In today’s fast-paced work environment, maximizing productivity and improving collaboration are top priorities. Fortunately, AI technology can help with that, and many organizations are reaping the benefits. A global survey conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of Zoom[i] revealed that more than 75% of leaders whose teams used AI reported that their collaborators completed tasks faster, were more productive, and produced higher quality work.
Through a complete article published on the Zoom blog, Mahesh Ram, Head of AI Product Strategy in Zoom, tells us as follows: Zoom AI Companion, their generative AI assistant can help you revolutionize the way you work and communicate. Included at no additional cost with the paid services assigned to your Zoom user account, it is designed to seamlessly integrate with Zoom collaboration tools, delivering a range of capabilities that can help you work smarter and more intuitively.
Many of our clients at Cirion Technologies already license Zoom and use it for communication and collaboration purposes. Therefore, we are going to explain how to activate AI Companion, explore its key functionalities and share some tips and tricks to help you leverage this amazing AI assistant in the guide below.
What Zoom AI Companion can do for you
Whether you’re new to AI or have been exploring its benefits for some time, you may be wondering how AI Companion can help you. One of the best qualities of AI Companion is its native integration with the rest of Zoom’s tools and, like everything else on this platform, it’s simple and easy to use. Due to space reasons, I will only mention three very practical ones for daily activities:
- Message compose
Employees spend more time drafting and sending emails and chat messages than anything else at work, according to the Morning Consult survey about Zoom. Furthermore, 44% of employees said these tasks take longer than desired.
As an AI writing assistant, AI Companion can compose emails with the right tone and length, helping you create professional and effective communications.
You can also use it to compose Chat responses with the right tone and length, which will help you save time and enable efficient communication within your team.
- Summarize information to help you stay up to date
If you’re short of time and have a stack of chat messages to catch up on, AI Companion can quickly summarize your chat threads, allowing you to understand the big picture and respond accordingly.
AI Companion can also provide meeting summaries, therefore taking notes during meetings to remember discussed topics or next steps is no longer necessary. Besides, must not necessarily be recorded for AI Companion to generate a summary of it.
Soon, AI Companion will be able to deliver recorded phone call analytics and SMS summaries and Zoom Phone voicemail, thus saving even more time. For the near future, you will also receive real-time feedback on your communication and presentation skills during meetings, which will let you improve on the spot.
- Automate note taking for appropriate meetings
If you keep forgetting to turn on AI Companion’s meeting summary capability at the start of the meeting, just set it to start automatically. You can do this in your web portal settings under the AI Companion tab.
However, you may not want a summary for some meetings, such as one-to-ones and other calls where sensitive information might be addressed. In these cases you can edit your recurring meetings and choose to automatically start only the meeting summary for your weekly team calls, for example.
You’ll find this feature on the web portal by editing your recurring meetings (show “Options” and then check the appropriate box).
How to enable AI Companion
Now that you’re acquainted with some of the ways AI Companion can help you throughout your workday, here’s how you can start using it right away. You have access to AI Companion features available with paid services assigned to your Zoom user account at no additional cost[ii]. Just follow the steps below to turn it on:
- Check with your administrator: By default, all AI Companion features are disabled, therefore administrators must first enable features through account and group level settings. If you’re in a Zoom meeting and you see the AI Companion Zoom icon in your toolbar, you can click it and follow the instructions to request that your admin enable that feature.
- Log in to and update your Zoom client: Go to your Zoom client and make sure you’re logged in. Also check to make sure your client is updated (minimum version 5.16.0 required).
- Go to your web portal account settings (click “Settings” in the left panel) and look for the AI Companion tab. For features that have user-level settings, you’ll be able to turn each capability on and off.
- Begin exploring: You can find the AI Companion icon in multiple products within the Zoom client, such as in your Zoom Meetings controls toolbar or Zoom Team Chat window. Once you’ve located the AI Companion icon, you’re ready to start exploring its capabilities as an AI meeting assistant, writing helper, and more.
If you’re ready to enhance your productivity and collaboration, start using AI Companion today — all at no additional cost with the paid services assigned to your Zoom user account.
If you don’t have Zoom yet and are thinking about migrating your communications to this platform, then you have read this article at the right moment because at Cirion Technologies Voice & Collaboration we deliver Managed Zoom for fast and cost-effective communication.
Until our next meeting.
[i] Based on an online survey of 11,023 full-time knowledge workers in the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, France, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. Conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of Zoom Video Communications, Inc., August 10-25, 2023.
[ii] Note: AI Companion may not be available for some vertical and regional customers.
Author:
Fernando Riedel
Voice & Collaboration Product Specialist
Cirion Technologies
