Zoom launches AI productivity suite with avatars, deepfake detection, and agentic workflows

Zoom introduces an AI-powered office suite, says AI avatars for meetings arrive this month | TechCrunch

Zoom's AI-powered avatars, which can represent users in online meetings, will be available to use later this month, the company announced on Tuesday, alongside news of other tools and services. Notably, the company is introducing its own AI Docs, Slides, and Sheets apps, an AI agent builder for non-technical people, and a voice translator for meetings. The company said its AI-powered productivity apps will be available as a preview in the spring. The AI avatars, announced last year, are the long-anticipated photorealistic avatars that can mimic your appearance, expressions, lip and eye movements. Designed to mine your actions when you're not "camera-ready," Zoom says the avatars will work in online meetings as well as in its asynchronous video messaging product. Alongside the AI avatars, the company is adding a deepfake detection technology for meetings to alert participants of possible audio or video impersonation. Other new tools include a suite of AI-powered office apps, including AI Docs, Slides, and Sheets. The company said that, based on meeting transcripts and data from other services, users can create document drafts, spreadsheets with data, or presentations. In addition, Zoom's AI Companion 3.0 is now coming to its desktop app, after first arriving on the web in September. The company said that the AI Companion's monthly active users more than tripled in Q4 FY 2026 year-over-year. Workvivo, its app for employee communication, will receive the AI assistant, as well. This assistant can connect to services such as Slack, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Gmail, Outlook, Asana, and Jira to let users ask questions across different knowledge bases. Zoom is not alone in creating AI-first office software. There are established companies like Canva and new startups like Context that are trying to do the same. Salesforce-owned Slack has also been adding more AI features to its team communication apps. To address the growing interest in agentic workflows, users are now able to create custom agents using natural language prompts that work across surfaces. After creations, users can mention their agents in chat to get tasks done. For developers, Zoom is making its speech, vision, and language intelligence APIs that could be deployed on-prem or in the cloud. Plus, the company is updating its chat experience by using AI to surface key insights and summarize threads. To complement these changes, Zoom says it plans to unify design across different surfaces, such as desktop, mobile, and web, for easier access to AI tools like notes, meeting questions, and transcriptions.

Your Zoom meetings can auto-generate slides and sheets for you now - no Google needed

Zoom Workplace expands with AI Sheets and Slides. Zoom also released deepfake detection tools for meetings.Productivity tools are only ramping up their AI features. Zoom went beyond video conferencing to begin its AI-powered workplace play with the launch of Zoom Docs in 2023. The tech company is now moving beyond Docs to a more Google-like suite with two new features: AI Slides and AI Sheets. Undergirding Zoom's Docs, Slides, and Sheets offerings is AI Companion, the company's multitool work assistant, through which users can create the documents and other templates they need. Zoom updated the agent to version 3.0 in December and is expanding its reach across its Workplace collaboration platform. As a refresher, AI Companion is available to certain Zoom Workplace accounts, but also "as a standalone offering" for organizations looking to add an AI-enabled assistant to their workflows where one doesn't exist already. Also: 5 ways to use AI to modernize your legacy systems Here's what's new, along with some other notable updates. Just like you can ask Gemini to help you create a Google Doc, Zoom AI Companion sits under all of Zoom's new and existing workflow tools, so you can build with it and then query what it's built further. Docs has long worked beside Zoom meetings to turn discussed action items, proposals, and ideas into supporting documents as you work. Now, Zoom said, AI Sheets can turn conversations and raw data from meetings and other locations across Zoom Workplace into readable spreadsheets. AI Slides takes the same approach to creating decks, allowing coworkers to collaborate on perfecting them. By outfitting Zoom Workplace with AI-powered tools that mimic what so many people are used to in Google, Zoom is clearly interested in becoming a go-to suite of productivity tools. Given the many ways Google continues to integrate Gemini into its tools, though, it's hard to say yet whether either platform will offer standout features compelling enough to convince users to migrate from one to the other. Also: I tested Google Docs' new AI audio summaries, and they're a massive time-saver Currently, Zoom's AI-powered document offerings mostly help Zoom catch up as a work suite, rather than provide a true competitive edge over Gemini's helpful but still somewhat limited capabilities within Google's Docs, Slides, and Sheets. At the broader level, there's also mounting fatigue among users at the constant conveyor belt of AI features in their systems (not all of them have been huge hits). Zoom said AI Sheets and AI Slides will be available in preview this spring, perhaps even this month. In the meantime, Zoom Workplace and its AI Companion still connect to external platforms and data sources, including Google apps, meaning you can query and use information from all your necessary sources. Also: Will AI make cybersecurity obsolete, or is Silicon Valley confabulating again? Individual users and enterprises alike increasingly expect privacy from their AI tools. Zoom reiterated in the announcement that "AI Companion does not use customer content to train its models or third-party models." Speaking of privacy and security, Zoom said it's implementing a new layer of deepfake detection in meetings. In addition to its existing integration of LinkedIn's "verified" badges to help users identify real participants, Zoom launched a security measure that "intelligently detects synthetic audio or video in your meetings and provides real-time alerts" to users, the company said. "When potential risks are identified, enabled users will receive an alert, allowing them to exercise caution or take action, such as leaving the meeting," explained Jeff Smith, Zoom's interim chief product officer. "We will continue enhancing our detection capabilities as technology evolves to stay ahead of deepfake risks and help protect our customers." Also: 6 essential strategies to defend against AI-powered threat actors in 2026 Given how rapidly AI-powered deepfakes can scale and evolve, the shelf life of most security measures isn't long. When asked what other protections Zoom was putting in place, Smith added that the company is building out other protocols that "help users trust and verify that the person they're communicating with is who they expect." Zoom is also expanding AI Companion 3.0 capability across its apps. The agent received a dedicated tab in Workplace that lets users access it across more interfaces. AI Companion can also help with more admin now, including sending post-meeting thank-you notes or adding customer details to Salesforce, Zoom said. Also: Is your business ready for a deepfake attack? 4 steps to take before it's too late Workplace received some fresh features, including a live voice feature that translates audio in real time during meetings, which, if successful, should make international calls and language barriers easier to navigate. Zoom noted this feature will launch in five languages: English, Chinese, Spanish, French, and Japanese. The live translator will roll out in beta "with limitations" this month, according to the company. For the camera-shy, the company also upgraded its avatar feature. While Zoom has offered avatars for meetings since at least 2022, the company said these new "lifelike or stylized avatars," which should be available this month, can "mirror a user's expressions and lip and eye movements, helping them engage confidently whether on or off camera." You can even use these avatars to present slides in multilingual video clips. Earlier iterations of these avatars were also AI-powered. However, the upgraded avatars appear to use the technology at a more finely tuned level for added realism -- though from the press images, it doesn't appear we're in the Uncanny Valley just yet. Also: How to switch from ChatGPT to Claude: Transferring your memories and settings is easy For enterprises, Zoom also launched Zoom AI Services, a set of "AI APIs for speech, language, reasoning, and more," similar to technology that Zoom's products rely on, according to the company. Zoom noted that the suite offers cloud or on-prem deployment options for services from transcription, such as its Scribe API, to deep reasoning and image processing.

Zoom at Enterprise Connect 2026: From meeting tool to agentic work orchestrator - SiliconANGLE

Zoom at Enterprise Connect 2026: From meeting tool to agentic work orchestrator The communications industry is filled with vendors that once dominated one aspect of the "stack" but have been focused on building a unified platform that includes voice, video, meetings, contact center and much more. But the most interesting vendor in the market is Zoom Communications Inc. Zoom has not only broadened the scope of what one would expect from a communications provider but expanded outside the footprint of the traditional unified-communications-as-a-service/contact-center-as-a-service market. In addition to the core communication capabilities, it has added e-mail, document sharing, front-line worker tools, small business apps and more. This makes Zoom the company with the broadest set of work functions integrated into one back-end stack. Microsoft Corp. and Google LLC have similar products, but they were built when siloed applications were the norm. Historically, silos of apps were never ideal as workers wound up being the integration point between them, but people managed to do their jobs albeit with a heavy "toggle tax." This is why users are constantly having to copy and paste information between the core work apps they use. It's through this lens that Zoom has been building its platform. Today at at Enterprise Connect, Zoom made a series of announcements that shows the fruits of these efforts as it transitions from the "video company" to work orchestration. It is positioning itself as an artificial intelligence-first, agentic platform designed to move conversations to completion by leveraging its back-end platform. On its analyst pre-briefing, the company focused heavily on its evolution into a system of action. This isn't just about summarizing a meeting but rather about "knowledge creation" -- taking the output of a conversation and other forms of work and feeding it into downstream workflows. The highlights of the announcements center on: The wrapper for these applications is obviously agentic AI. By automating end-to-end tasks, Zoom is expanding its agentic capabilities to reduce all that busy work that get in the way of doing and finishing work. The biggest friction point in the modern enterprise isn't the lack of tools; it's the fragmentation of those tools. Customers are suffering from "context switching" fatigue. In fact, my research shows that workers spend 40% of their time managing work instead of doing their jobs. Zoom's focus on "Conversation to Completion" directly addresses this. By embedding AI Companion into Workvivo, and allowing it to pull from third-party tools, Zoom is essentially trying to become the "connective tissue" of work, solving the problems I highlighted. For a business, this means a meeting isn't just an hour spent talking to people only to have 90% of the information lost once we got back to our other tasks. The meeting and any other interaction become the launchpad for automated follow-ups, document creation and customer relationship management updates. I've used the analogy that high-level executives have chief of staffs to connect the dots between the work they do, but the other 95% of the workforce doesn't. With the scope of work that Zoom has access to, it should be able to use agentic to bring that kind of capability better than its peers. The proof will come through customer wins and use cases, but the strategy is sound. As Zoom has entered some of these nontraditional communications markets, many industry watchers have criticized Zoom for trying to compete in areas such as e-mail and docs, but that does give Zoom access to data it would not have had. Furthermore, its focus on "verticalization" -- with specialized integrations for healthcare (Epic), financial services and retail -- shows that Zoom understands that a "one-size-fits-all" AI isn't good enough for enterprise-grade deployments. Long-term, products such as Zoom's agentic agents will need to interface with agents from other companies. Though Zoom can address a wide number of end to end processes, it can't do them all, and that's where Agent-to-Agent or A2A and Model Context Protocol or MCP will become important. Zoom mentioned on the call something I have been hearing that though MCP and A2A make great media headlines, the reality is that demand for multi-agent is still nascent. Though not part of the Enterprise Connect payload, Zoom did confirm it's experimenting with it. This shows a grounded, realistic approach to product development: It's building the capability, but it isn't forcing the market before it's ready, which is typical Zoom. As Zoom continues to broaden its scope of work, it will also need to evolve how customers pay for the product. One of the great things about Zoom is that buying the product has been simple, with just a few bundles. However, with AI coming, Zoom is looking at a mesh of possibilities with a core license and then several add-ons. Zoom came to prominence during the pandemic because "Meet Happy" included "Purchase simply." It's worth noting that this problem of licensing complexity is not unique to Zoom but something the industry is grappling with. Customers don't want to manage a sprawling inventory of bundles for workplace, contact center and various AI builders. There's a valid concern about whether Zoom's packaging can keep pace with its rapid innovation and that was brought up in the analyst Q&A. Zoom's response was promising but a work in progress. It's moving toward: The "meeting app" label is officially dead or at least should be. Zoom is now an AI-orchestration platform and arguably broadest one in the industry. The next phase for the company will be execution -- simplifying licensing and proving that its agentic workflows can deliver consistent return on investment across different verticals. The move into productivity apps is the one I find the most compelling. When Zoom first launched Docs, people questioned why we needed another document platform and gave Zoom zero chance of success. The fundamental thesis of my research has always been that share shifts happen when markets transition and AI is causing people to work differently, which gives Zoom an opening. Canva has disrupted Adobe in the creative market, and generative AI has moved eyeballs away from the once untouchable Google Search business. Decades ago, people said, "Who needs Microsoft Office?" because we had Lotus 1-2-3. The Office productivity suite is a de facto standard, but the user experience has always been subpar, so Zoom does have an opportunity to extend its expertise in "ease of use" to this space. To be clear, Zoom's ability to "win" is not tied in building a better document, e-mail or chat, but rather it's the value users get when they go "all in" on Zoom. The company needs to be able to demonstrate that, as I add Zoom components, a worker's job becomes exponentially simpler. This will get more users yelling, "I use Zoom!" as they do with communications today. Zoom continues to beat to the march of its own drum by focusing on areas that are not typical to communications. Zoom came to market by focusing on ease of use, which, for whatever reason, was not a focus for this industry. The company isn't trying to enable us to communicate better but addresses the larger scope of work, which has been broken for a long time. So a bigger shot of nontypical might be what's needed to move us into the agentic era.

Zoom introduces agentic AI capabilities to drive productivity and action at work - SiliconANGLE

Zoom introduces agentic AI capabilities to drive productivity and action at work Zoom Communications Inc. today announced an expansion to its enterprise agentic artificial intelligence platform through introducing new capabilities across Workplace, Phone and customer experience platforms. The company said it's working toward moving from providing software that drives meetings to becoming a "system of action" by bringing AI into the flow of work. To do this, Zoom introduced new capabilities within its AI Companion 3.0, which allows everyday users to rapidly build their own customized AI agents and workflows. This includes new third-party integrations and search connectors to bring in outside data to mix with team and enterprise data. These new sources include 10 new secure connectors for intelligent retrieval, integrating third-party platforms such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, Box, Google Drive and OneDrive. AI Companion learns from user context, such as their role, preferences and service focus to make certain its insights and recommendations fit the work of the person it's collaborating with. Teams will also be able to convert conversations and insights into documents, presentations and content quickly using productivity tools. These include new AI Docs, AI Sheets and AI Slides. These operate similarly to other productivity suites on the market and connect directly with Zoom's meeting operations to provide real-time co-creation opportunities without switching tools. "Our goal isn't to replace existing productivity suites, it's to connect them," said Leo Boulton, head of product, solutions and industry marketing. "So, AI Docs, AI Slides and AI Sheets are designed to bring creation and collaboration directly into the flow of work." Zoom continued this productivity and AI-for-work connectivity paradigm with Workplace, the company's all-in-one platform, by introducing agentic AI and a simplified interface and user experience update. By making the user experience cleaner and more consistent, the company said, the interface will become easier to understand between desktop, mobile and web, reducing friction and cognitive load. The AI companion will have its own tab where it lives and users can access it whenever they need its assistance. "Zoom Workplace has transformed from a meeting platform to a system of action, where AI helps you plan, act and collaborate seamlessly," said Shawn Rolin, general manager for Zoom Workplace. Zoom Meetings will also receive a new team facilitator, along with a Zoomie group assistant and a live voice translator, capable of translating voice audio in real-time across five languages, at launch. A newly developed, advanced capability will warn video participants when it detects synthetic audio or video content in meetings using real-time alerts, essentially alerting users to "deepfakes," or when other users are using AI avatars or voices to disguise themselves. All the way back in 2019, an AI-generated voice was used to defraud the CEO of an energy company and more recently, in 2025, scammers used an AI deepfake in a video call to trick a company employee into sending them $25 million. A visible trust indicator and risk alert will appear on the speaker. If something is "off" about a given user, a badge will appear on the image or avatar, making it clear that meeting participants should beware. On Zoom Phone, the company's voice-over-internet offering, agentic AI capabilities to automatically execute tasks such as drafting emails or sending out summaries of calls. A system formerly known as AI Concierge will now provide the ability to send SMS messages and act as a virtual receptionist to handle customer questions via text, collect information and support scheduling. Zoom said that the company is using AI and AI agents to position itself to become the place where people digitally meet and take actions during their day at the workplace. "We have not only a platform that unites chat meetings, phones, contact centers and productivity tools, all under that AI-powered foundation that serves different organizations," said Boulton. "It actually serves different personas and job functions within organizations." With these advancements, Zoom wants to become the central nervous system for companies by connecting every part of a company. It's not just about allowing greater communication between roles, Boulton said, but providing the infrastructure of intelligence to action by using the content of that communication.