Zoom users should prepare for some big changes coming to their favorite meeting app. The company has announced that it is using AI to optimize its video calling experience and make working with it more enjoyable. It’s the first major overhaul Zoom has received in about 10 years, so it will definitely be a shock to the system for dedicated users.
What is changing in Zoom?
According to a recent Zoom blog post, the company calls its new design Zoom Workplace. Obviously, the biggest change is the overall appearance. There are four color themes along with the basic gray background.
This alone changes the appearance of the app, giving it a more personalized design. Zoom also added immersive experiences that the call host uses to change the feel.
Another interesting change to Zoom Workplace is a new multi-speaker view that puts meeting leaders on a virtual stage while the rest of the attendees appear to be in a virtual audience.
Zoom also added a document collaboration feature that allows users to import third-party documents and edit text during meetings. This could be a great way to streamline collaboration, as users don’t need to resort to Google Docs or a separate app to work with text. Meetings will also display PDFs, videos, and other items needed by participants.
When a meeting ends, a meeting event hub brings together everything shared during the meeting, making it easy to view important documents and other key items. It will even show complementary AI summaries in this area.
The app also has a new portrait lighting feature that uses AI to illuminate the user’s face when lighting is poor. Or it could darken the background, bringing the user to the front of the shot.
People who gather in noisy areas will like the custom audio isolation feature. It helps voices sound clear when there is a lot of background noise, blocking out some of the background noise and creating a more pleasant meeting experience.
There is a small change to the emoji reactions, which are larger and more present than in previous versions of the software.
Team Chat is becoming an important part of Zoom. It looks like it’s trying to become more like Slack with the introduction of shared spaces in Team Chat, which allows users to create a grouping of channels to organize conversations. Another Slack-like feature is Team Chat tabs, which keep channel-related assets like links, whiteboards, and resources together.
Using the Zoom workspace
To take advantage of these new features, you must have an eligible paid plan. If they do, account owners and users must update their Zoom app to version 6.0.0 to see Zoom Workspace and all the new features it offers.
There’s no word on when Zoom intends to offer the features to free users or exactly what paid plans are eligible, so you’ll need to download the latest version and see if it’s there.
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