What's New at Zoom | September 2023 Recap

[allieblum]

Every month we share a recap of new products, features, ZLC courses, business updates, and more with account admins and owners in our What's New at Zoom email newsletter. In September, we primarily focused on Zoom's new AI features and the release of one of our newest products: Zoom Notes! Download the latest version of the Zoom client to access all of these features, and remember to check out our release notes for a complete list of past releases across the Zoom platform. 

New Product Launch

• Introducing: Zoom Notes – Zoom Notes is a new workspace that enables users to create and collaborate before, during, and after meetings. During a Zoom Meeting, use Notes to collaborate with others for real-time inputs—eliminating the distraction of jumping between Zoom and third-party documents and tools. Users can continue to work in Notes outside of meetings asynchronously and share them for collaboration. This feature is available for all Zoom accounts.
  

Key Highlights from Zoom’s September Releases 

Zoom Web Updates

• User requests for enabling Team Chat Compose and Thread Summary with Zoom AI Companion – Paid users on eligible paid plans (may not be available for select verticals and regional customers) may be able to see the Zoom AI Companion chat compose and thread summary options within the Team Chat UI, even if the account admin has not enabled it. If these options are visible but not enabled, users can request admin enablement. Account admins can control the visibility of these enablement options through web settings. By default, these features will be visible to users in Team Chat. This feature is also available in the Zoom client. 

• Migration of AI Companion web settings to dedicated tab – The corresponding web settings for most AI Companion features are being moved to their own dedicated tab on the Account, Group, and User-level settings pages in the web portal. This includes settings for Meeting Summary, AI Companion questions, Team Chat Compose and Summary, and Email Compose, but excludes Smart Recording, as that is still included in cloud recording settings. Future AI Companion features will also plan to have their settings located in this new AI Companion tab.

• Greater admin control of which participants can interact with AI Companion – The web settings for AI Companion questions in meetings will also allow admins to control who in the meeting can ask AI Companion questions about the current meeting, if active in the current meeting. Admins can restrict AI Companion access to only the host, all participants from the point they join (meaning they cannot ask questions about topics from before they joined), and all participants for the entire time the AI Companion is active. These additional options under the AI Companion setting are available at the account, group, and user levels. If this is unlocked, hosts can also control this access during the live meeting. There are also now greater host controls over which participants can interact with AI Companion. 

Zoom Client Updates

• Team Chat Thread Summary with Zoom AI Companion (Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android) – Team Chat users can use Zoom AI Companion to help summarize a chat thread and quickly catch up on the discussion without having to read each response in the thread.
• Compose or refine emails with Zoom AI Companion (Windows and macOS) – Users can access Zoom AI Companion for Mail to enter a prompt and generate emails. When responding to an email thread, users can generate an email using information from the thread and/or an inputted prompt. Users can enable or disable the Zoom AI Companion for Mail integration.

Zoom Rooms Updates

• Support for AI Companion Meeting Summary – Hosts can initiate an AI-generated summarization for the current meeting directly from a Zoom Room. Hosts will be prompted to enter an email address on the Zoom Room that the summary can be sent to. The ability to receive the meeting summary can be restricted to the host alone, the host along with users on their same account, or extended to all attendees of the meeting, including invitees outside of their organization. All meeting participants will be notified that the summary is being generated, and the meeting host can stop the summary at any time, if necessary.

Zoom Events and Sessions Updates

• Compose with Zoom AI Companion for Zoom Events Chat – Compose with Zoom AI Companion in Zoom Events chat writes messages for users by leveraging context from their conversations. They can maintain the ability to change messages by adding tone, inputting prompts, or changing the length of the message to give you confidence in what they're communicating. This setting is disabled by default.

Zoom Whiteboard Updates

• Whiteboard content generation with AI Companion – Users can leverage Zoom AI Companion with Whiteboard to unlock visual ideation for an improved Whiteboard experience. Users can generate ideas, refine and extend existing content, and add objects to a canvas with just a click.

Zoom Revenue Accelerator (Formerly Zoom IQ for Sales) Updates

• Access Email Compose from Conversations page – Users can access the Zoom Revenue Accelerator Email Smart Compose directly from the Conversation detail page, making it easier to create follow-up emails after calls. This feature includes suggested content, topics, and recipients, leveraging third-party AI models, to assist in writing messages based on context from the associated conversation. Previously, Email Smart Compose was only available from the Deals page.

Business Announcements

• Upcoming Support Site Maintenance – Maintenance is being performed on Zoom’s support site on Saturday, November 4. During this time, support.zoom.us and the support ticketing form will not be accessible, though you can still use Zoom Community, chatbot, and phone support (based on your plan). Please note that once maintenance is performed, tickets closed more than a year ago will no longer be accessible. You can refer to the support article and check the Zoom status page closer to November for more information. 
• Zoom Software Lifecycle Policy - We plan to enforce the next round of our Software Lifecycle Policy on Saturday, November 4, for all products and services, starting with the minimum versions referenced in the table found here. Users running an end-of-life version after November 4 will not be able to join meetings via the Zoom Client and will be prompted to update or join from the Web browser. As always, we highly recommend you regularly download and update to the latest version of Zoom software by checking for updates within the Zoom desktop client or by navigating to zoom.us/download to take advantage of all our latest security and functionality features.

[RN]

LOVE LOVE LOVE Zoom Notes! 📝

Exciting to see all these enhancements and updates! 🔥

[Bri]

Exciting news! Thanks for sharing @allieblum 😍

[alexisbrown]

@allieblum I love these updates. So helpful and insightful! 🙌