Zoom unveils AI-powered toolkit to boost workplace productivity

Zoom has revealed an all-new toolkit for businesses: Zoom Workplace. Utilising artificial intelligence (AI), the platform is designed to foster improved collaboration, streamline communications, optimise in-person engagement and boost productivity, all while keeping the user experience at its core.

An array of new features, combined with the tried and trusted elements users are familiar with, makeup Zoom Workplace. According to Smita Hashim, the Chief Product Officer at Zoom, the aim is to "deliver an AI-powered experience that fuels productivity and collaboration to help teams make the most of their time". This new platform will seamlessly integrate AI into daily work processes at no additional cost, thereby facilitating easier connections and more efficient work practices and allowing teams to focus on projects that drive business growth.

The suite of additional features includes a new Meetings tab, offering a single point of access for meeting-related information and resources. Designed to aid collaboration, this tab should streamline the preparation and follow-up of meetings, providing scheduling, documentation, and contact information. Furthermore, users can now personalise their toolbar with their most-used features and choose from several colour themes to customise their app experience.

The platform is also introducing the Zoom AI Companion, an AI assistant designed to summarise chats in up to 38 languages. This feature aids users in catching up on discussions and formulating responses. Coupled with filter and sorting options, this helps organise chat-related information and speed up processes like meeting scheduling and messaging. This productivity boost is further aided by the split-view feature, enabling users to work on an asset while simultaneously partaking in the chat.

Zoom Workplace also includes features specifically designed to improve the user's visual meeting experience. Meetings can now employ a multi-speaker view, showcasing participants as they speak, and hosts have the option to pick a meeting wallpaper for a more immersive experience. To ensure visual clarity regardless of location, an AI-enriched portrait lighting tool has also been introduced to enhance user visibility in poor lighting conditions.

Audio quality has been considered too, with the introduction of personalised audio isolation designed to suppress background noise and improve vocal clarity in open environments.

Asynchrony is a key element of modern teamwork and has been taken into consideration by Zoom. Team Chat features allow for improved asynchronous collaboration, with a host of features optimised to keep teams efficient even when not online simultaneously. Future updates are also slated to include multi-share, enabling multiple participants to share their screens simultaneously, and Team Chat shared spaces, where bundled channels will enhance relevance discernment for projects and team-based discussions.

Account owners can update their Zoom application to access these new developments in Zoom's quest for optimised, AI-enriched collaborative communication.