Zoom has unveiled AI Companion 3.0, the latest iteration of its workplace assistant, expanding the platform beyond meeting summaries into autonomous workflows, low-code automation, and cross-browser and desktop AI orchestration.
Announced in September, the updated AI Companion integrates multiple generative AI capabilities designed to support employees across various aspects of knowledge work and daily tasks. It offers intelligent assistance, new skill enhancements, a low-code agent builder, and expanded interactive functionalities.
"We're simply trying to adapt to their existing workflows," said Chief Technology Officer Xuedong Huang in an interview with SiliconANGLE. "This is a broader platform that helps people move from conversation to task completion."
By introducing the system through the browser at ai.zoom.us, Huang explained that the AI Companion can now interact with users directly within their everyday digital environments. Browser-based AI functionality is becoming an industry standard, and extending access beyond desktop clients opens up greater flexibility and reach.
Behind the scenes, the assistant leverages a blend of AI models—including commercial offerings and Zoom’s own small language models (SLMs)—to interpret user intent, coordinate autonomous actions, and deliver rapid responses. "This collaborative capability, delivering the best experience for our customers, has been two years in the making," Huang noted.
Zoom begins with compact language models, applying reflection and decomposition techniques to personalize responses and understand user goals. When necessary, the backend escalates to larger models like GPT-4 to handle complex operations. The company refers to this as its “unified AI approach,” which enables faster learning, reduced costs, and significantly improved output quality.
The newly launched Zoom AI Companion 3.0 is powered by recent advancements validated through what the company calls the "final exam for humans"—a comprehensive benchmark designed to evaluate advanced reasoning systems. Zoom reported a score of 48.1% using its unified AI method, outperforming state-of-the-art integrated models such as Google LLC's Gemini 3 Pro by 2.3 points, highlighting the advantage of orchestrating multiple models over relying on a single system.
"We truly stand on the shoulders of giants," Huang remarked. "[With] frontier models provided by OpenAI, Google, and others… we can seamlessly deliver this orchestration solution."
Beyond Meetings: Solutions for the Everyday Worker
At its core, Zoom has long been known for connecting people through virtual meetings. The AI Companion embraces this foundational mission while extending it by enabling users to interconnect communication with every facet of knowledge work.
"The top use case remains meeting summarization," Huang stated.
Summarization continues to be the primary usage pattern, followed by customer support automation via Zoom Virtual Agent and sales enablement tools through Zoom Revenue Accelerator. Huang emphasized that all three features are powered by the same underlying AI Companion platform.
As a conversational workspace interface, the AI Companion now includes a new AI portal that provides centralized access to everything—meeting transcripts and notes, actionable insights, and the ability to proactively orchestrate routine tasks through autonomous actions.
Like other AI chatbots, the assistant allows users to ask questions and receive answers. Building upon this, users can activate a "help me write" mode, transforming the copilot into a document generator capable of analyzing meeting records, files, and other assets to draft reports and polished replies.
Leveraging autonomous retrieval, the assistant can locate information across past meetings, Zoom Workplace notes, and connected third-party applications such as Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. Integrations with Gmail and Outlook are set to arrive soon.
Documents can be exported in multiple formats, including Markdown, PDF, Microsoft Word, and Zoom Docs. Upcoming functionality will allow employees to bring documents directly into Zoom Docs for further editing and team collaboration—all while maintaining full access to AI Companion features.
Currently in beta, users also have access to a low-code "personal workflow" designer. Its drag-and-drop interface enables users to build state diagrams comprising triggers, actions, and outcomes executed by AI agents.
"It's like autonomous coding—but made accessible to everyone," Huang said.
For instance, users can design an autonomous workflow that captures recordings and notes from any meeting they’re invited to and automatically converts them into contextualized reports, offering a clear overview of key discussions. This provides an easy way to review past meetings or catch up on sessions they couldn’t attend.
AI Companion 3.0 is available today as part of the paid Zoom Workplace license. It's also offered as a standalone product at $10 per user per month, or at $20 per user per month for a "Custom Companion" version integrated with enterprise knowledge sources. Zoom Basic users receive limited free access—currently capped at approximately three meetings per month.
