Zoom AI Companion 2.0 Now Generally Available To Boost Collaboration, While HeyGen Reveals AI Avatars That Can Attend Zoom Meetings For You
Zoom has announced that the enhanced version of its AI-powered productivity and assistant, AI Companion 2.0, is now generally available.
Unveiled at Zoomtopia 2024 earlier this month, AI Companion 2.0 is an upgraded version of the AI personal assistant aimed at helping users manage their day and boost productivity. This enhanced tool will be accessible across Zoom Workplace via a convenient side panel, enabling users to stay updated on crucial conversations, synthesise information for quicker and more informed decision-making, and take efficient actions.
Zoom AI Companion 2.0 will continue to be free of additional cost for paying Zoom Workplace subscribers.
Meanwhile, AI video generation platform HeyGen has announced a new capability that will allow users to produce AI avatars that can attend Zoom meetings for them.
HeyGen promises that these digital AI avatars allow users to attend multiple Zoom meetings simultaneously and are capable of being able to “think, talk and make decisions” similar to those the user would have otherwise done themselves through being informed by data. The solution intends to boost productivity by taking on repetitive or low-priority tasks for users.
The solution echoes Zoom Founder and CEO Eric Yuan’s prediction in June of the emergence of “digital twins” who could attend virtual meetings for users.
WebexOne 2024: Webex Unveils Spatial Meetings For Immersive Experiences
Cisco Webex has announced spatial meetings for more immersive meeting experiences.
Unveiled at this week’s WebexOne event, the XR-oriented spatial meetings were one of the standout features highlighted among a swathe of new AI products and capabilities designed to enhance the employee experience. Other compelling announcements included the Cisco Ceiling Microphone Pro, new workflow-oriented integrations with enterprise apps like Salesforce and ServiceNow, and several AI-powered workspace management features.
Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer at Cisco, commented:
With AI baked into every part of Cisco’s product portfolio, we’re helping organisations future-proof their workspaces with solutions ready for the next generation of how and where people work. We’re providing our customers with intelligent, adaptable, and easy-to-manage technology that enhances experiences for their employees and customers.”
Webex says users can transform any space equipped with a Cisco Room Bar Pro into an immersive studio and deliver spatial video to Webex for Apple Vision Pro users via a straightforward software upgrade. With any Room Bar Pro device and an Apple Vision Pro, users can conduct product demos, remote training, education, and more with a video that features advanced depth and dimension.
Salesforce CEO Takes Multiple Swipes At Copilot As Microsoft Launches Copilot AI Agents
Late last week, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff criticised Microsoft‘s Copilot AI assistant as “disappointing” and “more like Clippy 2.0” than a “transformational experience”.
Benioff took to X to express his stance on Microsoft’s AI-powered productivity assistant, Copilot, which launched last year and has since been integrated across practically all of Microsoft’s enterprise and consumer products. He argued that Copilot struggles with accuracy and functionality and “insults” customers by entailing the capacity to build their own large language models (LLMs).
“When you look at how Copilot has been delivered to customers, it’s disappointing,” Benioff said. “It just doesn’t work, and it doesn’t deliver any level of accuracy.”
Gartner says it’s spilling data everywhere, and customers are left cleaning up the mess. To add insult to injury, customers are then told to build their own custom LLMs. I have yet to find anyone who’s had a transformational experience with Microsoft Copilot or the pursuit of training and retraining custom LLMs. Copilot is more like Clippy 2.0.”
This criticism escalated following Microsoft’s unveiling of its new no-code Copilot AI Agents as part of its Dynamics 365 offering, which Benioff derided as Microsoft being in “panic mode”.
The tech giant already offers its no-code platform, Copilot Studio, which allows customers to create customizable agents to automate tasks, particularly for sales, service, finance, and supply chain teams. Starting in November, customers will also be able to integrate Microsoft’s own AI solutions, which the company claims will “accelerate business results” and “empower” teams. Microsoft plans to introduce additional agents next year to further expand the platform’s capabilities.
Benioff again took to X to criticise Microsoft’s latest Copilot solution, which seems particularly pertinent after Salesforce and Slack’s recent Agentforce launch, a similar (and rival) solution to Copilot Agents.
“Microsoft rebranding Copilot as ‘agents’? That’s panic mode. Let’s be real—Copilot’s a flop because Microsoft lacks the data, metadata, and enterprise security models to create real corporate intelligence,” Benioff wrote on X.
