Zoom, the popular video conferencing app, announced its new platform dubbed Zoom Workplace on Monday. As per the company, Zoom Workplace is an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platform aimed to streamline workspace communication and improve intra-team and cross-team collaboration. The video-calling platform is leveraging its AI assistant, AI Companion, which will also be receiving new features. The new platform will also redesign the entire Meetings experience and expand the functionalities of Team Chat. Earlier this year, Zoom unveiled a new app for the Apple Vision Pro that makes virtual meetings more immersive.
Announcing the new suite of features, the official account of Zoom posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) and said, “Zoom Workplace brings communication, employee engagement, spaces, and productivity solutions together on a single platform with Zoom AI Companion capabilities woven throughout.” The post also shared a video that highlighted some of the new features being introduced by the platform.
Teamwork, reimagined. Welcome to Zoom Workplace, your AI-powered collaboration platform. ✨
Zoom Workplace brings communication, employee engagement, spaces, and productivity solutions together on a single platform with Zoom AI Companion capabilities woven throughout.
Release… pic.twitter.com/rnuddwLRWY
— Zoom (@Zoom) March 25, 2024
In a blog post, the company delved deeper into the features that users can expect to see with the introduction of Zoom Workplace. The primary benefit of the platform appears to be a unified communication and collaboration interface, which the company says will “create productivity gains and reduce silos”. Users will see the AI Companion being integrated to enable known features such as summarising meetings, composing chats, and email drafts. Zoom is also introducing a new Ask AI Companion feature where users will be able to ask the assistant queries and assign basic tasks. To answer queries, it will use data from across the platform and “select third-party applications”.
The overall meeting experience in the pre-call, in-call, and post-call environment has also been redesigned. Zoom has added a new Meetings tab, which comes with calendar support and a detailed view that shows the entire meeting lifecycle as well as all the files and information shared before and during the meeting. The meeting interface has also been redesigned with a simplified toolbar, a multi-speaker view where the active speakers are highlighted, and four colour themes to choose from.
Team Chat is also being improved from just a communication tool to a full-fledged collaboration space. Users will be able to see channel-related assets, whiteboards, and resources in a single view for ease. Further, they will also be able to chat and use these tools at the same time.
Zoom is integrating its other services such as Zoom Phone, its employee engagement solution, Workvivo, and Zoom Rooms with Zoom Workplace. Zoom Rooms, the communication tool for hybrid meetings, is also getting some new additions. The company plans to add smart name tags which instead of putting each in-office participant in separate boxes, will just add a name tag to them.
The Zoom Workplace will be released in April, although no date for rollout has been announced. As per the company, the suite will be offered at no extra charge to its paid subscribers. Zoom Pro, the most affordable paid plan of the platform is priced at Rs. 13,200 a year.
