Zoom Announces Generative AI-Powered Digital Assistant, CEO Responds to Teams EU Unbundling: ‘You Should Ask The FTC’
Zoom has launched a generative AI-powered digital assistant, which will be included in its paid subscriptions at no extra cost.
Zoom AI Companion will be accessible across the Zoom platform, whether in meetings, chat, phone, email or whiteboard. AI Companion’s features include meeting summarises, message drafting and real-time meeting feedback. While some of the features will be available at launch, others will be introduced in Spring 2024.
Smita Hashim, Chief Product Officer at Zoom, commented:
We were founded on doing what’s right for our customers, and we firmly believe that offering Zoom AI Companion at no additional cost to our paid Zoom user accounts delivers tremendous value as we all navigate the challenges facing us today. We are excited to see our customers and users start using AI Companion and about our strong roadmap for further innovation underpinned by a commitment to responsible AI.”
Users can interact directly with AI Companion through a side panel in the Meetings experience. These capabilities will grow across Zoom next year.
In other Zoom news, its CEO Eric Yuan has responded to Microsoft’s intentions to unbundle Microsoft Teams from Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscriptions.
The decision, first announced last month, followed a three-year-old Slack complaint which catalysed an EU investigation for anticompetitive behaviour. For Microsoft customers, it ultimately makes it more expensive to buy Office 365 and Teams compared to when they were bundled together.
Yuan tentatively contributed to the discussion, suggesting that the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which enforces antitrust law, should consider investigating similarly to the EU anticompetition body – but didn’t criticise Microsoft.
“No matter what, you’ve got to be fair,” Yuan said during a Goldman Sachs technology event (via Bloomberg). “You should ask this question to the FTC as well.”
New Slack AI Capabilities Announced to Transform Productivity
Salesforce has launched three new advanced productivity tools for Slack in Slack AI, Slack lists and new automation capabilities.
Slack AI is built natively into the platform to provide users with tools such as channel recaps and thread summaries. Slack lists empowers users to track work tasks, oversee requests, and manage cross-functional projects with a communication flow.
Furthermore, the new automation capabilities allow every user, regardless of coding expertise, to automate specific tasks. The Taskflow Builder enables users to connect tools and a hub for simpler access. Developers can also build and deploy custom apps with Slack as the host.
Noah Desai Weiss, Chief Product Officer at Slack, said:
At Slack, we’re taking a collaboration-first approach to delivering an intelligent productivity platform in the age of AI and automation. We are focused on providing customers with a simpler, more delightful, and more efficient set of tools so every person can do the best work of their lives.”
Slack AI and Slack lists will be in pilot this winter, with the former scheduled for general availability in 2024. The new automation hub will be available later his month, and the new Workflow Builder is generally available now on paid plans, subject to platform pricing.
Microsoft Ends Skype for Business Server Support in Teams Rooms and Starts Billing for Teams Recording and Transcript APIs
Microsoft has announced that from October 1, 2023, Teams Rooms will no longer support connections to the Skype for Business server.
Microsoft has said that a “small number of customers” that use on-premise configurations will be affected by the change. Team Rooms will be moving its support to the Exchange server, which is already used by the Teams Desktop.
“While the Microsoft Teams product team is rapidly releasing new features and capabilities for Microsoft Teams Rooms and continues innovating to deliver more intelligent, inclusive, and productive meeting experiences, we must end support for some legacy technologies,” wrote Matt Taylor, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft, via Microsoft’s blog.
The removal of Skype for Business support in Teams Rooms will mean specific meeting mode options will not be available, including Skype for Business only, Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams (default), and Skype for Business (default) and Microsoft Teams.
In other Microsoft news, it has announced that developers will be billed for using its recording and transcript APIs in Teams.
Billing for the APIs began on September 1, with recordings costing $0.03 per minute and transcriptions priced at $0.024 per minute.
In Microsoft’s blog post revealing the price plan for recording and transcript APIs, Ayan Chakraborty, Product Manager at Microsoft, noted some of the benefits for developers building line of business (LOB) apps and multi-tenant Independent Software Vendor (ISV) solutions. These include call summarisation, speaker insights, smart follow-ups, and training and onboarding.
