The pandemic lockdown was a very good time for Zoom (and other online meeting apps and services). Now? Less so. Zoom Docs is the platform’s latest bid to hold your online attention during a time when face-to-face is increasingly preferred.
Consulting the Zoom Docs
Everyone remembers the eponymous Zoom meeting from just a few years back but we’re all spending less time in front of webcams in 2023. Zoom Docs hopes to reignite this tendency for the company by offering similar functionality to that offered by Google Docs or Microsoft’s suite of collaboration tools. Since it’s 2023, there’s also some AI integration to look forward to.
The new platform plans to offer a typical set of collaboration features, including “…wikis and drag-and-drop content blocks for tables, charts, and images.” Regular old document creation will be an option, whether users are conducting this work from inside Zoom or unnamed third-party apps, but Zoom is also bringing its Zoom AI Companion to the tablet.
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If, that is, you’ve paid for Zoom access since the AI is a premium add-on. Zoom AI Companion will let those users integrate details from ongoing meetings into their documents. The system is also able to offer suggestions and changes, in the manner of just about any artificial intelligence assistant on the market today.
The largest challenge Zoom faces is overcoming a fondness for Google and Microsoft’s existing productivity and collaboration suites. You’ve got some time to decide whether you’re going to stick with what you know or try something new, though. Zoom Docs is expected to launch at an unspecified point in 2024.
