Zoomtopia 2022: 5 New Products And Enhancements Hot Off the Presses

Here are five major product announcements and enhancements revealed at Zoomtopia 2022 that should be on partners’ radars, especially as Zoom looks to up its business through the channel.

The Future Of Hybrid Work

Even collaboration leaders like Zoom Video Communications know they can’t afford to rest on their laurels.

The beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic sent businesses scrambling for videoconferencing technology so employees could stay in touch with colleagues and customers and work from home. But the landscape has totally changed now as the hybrid work trend has taken over, demanding that businesses around the world adjust to a new way of working and communicating that goes beyond video meetings. These companies need collaboration solutions that bring together a variety of ways to communicate and collaborate, whether users are in the office or working remotely. And users don’t want to go to different platforms to find the information they need to get their jobs done, either.

With that in mind, San Jose, Calif.-based Zoom took to its annual Zoomtopia 2022 event this week to unleash a series of new products and enhancements to “delight” end users, according to company CEO Eric Yuan. This year, new products centered on enabling casual conversations that happen in the office, but that remote employees often miss out on. The company also unveiled Mail and Calendar clients and so-called “continuous collaboration” updates that address the issue of users having to jump between different platforms. Another big area of interest at the show this year? The company’s developer platform which opens up Zoom’s technology to developers and channel partners that are looking to craft unique collaboration solutions for their end clients and even their own business.

Here’s a sampling of five major announcements revealed at Zoomtopia 2022.

Zoom Mail And Calendar

The collaboration giant is realizing that it won’t always be able to compete with its video platform alone. That’s why the company at Zoomtopia revealed Zoom Mail and Calendar Clients, which will eliminate the need for users to leave the Zoom platform to access their email and calendar. Popular email and calendar services will be integrated directly into Zoom and the service will be free for both paid and free tier Zoom customers who are connecting to Gmail or Microsoft Outlook, the company added.

The hosted Zoom Mail Service is end-to-end encrypted for emails sent directly between active Zoom Mail Service users. Zoom Mail and Calendar Clients and Zoom Mail and Calendar Services will be launching in beta soon.

Zoom Spots

Working from home has its benefits, but many remote employees miss the ability to pop into a break room, hang out by the water cooler, or start a random conversation with a colleague in the office. That’s where Zoom Spots comes in, according to Zoom.

Zoom Spots is the company’s answer to virtual co-working. Zoom Spots is a video-enabled persistent space, integrated within the Zoom platform, to help foster inclusive discussions, keep colleagues connected, and bring the fluid interactions of in-person work to distributed, hybrid teams throughout their day.

Zoom Spots is coming to the platform in early 2023, the company said.

Zoom Virtual Agent

Zoom took to the show to unveil Virtual Agent, an intelligent, conversational AI and chatbot solution that uses natural language processing and machine learning to understand and quickly resolve issues for customers in a contact center setting. Zoom Virtual Agent works on multiple support channels to deliver fast, yet personalized customer experiences, while helping to reduce call volumes to human agents, the company said.

Zoom Virtual Agent will be available in early 2023. The feature can be fully integrated with Zoom Contact Center and will also be offered as a standalone chatbot offering, the company said.

Continuous Collaboration Updates

Zoom One, the company’s all-in-one communication and collaboration platform that offers Team Chat, Phone, Whiteboard, and Meetings, is being bolstered with several new capabilities and integrations to keep work flowing, without employees having to go to different places to retrieve the information they need.

Zoom this week revealed a new integration between Team Chat and In-Meeting Chat, which creates an “always-on” functionality so users can flow between Team Chat and Meetings to continue the conversation after meetings.

Developer Platform Enhancements

The developer platform was a big topic of conversation this year at Zoomtopia. The company said that it will soon be easier for developers to provision and manage apps that work with Zoom by enabling admin-authorized installed apps. This update will allow Zoom account admins to pre-install apps for an organization at the account, group, or user level. Additionally, developers will soon be able to monetize their apps on the Zoom App Marketplace.

Zoom Apps, the in-product applications integrated into Zoom Meeting and Webinar, is expanding across the platform to Team Chat, Zoom Rooms, and more, so developers can plug apps into all their workflows, the company said. Developers can build their integration once and extend it across the entire Zoom product line.

By giving developers access to Zoom’s core technology, developers — and channel partners who are getting into development — will be able to build their own, white-labeled solutions on top of the Zoom platform, the company said.