Zoom unveils its most divisive feature yet – an AI-powered digital assistant

Top video conferencing platform Zoom has announced its AI digital assistant is set to be included in all paid plans as the company looks to get more workers on board with the time-saving technology.

The company has been testing various products under its Zoom IQ brand since June, including free trials of Team Chat compose and Meeting summary, but now the company looks to be ramping up its AI portfolio.

The rebranded suite of artificial intelligence tools is set to become standard across all paid accounts from this fall.

Zoom AI Companion

The company’s CPO, Smita Hashim, said: “We are transcending the hype in generative AI by delivering tangible products and disrupting the industry’s pricing model, making it easy for businesses and people like you and me to leverage generative AI’s full benefits in our day-to-day work.”

Moving forward, the online collaboration company has suggested that customers can expect to see AI Companion popping up across the entire ecosystem, including Meetings, Team Chat, Phone, Email, and Whiteboard.

(Image credit: Zoom)

The San Jose company says that eliminating any additional charge has been made possible thanks in part to the way it dynamically incorporates its own LLMs with third-party counterparts, including Meta’s Llama 2 and OpenAI’s offerings.

Beyond the pair of tools the company has already been testing with customers, Zoom will be supporting idea generation and categorization in Whiteboard, adding image generation from Whiteboard content next year. Various other text-based features are set to come to its portfolio in the coming months, too.

At the same time, the firm announced that what is currently known as Zoom IQ for Sales will from now on be known as Zoom Revenue Accelerator.

It’s unclear why Zoom has dropped the IQ branding, but it’s not uncommon for companies to chop and change in products’ early stages. Either way, the company’s clear intentions for AI suggest that its video conferencing platform could continue to attract customers for years to come.