters, highlights, real-time AI answers for attendees, and automated post-meeting summaries.
  • Zoom Team Chat will introduce AI-based message drafting, tone and length adjustments, and by 2024, chat auto-completions and meeting scheduling.
  • Zoom Whiteboard will receive AI assistance for idea generation and categorisation, and by spring 2024, content image generation and template population.
  • Zoom Mail will soon suggest draft emails, and by 2024, it will allow meeting summaries to be added to Zoom Notes and summarise SMS threads and Zoom Phone calls.

Mahesh Ram, head of AI applications and products at Zoom, highlighted the renaming of Zoom IQ for Sales to Zoom Revenue Accelerator, emphasizing its power and the 400% growth it experienced last quarter. Zoom Revenue Accelerator currently provides AI features such as meeting summaries, sentiment analysis, and an intelligent email compose feature. This autumn, Zoom will introduce a Virtual Coach, Deal Risk Signals, and Discover Monthly for sales teams.

The rebranded tool, Zoom Revenue Accelerator, has garnered commendation from multiple sales teams. Alexander Atzberger, CEO at Optimizely, has endorsed it for simplifying processes, while Tim Akhmetvaleev, head of sales at Flippingbook, eagerly anticipates further AI enhancements. Majed Itani, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder at SetSail Technologies Inc., praises it for delivering invaluable insights to their teams.

With these advancements, Zoom continues to underscore its commitment to shaping the future of work, powered by innovative AI solutions.