Zoom plans to launch a feature in 2025 that lets users create an AI-animated, photorealistic avatar with a head and arms from a video they record of themselves
Skipping Boring Remote Meetings Finally A Reality? Noor Bazmi / Cryptopolitan : Zoom's upcoming feature of AI avatars to talk in meetings may also have a possibilty deep fakes Emma Roth / The Verge : Zoom will let AI avatars talk to your team for you Jeremy Gan / Engadget : Zoom's latest feature update focuses heavily on its AI assistant servicenow.com : ServiceNow Now Assist and Zoom AI Companion GenAI alliance - ServiceNow Press Aaron Tan / ComputerWeekly.com : Zoom expands AI Companion capabilities, adds customisation options Moshe Beauford / Channel Futures : Zoomtopia: Zoom Formally Introduces New Channel Leader, Lots of AI Zoom : Zoom unveils new AI innovations for Zoom Workplace, transforming the way people work with an AI-first approach Zoom : Zoom bolsters Business Services offerings with AI-first innovations for customer experience, marketing, and sales Zoom : Zoom unveils AI-first industry offerings including solutions for frontline workers Zeus Kerravala / SiliconANGLE : Aiming to streamline enterprise productivity, ServiceNow and Zoom expand strategic AI alliance Mastodon: Joe Rosensteel / @joesteel@duck.haus : I see Zoom has reached Dropbox and Slack levels of “we don't understand why people use our product but need to keep making bold moves” — https://mastodon.social/... Bluesky: @kevmarmol.bsky.social : Absolutely no way this gets abused by scammers. Nope no way at all. [embedded post] Scary Mary Branscombe / @marypcbuk.bsky.social : Zoom doing another Teams feature that Microsoft has spent years building up to but maybe didn't get across the finish line [embedded post] X: @zoom : 🆕 Introducing AI Companion 2.0, your personal AI assistant that helps you accomplish even more and get things done across Zoom Workplace ✨ https://news.zoom.us/... 💻 You can bring it up anytime, or keep it open in a side panel 💡 Understands what you are looking at, your [video] @zoom : New AI innovations for Zoom Workplace to help you manage your workday and collaborate better, whether you're remote, in-office, or hybrid ✨ https://news.zoom.us/... ✅ Zoom Tasks, an AI-first solution that will help you detect, recommend, and complete tasks 💡 Meeting Agendas [video] @servicenownews : Big announcement from #Zoomtopia! ✨Together with @Zoom, we're ushering in a new era of intelligence with smarter collaboration and peak productivity across the enterprise. By integrating our GenAI technologies, ServiceNow Now Assist and Zoom AI Companion, we're bringing [image] @dalibali2 : People will do anything to avoid sending an email. @unusual_whales : Zoom, $ZM, is slowly letting AI avatars attend meetings for you, per the Verge As part of a broader AI expansion, Zoom announced it will soon let you create an AI avatar of yourself that you can use to send brief messages to your team. Mikey Neumann / @mikeyface : Zoom is just gonna be AI talking to each other wearing our faces when we are gone Forums: Msmash / Slashdot : Zoom Will Let AI Avatars Talk To Your Team For You
Context & Ripple Effects
Zoom had already been extending its assistant from meeting recaps and generated whiteboards through its OpenAI partnership, while its CEO framed AI as central to the company’s video-collaboration roadmap. The avatar capability takes that strategy from helping participants during meetings to representing them in the meeting itself.
The move also sits alongside Zoom’s stated limits on using customer audio, video and chat for model training without consent, a policy question made more acute by its customer-data training terms. Later coverage of Yuan using an avatar on an earnings call shows the company testing the behavior it intends to normalize.
First-order effects
- Zoom users would be able to delegate short meeting communications to a likeness created from their own recording, reducing the need to appear live for routine updates.
- Zoom must pair the feature with clear identity, consent and misuse controls: photorealistic representations create an immediate impersonation and scam risk for meeting participants.
Second-order effects
- Enterprise administrators may demand stronger controls over who can create, deploy and trust an avatar, extending governance from AI-generated meeting content to AI-generated speakers.
- Rival collaboration platforms face pressure to match avatar-mediated communication, while differentiating on verification, permissions and auditability rather than visual realism alone.
Third-order effects
- If avatar use becomes routine, workplace collaboration tools could shift from AI assistance toward delegated presence, with the meeting becoming a surface where agents act and speak for employees.
- The associated deepfake risk could make provenance and disclosure standards a competitive and regulatory focus; adoption will depend on whether platforms can establish trust without making automation burdensome.
The trend: This is part of the shift from AI that summarizes workplace interactions to AI that performs bounded, identity-linked participation within them.