Video communication company Zoom, has announced a series of enhancements to its platform to improve the remote working experience. Zoom Mail and Calendar are two new features introduced to give customers better integration of their day-to-day work tools. The new introductions are part of the company’s move towards making its platform a full feature office application.
As part of the roll-out, Mail and Calendar are being introduced in two formats – client and service. The new clients will allow users to access their existing third party email services directly from inside the Zoom desktop app. This is part of an attempt to help customers save time by not having to toggle between apps on their computers.
Both clients will come with advanced integration with Zoom One features like Meetings, Phone, Whiteboard and Team Chat applications. In addition to the clients, Zoom is also introducing a new Zoom Mail Service and Calendar Service, and has announced interoperability with Google Meet.
Both of these are in beta, and will give Zoom Pro customers in the US and Canada the ability to set up a hosted special email account at no extra cost. Customers at Zoom One Business level or higher, will additionally have the option to set up a custom domain.
The Mail Service is designed for small-to-medium-sized businesses who don’t have dedicated tech support resources, but still need solid privacy features for their business communications. Law or accounting firms are a prime target. The new Mail Service gives these types of clients end-to-end encryption for messages sent between Zoom Service users, plus expiring messages and restricted access links.
A Fully Integrated Zoom Suite
Mail Service also comes with 15GB of storage for Zoom Pro users, and 100GB for Zoom One Business customers. Calendar Service features appointment booking, meeting scheduling and enhanced access to meeting recordings.
The company also introduced several other enhancements to the platform. Zoom Spots is a virtual working space, which replicates the ‘working alongside’ aspect of an open office for workers and encourages free-form video-first conversations.
Next year, Zoom is planning on rolling out Team Chat translations, as well as scheduled team chats in order to cope with different time zones and working hours. Zoom Rooms is also benefiting from some enhancements, including Smart Workspace Reservations to coordinate staff meetings, and an intelligent video director. This latter feature will choreograph meeting video, by selecting optimal streams from different cameras, and will even cater for participants who move around during the meeting.
Earlier this year, Zoom bought Solvvy, a conversational AI platform. The result of that purchase is the unveiling of the Virtual Agent – a chat bot to handle customer enquiries. Somewhat more creepy is the upcoming introduction of the IQ Virtual Coach. This is an AI-based tool which will monitor sales calls, and identify weak and strong points in the messaging, delivery, and overall outcomes.
It’s not clear whether this will be done only in simulation mode, or if it will be used in a live context. Either way, it’s definitely going to horrify or delight people on either side of the automation divide depending on their views.
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