The News: Zoom has introduced new capabilities to AI Companion, the company’s generative AI assistant. These enhancements reach across the Zoom platform as well as Zoom’s contact center offering and offer more inclusive meetings, improved workplace communications and an analytics dashboard. More details on the announcement can be found on the Zoom website.
Zoom Announces New AI Companion Capabilities
Analyst Take: Zoom introduced its generative AI assistant AI Companion (formerly Zoom IQ) in September 2023 with the purpose of supporting collaboration and productivity. The company has been thoughtfully expanding its AI use cases across its platform so it’s not surprising to see a stream of new gen AI capabilities. And according to the company, adoption has been solid. Less than two months after the AI Companion launch, there were 125,000 accounts using it, generating more than one million meeting summaries. At the end of January, Mahesh Ram, head of AI at Zoom, reported that over 5 million meeting summaries have been created by the AI Companion since its launch.
Analytics Dashboard Provides View Into Usage
Administrators and owners now have access to a new analytics dashboard that gives a view into how the AI Companion is being used across the organization. Accessed via the Zoom admin portal, this view into adoption and usage can give managers the information needed to identify if more support and training might be needed and if so, for which AI Companion features. Metrics such as meeting summary hosts, team chat users, meeting query users, meetings with queries enabled, and team chat summaries are easily viewed and trended across time.
Meetings and Workplace Communications Get a Boost
One of the ways generative AI has been supporting companies and employees is by helping with day to day tasks that can be time consuming, or by helping to pilot a user through processes that might be laborious. This round of enhancements takes aim at some of those issues, helping to streamline processes and free up time for other activities.
Small, day-to-day tasks such as setting up meetings can be a big drain on time and productivity. AI Companion supports Team Chat by identifying intent to schedule a meeting and then offering a pop-up that allows for the easy creation of a meeting that can be pre-filled with attendees, in addition to date and time information. This information is gathered from the message’s contents. This saves users time as they don’t have to juggle multiple apps for one tasks and type in basic information
Additionally, mind maps can now be created within Zoom Whiteboard using AI Companion. Visual representations can be created based on user prompts.
Zoom Meetings also got some attention, with AI Companion supporting a more inclusive approach by using the gender pronouns given on an attendees Zoom profile and automatically using them when meeting summaries are created.
Zoom Contact Center
Summarizing interactions is a functionality that many contact centers have launched over the past year, so its good to see this as a feature for Zoom Contact Center. Using AI Companion for Contact Center, customer chats and conversations can be summarized quickly, and post call tasks can also be created. These summaries can also be used to assist speech analytics and provide live sentiment, which can also be a time saver for agents and managers, as well as a support for a better customer experience.
Looking Ahead: Anticipating the Adoption Curve in AI-Integrated Workspaces
As AI cements its role in the digital workspace, Zoom is spearheading some creative and innovative advancements. However, the challenge may become more about aligning these innovations with users’ daily workflows and facilitating their education on these nuanced features.
The integration of AI into routine work processes offers a dual-sided potential: while it can streamline and enrich work experiences, its success hinges on users finding real relevance in their day-to-day tasks. The capability of AI to blend seamlessly into the natural rhythm of a user’s workflow will be a critical determinant of its adoption.
Yet, a well-structured educational approach to ensure users can navigate and exploit these tools to their full potential can alleviate any hesitations in end-user adoption. It is our opinion that Zoom’s responsibility extends beyond feature rollout to encompass the cultivation of a proficient user base equipped not only with the knowledge but also with the confidence to embrace AI within their professional ecosystem.
The good news is that Zoom has a rich history of educating end users on new workflows and features, as evidenced by the company’s history of early adopters and brand loyalists. Advancements in the analytics dashboard should support this as well. Zoom’s strategic focus on user adoption through relevance and education will be paramount in realizing the potential of AI in the professional realm.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Other Insights from The Futurum Group:
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Zoom Enhances Hybrid Work with Visitor Management
Author Information
As Practice Lead - Workplace Collaboration, Craig focuses on developing research, publications and insights that clarify how the workforce, the workplace, and the workflows enable group collaboration and communication. He provides research and analysis related to market sizing and forecasts, product and service evaluations, market trends, and end-user and buyer expectations. In addition to following the technology, Craig also studies the human elements of work - organizing his findings into the workforce, the workplace, and the workflows – and charting how these variables influence technologies and business strategies.
Prior to joining Wainhouse, now a part of The Futurum Group, Craig brings twenty years of experience in leadership roles related to P&L management, product development, strategic planning, and business development of security, SaaS, and unified communication offerings. Craig's experience includes positions at Poly, Dell, Microsoft, and IBM.
Craig holds a Master of Business Administration from the Texas McCombs School of Business as well as a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Tulane University.
As a detail-oriented researcher, Sherril is expert at discovering, gathering and compiling industry and market data to create clear, actionable market and competitive intelligence. With deep experience in market analysis and segmentation she is a consummate collaborator with strong communication skills adept at supporting and forming relationships with cross-functional teams in all levels of organizations.
She brings more than 20 years of experience in technology research and marketing; prior to her current role, she was a Research Analyst at Omdia, authoring market and ecosystem reports on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and User Interface technologies. Sherril was previously Manager of Market Research at Intrado Life and Safety, providing competitive analysis and intelligence, business development support, and analyst relations.
Sherril holds a Master of Business Administration in Marketing from University of Colorado, Boulder and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Rutgers University.
