AI Companion: Zoom attacks Microsoft

"We can compete with Microsoft and Google," says Xuedong Huang, CTO at Zoom, who was previously CTO at Microsoft for many years. Among other things, Huang was responsible for Azure AI. It is certainly not easy, but it can be done. Microsoft has integrated AI into existing products. Zoom has developed an "AUI", as he calls it, which is a native AI platform. The AI Companion has been available as a chatbot for a year now. Now the AI assistant in Zoom Workplace has been significantly expanded.

Numerous new functions were presented for it and for Zoom Business Services at Zoomtopia in San José. There are also announcements of investments to support women in technology. They are apparently also being promoted directly within the company, as there are more women than men on the – stage, which is unusual in the tech sector.

Zoom Workplace is structured like a classic communication software, but is very clearly laid out. Others can't necessarily claim that. There are tabs at the top, and various services – and other providers – can be accessed on the left. Communication is still the main focus, of course, and chats have their place. The AI Companion can be accessed on the right. It summarizes content, searches for content, analyses data and can do everything that AI assistants are supposed to be able to do. Soon it will also be possible to customize the AI Companion to your own needs. While the general AI Companion will remain free of charge, the customized version will cost twelve US dollars a month. There will then be a Zoom AI Studio for fine-tuning.

People are given avatars as images. These can take part in the meeting at times when you are not looking your best, all under strict security conditions to protect against misuse. Zoom uses watermarks for AI-generated content such as images and, in future, videos. Real-time translation in several languages is already a new feature.

Zoom wants to use AI to make people happy

Zoom's primary goal is to save customers time so that they have more time to do what they love. A well-known phrase from the field of AI. Here it is translated into the motto of the event: Happiness. Zoom founder Eric S. Yuan dreams of a whole day a week that we could have free thanks to AI. We should have more time for our happy places. That is the definition of "AI first".

Microsoft's Copilot still has its problems in actual use. When asked about this in an interview with heise online, Huang replied somewhat evasively: "My main problem is the latency, everything still takes a little too long." But then the CTO goes on to say that hallucinations are the big fundamental problem with generative AI. You can only try to counter this by combining and using the best models. But you have to keep in mind that AI only ever achieves around 80 percent.

On stage at Zoomtopia, Smita Hashim, Chief Product Officer, explained that AI Companion had delivered 36 percent fewer errors in transcription tests than Microsoft's Copilot and made 15 percent fewer errors when summarizing meetings. The data is not fed back into AI training or otherwise used for AI. Like everyone else, they use freely available data from the internet to develop their own Small Language Model (SLM). Aparna Bawa, Chief Operating Officer, also explained in a press conference that Zoom works with regulators worldwide – like all AI companies. But she also says: "We don't take the 'break things first and then excuse' approach."

Zoom works with all of the current major AI providers – except Microsoft and Google. The platform can be used to access AI models from OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic and others. Anthropic will be a guest at Zoomtopia for a talk. The AI search engine Perplexity is also integrated into Workplaces. Huang says you have to find everything in one place. If you have to switch services to search for something, for example, it's like having to fly to the UK to do your job in the USA.

The company's own small language model is being developed in order to integrate it into devices. Orchestration is also being worked on. This should select the best model for each question. Perplexity itself is also working on this. It is not always the latest and greatest models that are the most suitable. For example, OpenAI's GPT-o1 is good at math problems and can "think logically" better, but it also takes much longer. OpenAI itself says that GPT-4 is usually the better model for regular tasks.

Profiteer of the lockdown believes hybrid working is the future

While almost everyone was still using Zoom during the coronavirus pandemic, the company's customer base has changed since then. There are still private individuals who use the service. But thousands of companies of all sizes have also joined worldwide. There is a video on Zoomtopia showing Red Bull's Formula 1 team, for example, using Zoom. In the USA, numerous universities are official partners of Zoom, and the service is also big in the eHealth sector there.

There are also companies from the service sector and frontline workers, i.e. those who have contact with customers. There is a mobile version of Zoom for them. Of course, virtual customer communication can also take place via Zoom – using AI and with the help of AI. Numerous new functions are also available here to make work easier.

Having started as a kind of remote company and benefiting from the lockdown, Zoom believes that hybrid working is here to stay. In-house, there is a policy that people who live near the company should come to the office twice a week. Aparna Bawa adds: "My team comes into the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If someone has a doctor's appointment, something with the children, of course we make exceptions." However, CTO Huang lives in Seattle, for example, and will not be moving near an office. This also works – with and on Zoom.

Transparency note: The author was invited to Meta Connect in Menlo Park by Meta. Meta covered the travel costs. There were no specifications regarding the type and scope of our reporting.

(emw)