Zoom launches AI Companion 3.0 with agentic workflows

Zoom Communications has unveiled the next evolution of its agentic AI solution, Zoom AI Companion 3.0, with work surface technology to use work conversations to help save time and boost productivity.

AI Companion has the stated aim of helping people start their day with clarity and alignment, even when dealing with numerous post-meeting tasks and follow-ups. Features of the system include a beta version of AI-first capabilities for personal workflows, agentic AI features for Zoom Docs, and a web interface with expanded context to help users uncover insights, optimise their day and improve their work.

AI Companion 3.0 uses Zoom’s federated AI approach that combines its own large and small language models (LLMs/ SLMs) with third-party LLMs from OpenAI and Anthropic. Zoom users can also use open source models such as Nvidia Nemotron, which enables reasoning and retrieval-augmented generation within Zoom’s federated AI stack, creating a personalised work environment.

As AI Companion’s capabilities expand across new surfaces, Zoom stressed that it encrypts customer data in transit and does not use communications-like customer content to train its own or third-party models.

Zoom claimed that this federated approach, combined with AI Companion’s ability to deliver better-quality results through more accurate transcription, closed captions and translated captions, provides users with more relevant information retrieval and task completion. 

AI Companion’s new conversational work surface is connected to work interactions, and is attributed with transforming scattered meeting conversations and assets into insights, progress tracking, polished documents and content without requiring users to upload meeting transcripts or additional documents or craft detailed prompts.

“The launch of AI Companion 3.0 is a turning point for Zoom, continuing our transformation from a meeting company into a pioneer of AI-first intelligent work orchestration. By empowering our users with new AI Companion capabilities, we’re helping them get even more done so they can focus on connection,” said Velchamy Sankarlingam, president of product and engineering at Zoom.

“Offering AI Companion’s newest capabilities both as a standalone option and within paid Zoom plans reflects our core belief of democratising access to AI and providing users with intuitive solutions that can seamlessly understand their work context and help move conversations to completion.”

Early customers and developers have also been positive about the new product. “AI Companion is changing the way teams at Oracle work, helping us turn conversations into clear next steps and actionable insights,” said Christine Sarros, senior vice-president of enterprise engineering at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. “We look forward to the upcoming AI Companion 3.0 release and the new capabilities it offers to further enhance collaboration and productivity.”

AI Companion functionality can now be accessed from a desktop web browser at ai.zoom.us. Select AI Companion capabilities are also available for Zoom Workplace Basic users. Customers can also purchase AI Companion for $10 per month as a standalone, which does not require a paid Zoom Workplace licence.