Zoomtopia 2022 – Email, Spots, and More

There was a lot of buzz and new announcements at Zoomtopia 2022, held in San Jose, CA last week. As CEO Eric Yuan exclaimed during this keynote, “What’s next for Zoom? So freaking much! We have launched over 1,500 features and enhancements this year.”

The big announcements included the introduction of Zoom email and calendar, as well as Spots (which I’m still trying to better understand). My main coverage areas are contact center and unified communications, so I focused on Zoom Phone and Zoom Contact Center during the event.

Zoom Phone

To get an update on Zoom Phone, I spoke with Theresa Larkin, UCaaS Product Marketing Manager. In this video interview, Larkin discussed Zoom Phone use cases, as well as new capabilities. Larkin also demonstrated the new user interface. Lastly, Larkin discussed some roadmap capabilities and what to expect in the coming months.

Zoom Contact Center and Virtual Agent

Contact center is always top of mind for me and I got to spend some time with Kentis Gopalla, head of ecosystem for Zoom Phone and Contact Center, and Ted Yoshikawa, head of product for Zoom Contact Center. The Zoom contact center team has been extremely busy, adding over 400 features since launch.

In this video interview, Gopalla and Yoshikawa provide an overview of Zoom Contact Center, discuss what differentiates it from other vendors’ offerings, and give a hint into the short-term roadmap.

The big contact center-related news was the introduction of Virtual Agent, a conversational AI and chatbot solution based on Zoom’s acquisition of Solvvy. Virtual Agent uses natural language understanding and machine learning to understand customers, and learns directly from company knowledge bases and FAQs. It provides personalization and intelligent routing, in addition to 24/7/365 multi-channel support. Virtual Agent is expected to be generally available in early 2023.

In this video interview, Bob Grohs, Product Marketing Leader for Zoom Virtual Agent, discusses the new offering and how it can be used.

Zoom Email and Calendar

With Zoom email and calendar getting much of the attention at the event, I spent some time getting a demo of the new offering. The beta launch of Zoom Mail and Calendar includes four products: Zoom Mail Client, Zoom Calendar Client, Zoom Mail Service, and Zoom Calendar Service. Zoom Mail and Calendar integrate with existing products like Gmail and Microsoft 365, enabling access from right within Zoom. Zoom Mail and Calendar are designed to work seamlessly with Zoom Team Chat, Video, and Whiteboard, with mail and calendar tabs in the Zoom app. Zoom notes that customers can continue using Microsoft or Gmail if they prefer, or they can use Zoom’s offerings, which have better integration with the Zoom portfolio. Zoom Mail and Calendar are targeted at small-to-medium business customers and are not meant to take on Microsoft and Google in large enterprises (today, anyway…). For enterprise, the goal isn’t to replace Gmail or MS365, but to provide a single pane of glass and remove friction and app switching.

Lots and Lots of Announcements

There were many, many other announcements, notably:

• Zoom Spots, providing virtual co-working spaces and spontaneous water cooler moments from wherever you work. With Spots, users can work alongside and connect with teammates to recreate fluid and organic employee interactions with human-centered working experiences. Users can see remote and hybrid colleagues between meetings, and can focus on individuals or view the whole group for a serendipitous conversation. As an open forum. Spots can be considered “Clubhouse on steroids.”
• A strategic partnership with ServiceNow for integration with Zoom Phone
• Team Chat, plus integration of Team Chat with Zoom Meeting Chat
• Smart Recordings, providing meeting summaries, next steps, and smart chapters
• Meeting Templates to customize different types of meetings, such as training sessions or all-hands meetings
• Video Clips to quickly create videos that can be shared with teammates and others.
• Workspace Reservation Smart Suggestions to improve the process for booking a room or desk in an office.
• Intelligent Director, an AI-driven, multi-camera technology solution that automatically adjusts for participants as they move.
• Zoom integration for Tesla, providing the ability to join a meeting from a Tesla
• And much more…

There’s no doubt that Zoom has been busy innovating, and there’s no end in sight! It will be interesting to watch as Zoom advances as a platform company and expands its Zoom One offering, entering adjacent markets such as email and calendar. While the company has traditionally preferred to develop its own technologies and capabilities rather than acquire companies, I expect to see several strategic acquisitions to help the company keep its innovation machine moving.