Scheduling meetings used to be a tedious task, a never-ending game of scheduling Tetris, trying to fit everyone's availability into a neat little grid, which made it a time-consuming endeavor. But then, Zoom Scheduler came into the picture, a scheduling wizard that lets me effortlessly share my availability, allows my clients and colleagues to easily book appointments with me, and helps me focus on the important stuff – the actual meetings themselves.

Key Features of Zoom Scheduler:

• Share your availability: Zoom Scheduler allows you to share your availability with others, so they can easily see when you are available for meetings.
• Book appointments: Others can book appointments with you directly through Zoom Scheduler.
• Manage your schedule: Zoom Scheduler allows you to view and manage your schedule in one convenient location.
• Integrations: Zoom Scheduler integrates with Zoom Meetings, Zoom Mail and Calendar, Google Calendar, and Microsoft 365.

Benefits of Using Zoom Scheduler:

• Save time: Zoom Scheduler can save you time by eliminating the back-and-forth emailing and phone calls that are often required to schedule meetings.
• Boost productivity: Zoom Scheduler can help you boost your productivity by making it easy to schedule meetings and appointments with people inside and outside of your organization.
• Improve communication: Zoom Scheduler can help improve communication by providing a centralized location for scheduling meetings and appointments.
• Increase efficiency: Zoom Scheduler can help increase efficiency by allowing you to manage your schedule in one convenient location.

Overall, Zoom Scheduler is a powerful and versatile tool that can help you save time, boost productivity, and improve communication. I encourage you to give it a try and see how it can help you streamline your meetings and appointments. To learn more about how to use this amazing feature, check out Getting started with Zoom Scheduler.

Picture this: I was in a recent client meeting and we're in the midst of a lively discussion, and one of the admins, eyes brimming with curiosity, raises a question about Meeting Summary notifications. They admitted they missed the boat on Zoomtopia 2023, which happened in early October.

With a cheerful smile, I leaped into action and decided to show them the ropes. I swiftly demoed some past meeting summaries, revealing the magic of AI technology at play. I explained that this feature taps into the brilliance of AI, even involving third-party models, to let meeting hosts initiate an AI-generated meeting summary. The best part? It's sent out automatically after the meeting wraps up, right to their in-app chat and email. It's like a wizard at work, weaving meeting summaries effortlessly!

To make their day even brighter, I shared a nifty link where they could dive into all the details about using Meeting Summary and how Zoom's AI Companion takes care of their data. You should have seen their faces light up with excitement! They realized this fantastic feature was part and parcel of their Zoom One bundled package, and that was the icing on the cake.

Seeing our clients filled with happiness, joy, and excitement as we deliver top-notch service? It's what makes our job truly wonderful! 🌟

Even with the rise of AI, some users still prefer to manually create notes. The problem though is that users leverage a separate note-taking tool (or a 3rd party Zoom app) to summarize and track action items from their meetings, causing loss of focus and time to grant everyone access and to collaborate asynchronously.

With this in mind, Zoom has enriched the platform with collaborative document functionality in the form of Zoom Notes. 

Zoom Notes provides a clean user experience that allows users to create agendas and notes while staying within the Zoom platform instead of jumping to other content management tools. This allows users to create and share content within a Zoom Meeting and collaborate with others on the call for real-time inputs thus eliminating the distraction of switching between Zoom and third-party documents and apps. Users can even continue to work in Notes outside of meetings asynchronously and share them for collaboration anytime, anywhere.

You can access this and take notes right in the Zoom desktop or web client (coming soon to the Zoom mobile app) to further enhance Zoom’s collaboration capabilities before, during, and after a meeting.

• Before a meeting: Create a note, build an agenda, and share it with attendees in advance of the meeting. 
• During a meeting: Open a note and share it with others so they can collaborate during the meeting.

• After a meeting: Share a note with anyone who may benefit from the content. 

Notes also offers a robust personal and collaborative document editor with extensive formatting options such as font, styling, bullets, colors, add images and links. Moreover, Notes autosaves your work at regular intervals, so you don’t need to worry about losing any data.

And the best part? This is available for all users (free or paid) at no additional cost.

Accessibility is at the heart of what we do at Zoom, and we’re always looking for ways to make our products more inclusive. To make your Zoom experience more equitable, we are excited to announce that automated captions will be enabled ‘on’ for all Zoom accounts in the coming weeks. Automated captions help make Meetings and Webinars more inclusive for multilingual speakers, participants with hearing impairments, and others by providing real-time transcriptions of meeting and webinar conversations and content. 

Once automated captions have been turned on for your account, your meeting participants can start captions in your meetings.  Account admins and owners have the ability to customize the availability of automated captions at the account, group, and user levels. Visit the Zoom support site for detailed instructions on enabling and managing automated captions. For additional questions, please read our accessibility FAQs.

Make sure that you are on the global minimum version of Zoom so that they are able to view automated captions in their Meetings and Webinars and utilize this feature.

Zoom is excited to host several events for our Education, Healthcare, and Government customers next week. From customer use cases to the company road to opportunities for external funding, take a look below at our special events for verticals. Register for however many you’re able to attend, and don’t forget to tell your colleagues!  If you have questions about any of the events below, reach out to your CSM.

Tuesday, November 14

• For Healthcare: Zoomtopia Recap

Wednesday, November 15

• For Higher Education: Embracing Cloud Telephony for Academics and Administrators with Zoom, UC Santa Barbara, EDUCause, and AWS

Thursday, November 16

• Grant Support for Higher Education
• Grant Support for Healthcare 
• Grant Support for State & Local Government and K-12 Education

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 October, we primarily focused on updates to Zoom's new AI features. 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. 

Zoom Learning Center Updates

• Explore Zoom AI Companion with free training - Come see what all the buzz is about! Explore features of Zoom AI Companion across the Zoom platform with the Zoom Learning Center’s free, self-guided courses for users and administrators.
• Calling all Zoom Phone fans - The Zoom Learning Center recently refreshed its Zoom Phone catalog for users and administrators. Dial in your knowledge of the latest features in this comprehensive, eight-course collection.

Key Highlights from Zoom’s October Releases 

Zoom Web Updates

• Migration of AI Companion web settings to dedicated AI Companion 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.
• Greater host control of which participants can interact with AI Companion - The web settings for AI Companion questions in meetings will also allow hosts to control who in the meeting can ask AI Companion questions about the current meeting, if active in the current meeting. The host can restrict AI Companion access to only themselves, 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. If this is unlocked, hosts can also control this access during the live meeting.

• Additional availability of Meeting Summary and Thread Summary AI Companion features - The AI Companion Meeting Summary and Team Chat Thread Summary features are now available for accounts with BAAs in place. These features remain disabled by default and may be enabled by account admins.

Zoom Rooms Updates

• Support for AI Companion Smart Meeting Summary (Win, Mac, Appliances, ZP Appliances, iPad zr, iOS zrc, Android zrc, Win zrc, Web zrc) - 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.
• Ask AI Companion questions about the meeting (Win, Mac, Appliances, ZP Appliances, iPad zr, iOS zrc, Android zrc, Win zrc, Web zrc) - Zoom’s AI Companion transcribes and analyzes the verbal discussions in Zoom Meetings, allowing participants to ask the AI Companion questions about the meeting content that has been discussed and receive a response based on the meeting analysis thus far. Admins can choose to have this option remain visible in the meeting toolbar, even when the feature is disabled in web settings. Meeting hosts can start and stop AI Companion from a Zoom Room for other participants. Participants in the Zoom Room itself cannot ask AI companion questions.

Zoom Revenue Accelerator Updates

• Access Email Compose from the 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.

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.

¿Has probado ya la nueva herramienta gratuita de Zoom? Se trata de Zoom Clips, una sencilla manera de grabarte a ti, tu pantalla y tu voz en un pequeño video que puedes usar a modo de tutorial, breve presentación o para compartir una idea con quien tu quieras de manera rápida e intuitiva. Una vez hayas grabado tu clip, no tienes más que compartir el enlace. Los espectadores podrán dejar sus reacciones y comentarios, algo que podrás moderar desde tu Portal de Zoom.

Para activar Zoom Clips como Administrador de tu cuenta, no tienes más que seguir estos sencillos pasos:

1. Accede a tu cuenta con privilegios de Administrador en el Portal de Zoom
2. Accede al menú Administración de Cuenta → Ajustes descuenta → Clips (Pestaña)
3. Hacer click en la opción “Clips” para activarla
   
   

Ahora la herramienta aparecerá en nuestra barra de tareas de la aplicación de Zoom para escritorio.

Para grabar un clip, no tenemos más que ir a la pestaña Clips y hacer click en “Crear clip” y la interfaz de de Clips se abrirá. No tenemos más que seleccionar las opciones que se ajusten a nuestras necesidades y comenzar la grabación.

Una vez hayamos grabado nuestro primer Clip, podremos editarlo, compartirlo y ver las reacciones y comentarios o bien desde nuestra aplicación de Zoom o directamente en el portal:

La herramienta Zoom Clips aún se encuentra en su infancia, y por ello muchas de sus features aún están por llegar. De momento la información en nuestros artículos de ayuda sólo se encuentra en inglés pero os los dejo aquí por si queréis echarle un vistazo. Los hay tanto para Usuario como para Administrador.

Con esto me despido de vosotros ¡Hasta la próxima!

The recently concluded Zoom AI Companion Webinar, led by Randy Maestre, Zoom’s Head of AI, Developer Ecosystem & Industry Marketing, and Enrique Plaza Garcia, Zoom’s Product Marketing Manager, provided a profound dive into Zoom’s AI capabilities. What sets Zoom apart is its unparalleled AI versatility, surpassing the constraints of single-model AI solutions.

The discussion revolved around how Zoom serves as a catalyst for seamless connection and collaboration, converging both employee and customer experiences within an intelligent, all-encompassing platform that garners genuine user affection. Randy spotlighted a staggering statistic – approximately 60% of a person’s workday is consumed by administrative tasks rather than value-added work, a significant productivity drain. In today’s hybrid work landscape, teams grapple with disengagement, underscoring the pressing need for heightened connectivity, a sense of belonging, and an enabling company culture, identified as prime drivers for successful digital transformation.

Moreover, Randy shed light on the fact that customer expectations have soared, with a significant 60% of customers indicating a willingness to switch brands after just one or two subpar experiences. These trends beg the question: What's causing these shifts? One prevalent challenge in the landscape of knowledge workers is the presence of friction and complexity. Enterprises, as Okta confirms, typically manage a staggering 211 different applications in their tech stack. This complexity poses a formidable obstacle to maintaining a streamlined, user-friendly experience, which employees increasingly desire.

In response to these challenges, Zoom introduced Zoom AI Companion just four weeks ago. This generative AI digital assistant empowers users to amplify productivity, enhance team effectiveness, and refine skills. Randy emphasized Zoom’s distinct approach to AI – a federated model that dynamically incorporates Zoom’s expansive language model alongside Meta Llama 2, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Importantly, no customer audio, video, chat, screen sharing, attachments, or other communication content is used to train Zoom’s or third-party AI models. Admins and account owners maintain precise control over the activation of AI features (all features are initially disabled). Meeting hosts are granted controls once enabled, and participants are apprised when features are in use. Ultimately, Zoom AI empowers our customers to achieve higher productivity, better team connections, and deliver top-tier customer experiences – all in an intuitive manner, seamlessly integrated into your daily workflows across the Zoom platform.

If you missed this session and wish to delve deeper into Zoom AI Companion, please feel free to leave a comment here. Additionally, you can register to watch the on-demand recording here.