NewsUC&C17 May 2023 · 4 min read

Zoom Invests in Anthropic to Advance AI Capabilities

Zoom’s Anthropic investment brings Claude to Zoom Contact Centre and Zoom IQ, boosting AI customer support and productivity.

Kieran Devlin

Zoom has partnered with AI safety and research business Anthropic to build sophisticated and reliable AI systems.

The collaboration will enhance Zoom's federated approach to AI by integrating Anthropic's AI assistant, Claude, with Zoom's collaborative platform. Zoom Contact Centre will be the first solution to be integrated with Claude.

Smita Hashim, Chief Product Officer for Zoom, said:

Anthropic's Constitutional AI model is primed to provide safe and responsible integrations for our next-generation innovations, beginning with the Zoom Contact Center portfolio. With Claude guiding agents toward trustworthy resolutions and powering self-service for end-users, companies will be able to take customer relationships to another level.

Zoom Ventures, Zoom's startup investment offshoot, announced it has invested in Anthropic.

Zoom's Federated Approach to AI and the Contact Centre Applications

Zoom's federated approach to AI utilizes its own proprietary AI models, AI models developed by AI specialists, including Anthropic, and select customers' models. Being able to implement various types of models, Zoom can offer holistic value and customization for its customers' needs.

"Partnering with Anthropic also furthers our commitment to providing customers with our federated approach to AI, optimized to deliver outstanding customer experience outcomes," Hashim added. "Additionally, with our investment, we are advancing leading-edge companies like Anthropic and helping to drive innovation in the Zoom ecosystem and beyond."

Claude intends to revolutionize Zoom's Contact Centre portfolio — including Zoom Virtual Agent, Zoom Contact Center, and Zoom Workforce Management — to help agent productivity and improve customer support. By integrating the Claud chatbot into its portfolio, Zoom aims to use AI to empower agents, so customers receive high-quality service experiences.

"Partnering with a leading collaboration platform like Zoom allows us to put robust, steerable AI into the hands of more people and unlock its potential to help streamline everyday processes," commented Dario Amodei, CEO and co-founder of Anthropic. "We look forward to working together to showcase Anthropic's capabilities and our joint commitment to enhancing productivity through intelligent solutions."

New Zoom IQ Capabilities Produced by Anthropic and OpenAI Partnerships

As well as its partnership with Anthropic, Zoom launched new generative AI features earlier this year to help users compose emails and chat messages. The new solution, built into Zoom IQ, is powered through a partnership with ChatGPT creator OpenAI and will summarise chat threads and produce meeting agendas.

The combination of Zoom's Anthropic and OpenAI partnerships enables Zoom to update Zoom IQ with new features designed to streamline workflows and equip users with relevant information.

Among the new features are Zoom IQ's capability to summarize in real-time what users might have missed if they had joined a Zoom meeting late and can then ask the AI further questions.

If a user needs to generate a whiteboard session for their meeting, Zoom IQ can create one based on text prompts. After the session concludes, Zoom IQ can summarize the meeting and post that recap to Zoom Team Chat. Zoom IQ can also suggest the next steps for leaders to take on board.

Zoom Team Chat has also been updated with new AI-powered features. Zoom IQ can provide thread summaries for users who missed a busy period of conversation and want to save time rather than poring through every message. Zoom IQ can also draft messages to boost users' productivity, with the ability to rephrase responses.

Likewise, generative AI means Zoom can generate content suggestions for email responses. Zoom IQ assists users by reading meeting summaries with customers and taking into account already completed tasks.

Zoom IQ can also extrapolate context and content from Zoom Team Chat to produce meeting agendas.

As Well as Bolstering AI, Zoom is Investing in Healthcare and Security Collaborations

Zoom has been investing in a versatile series of partnerships recently, with a particular eye on the future of work with collaborations involving sophisticated AI-powered solutions, employee engagement in the era of hybrid workspaces, and robust security tech.

Zoom has also implemented new threat detection capabilities for its email service by cloud-based email security vendor Abnormal Security. Abnormal's three new email-centric products are designed to help Zoom users detect suspicious messages, remedy compromised accounts, and provide data and management services for security posture.

Zoom also acquired the employee engagement platform Workvivo. Workvivo's solution includes engagement tools, a social intranet and an employee app, all integrated into one platform. Zoom said it would integrate Workvivo's capabilities into its platform to grow its employee experience tools.

Lastly, Zoom has also expanded its partnership with telehealth organization Oracle to offer more accessible, faster, and more effective telehealth services. Telehealth capabilities can be connected using Oracle Cerner Millenium to allow providers globally to join patient appointments seamlessly and simultaneously access electronic health records (EHRs). The solution offers clinicians a connected workflow and tools to record updates in the patient's EHR.

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