Zoom's AI Turns Agentic: Discover Its New Capabilities

Zoom has been on a roll, constantly weaving new AI features into its Zoom AI Companion to make video call interactions smoother and more productive. The latest update? They're rolling out AI agents that actually do the heavy lifting for you. And that's not all; Zoom's sprinkling AI magic across all its current offerings.

On Monday, Zoom dropped the news about agentic functionality for its AI Companion. This means the AI is now combining agents, skills, and models to perform multi-step tasks, like scheduling meetings at a time that suits everyone, creating clips, and even drafting detailed documents.

"AI Companion is shifting gears from just being a personal assistant to becoming truly agentic. This is a big step forward in how AI can boost productivity and teamwork at work," said Smita Hashim, Zoom's Chief Product Officer.

Agentic Capabilities in AI Companion

Zoom is introducing Zoom Tasks, a feature that sniffs out action items from meeting summaries, chats, and emails, then takes care of tasks like scheduling follow-up meetings or whipping up documents. According to the press release, Zoom Tasks is set to hit the scene by the end of the month and will integrate seamlessly into Zoom docs.

Also coming in late March is a new voice recorder feature on the Zoom Workplace mobile app. It transcribes, summarizes, and captures in-person conversations, letting users review the notes whenever they need to. Sounds a bit like Otter.ai, doesn't it?

Another handy tool, Meeting Agendas with AI Companion, helps keep meetings on track by letting hosts set agenda timers and get AI-generated live notes during the meetings through the new Live Notes for Meetings and Phone feature. Both are slated for a May launch.

Zoom's also introducing an AI Companion for Workspace Reservation to manage hybrid work experiences better. It shows you when your colleagues are planning to be in the office and suggests the best days for you to come in based on your schedule. It can even book a desk or a Zoom Room for your meetings. This feature is also expected to roll out in May.

Zoom products like Zoom Docs are getting AI Companion-enhanced features too. Advanced References, launching in June, will create a writing plan using both internal and external references and place it right into a document. Come July, Zoom Docs will let users ask AI Companion to make data tables from content, including meeting summaries. Zoom Drive, set to launch in May, will be the new home for assets across Zoom Workplace.

Despite all these new features, Zoom AI Companion remains free for users with paid Zoom accounts. For those craving even more AI help, there's the new Custom AI Companion add-on, which lets users tailor the tech to their specific needs.

Custom AI Companion Add-on

The Custom AI Companion add-on comes with a bunch of options. You can create custom meeting templates, design meeting summary templates, build dictionaries with terms specific to your business, integrate internal data and knowledge from third-party apps, and even get a personal coach. Plus, there's the Custom Avatars for Zoom Clips feature, which lets you make clips using a script you provide and a personalized AI-generated avatar.

The Custom AI Companion add-on costs $12 per user per month and will be available starting April. The personal coach feature is expected in June. It uses Zoom's new small language models as well as third-party large language models.

Zoom's also sprinkling AI enhancements across its Zoom Business Services and industry-specific offerings, like Zoom Workplace for Frontline, Clinicians, Education, Zoom Contact Center, and Zoom Revenue Accelerator. To dive deeper into these specific use cases, check out the Zoom Newsroom.