Zoom’s AI Companion 3.0 wants you to skip meetings and get more done

Zoom is implementing new collaboration features so users spend less time planning and more time getting work done.

Zoom’s new AI Companion 3.0 will introduce new features over the next year, providing enhanced ways to manage time and collaboration. One such feature will recommend meetings that users can skip.

“We want you to be able to focus on work that’s energizing, that’s engaging. A lot of it comes when the work is taken care of, when you’re actually engaging in things which are really valuable,” said Smita Hashim, chief product officer at Zoom.

Skipping meetings

The ability to skip meetings is just one of many new features in AI Companion 3.0, which Zoom says will prevent digital overload on workers.

Workers spend a lot of time chasing work rather than making progress, and AI agents can automate many tasks, Hashim said.

The feature to skip meetings will help workers overcome meeting fatigue, Hashim said.

“It can look at your context and participation. Based on that… it can recommend you skip and you can ask the host to send you a summary,” Hashim said.

Another new AI Companion 3.0 feature helps prepare workers for meetings. Users can request the agenda, action items, and key insights. That feature will come out in October this year.

“It’s more about the right conversations at the right time with the right preparation and the right follow-ups. So those conversations turn into outcomes,” Hashim said.

Zoom is also adding a deep research capability where it can retrieve information from previous meetings and platforms such as Microsoft and Slack. Other new AI Companion 3.0 features include note-taking and key takeaways from meetings.

A push toward agentic AI

The new productivity features are part of Zoom’s push to agentic AI, which is built around a federated approach. Customers can connect to many models.

“We have OpenAI models, we have Anthropic models, we have GPT-5 models, we have small language models which we develop, which are specialized to the task,” Hashim said.

Zoom is also adding a new Custom AI Agent capability for IT admins to test out external AI connections into Zoom. Initially, the Zoom platform will be adding SharePoint and ServiceNow connectors.

Zoom is adding new features to its videoconferencing interface. Users will be able to conference via photorealistic avatars, whose cameras will track user movement. Real-time voice translation features and better audio and video at 60 frames per second will improve the quality of conversations.

Zoom is also plugging in cellular connection capabilities via T-Mobile, allowing users to make cellular phone calls through smartphones.

In 2026, Zoom will add support for HP Dimension with Google Beam for Zoom, which provides a more realistic 3D conversation experience. Google Beam uses multiple cameras and AI technology to provide realistic experiences. HP’s Dimension hardware has a price tag of $25,000, with the Google Beam license sold separately. Google Meet will also support Beam, which was researched for years under the codename “Project Starline.”