Zoomtopia in San Jose, CA, kicked off with a massive keynote presentation – physically with a large stage and conceptually with a vast vision for hybrid work.
Overarching themes focused on how Zoom can simplify the hybrid workplace and how to use generative AI responsibly.
In this Zoomtopia 2023 review, we will highlight how AI is taking shape across the Zoom platform and how it can impact the return-to-work experience.
An AI-powered workplace assistant – making how we work and communicate easier
Artificial intelligence was a hot topic right out of the gate. Zoom’s founder introduced its new AI Companion. The tool empowers the hybrid workforce with people-first platform assistance and enhances Zoom’s easy-to-use, centralized communication and collaboration technology.
Features include auto-generated hybrid meeting summaries (post and in-meeting), idea generation for brainstorming, and smart meeting recordings with automatic chapter and action item generation.
Zoom’s AI Companion is woven into various current and new systems in the Zoom ecosystem.
AVI-SPL’s Derrick Kelly was on-site at Zoomtopia. Here’s his take on Zoom’s new AI Companion. “Zoom’s approach to AI is not a novelty. It is completely embedded in all aspects of the platform. It is being used to assist and enhance. What Zoom showed for AI features was impressive and easily can be applied to enterprise needs.”
In addition to meeting summaries, idea generation, and meeting recordings, AI Companion takes notes during calls and supports continuous chat. Each person, on-site or remote, can freely focus on the people in the meeting and have post-call conversations without fear of missing any information.
Use Zoom’s AI-powered Smart Gallery or Intelligent Director to capture every angle of your meetings
Don’t miss any part of your meetings – live or on-demand.
Bring multiple cameras into your meeting spaces and track conversations as if you were filming a movie. Zoom’s AI-powered switcher, Intelligent Director, focuses on the people speaking. This enables those attending remotely to track who is talking in a conference room easily.
Also, Zoom’s AI-powered Smart Gallery meeting feature frames individuals in their own virtual meeting window. Meeting attendees can be seen and heard regardless of where the person is sitting in the conference room.
Streamlined collaboration before, during, and after hybrid meetings
Zoom is taking a new approach to collaboration in the hybrid workplace with Zoom Docs.
Flexible platform access makes it possible for teams to attend meetings in Zoom. And now, users can create, use, update, and evaluate content directly within Zoom anywhere.
The AI-powered digital workspace lets users create a live repository of wikis, digital brochures, project tracking, planning and reporting tools, meeting summaries, and notes.
End users can drag and drop content blocks for text images and tables anytime. You can tailor each document to a specific project. A Zoom doc can be connected directly to a Zoom meeting so participants can access and edit the document without sharing a screen.
AI Companion can also find and display new market data and insights directly into a Zoom Doc.
“Collaboration and AI are foundational to everything you can do with Docs,” said Kelly. “It is just getting started. The roadmap will continue to expand the features, which will make the Zoom platform significantly more powerful. All platform segments connected will make the customer experience better and easier to use.”
Interactive workplace experience technology
AI Companion is making its mark outside meeting spaces and across entire organizations. Zoom’s workplace management tool gives individuals a clear view of who is in or planning to be in the office from a single snapshot viewer. Users can also reserve individual workspaces and conference rooms and receive directions from wayfinding screens or their devices as they enter their facility.
The video communications company has also acquired Workvivo, a workplace engagement platform. The platform is a central hub for company information, camaraderie, news, and big wins.
Customer experience enhancements
Zoom’s workforce engagement capabilities are designed to help end users have greater visibility and insights from Workvivo and workplace management tools. But it also tries to increase your line of sight to customer needs and satisfaction. And that connects directly to support departments, supervisors, and agents.
Zoom’s AI-powered workforce engagement tools are designed to personalize customer experiences and agent coaching. Zoom’s AI provides agent feedback to help your agents provide better customer experiences. In addition to coaching, Zoom Contact Center and AI combine to provide a virtual support agent, Zoom Virtual Agent. This agent offers vaster routing or can assist customers directly so they can solve challenges independently.
“Customer experience is embedded into all aspects of the platform just like AI will be moving forward,” said Derrick Kelly. “Zoom’s continued growth towards a better and more integrated customer experience shows in every product and feature update release at Zoomtopia and on the roadmap. The customer experience focus really shows in the Contact Center product and all the updates that have come out for that product.”
AVI-SPL is a Zoom partner and a user of Zoom Contact Center. As evidenced by our case study, we can attribute to its quality and capabilities.
Third-party application connectivity
The Zoom ecosystem has expanded. And it is streamlining various aspects of the hybrid workplace experience, including connectivity to third-party applications. Organizations like Figma can be embedded in Zoom or connected to the Figma platform so users can craft designs virtually. Another third-party platform, Viewsics, has allowed technicians, engineers, and designers to wear goggles that broadcast and record what they see. These broadcasts can connect to Zoom, so when your project stakeholders must see how a solution or product is being developed or a service is being performed, you can see what the on-site individual experiences to make better-informed decisions.
Zoom now has over 2,500 certified applications in its virtual marketplace. You can start connecting these apps to your Zoom account today.
Design, integrate, and manage your Zoom solutions with AVI-SPL support
AVI-SPL plans, deploys, and operates Zoom-powered AV/UC solutions regularly. As one of Zoom’s most certified technology partners, we are ready to help you get the most out of your workplace collaboration platform experience, including:
- Design and deployment of Zoom Room meeting spaces, Zoom Phone and cloud calling and contact centers
- License management to ensure you can take full advantage of Zoom’s new AI Companion
Our teams are stationed globally. We can design, deploy, and support your enterprise’s needs with local resources that understand local unified communications and collaboration regulations and requirements.
Contact us today for more on how to get the most out of Zoom capabilities, solutions, and services.
