Zoom Makes Its AI Companion Free for Paid Users

Video communications company Zoom is making its generative artificial intelligence (AI) assistant free to paid users.

“Since Zoom introduced generative AI in early June, thousands of companies have benefited from free trials of Team Chat compose and Meeting summary,” the company said in a Tuesday (Sept. 5) news release.

“Beginning this fall, Zoom will significantly expand its generative AI offering across its platform with the launch of AI Companion, at no additional cost with paid Zoom user accounts.”

The company says it is also renaming Zoom IQ for Sales, its conversational intelligence software, which will now be called Zoom Revenue Accelerator.

During an earnings call last month, Zoom launched several AI innovations, including Zoom Scheduler, which uses AI and multiple cameras to offer optimized image and angle of participants joining from different locations, ensuring a high-quality experience for meetings.

Also introduced were Zoom Clips and Zoom Team Chat, designed to enhance communication and collaboration among team members.

Also on that call, company officials stressed that Zoom was not using customer content to train AI models. That followed news reports from the prior week on an update to the company’s terms of service indicating it was using customer data to train AI.

Perhaps with that in mind, Tuesday’s announcement made it clear that “AI Companion is turned off by default,” and that account owners and administrators have final say in whether to enable these AI features for their accounts.

“Zoom provides admins and users control and visibility when AI features are being used or activated,” the announcement said. “By putting its customers’ privacy needs first, Zoom is taking a leadership position, enabling its customers to use AI Companion and its capabilities with confidence.”

The launch comes as many companies feel a pressing need to adopt generative AI, though they remain unsure on where they stand on the technology.

According to “Understanding the Future of Generative AI,” a PYMNTS and AI-ID collaboration, 62% of surveyed executives said they do not believe their companies have the expertise to use the technology effectively.

“Part of that uncertainty is due to the fact that, as a result of generative AI’s far-reaching potential, there is no silver bullet for how to govern the use of the technology and no easy-choice decision for which department or team should take the lead with developing and implementing compliance decisions,” PYMNTS wrote recently.