Zoomtopia 2025: AI Companion 3.0, Cross‑Platform Notetaking, and Realistic Avatars

Zoom’s AI push at Zoomtopia 2025 marks a pivot from helper tools to agentic assistants and lifelike synthetic presence — the company unveiled AI Companion 3.0, cross-platform note-taking and search, and photorealistic meeting avatars alongside a raft of video-performance upgrades intended to change how enterprises run meetings and asynchronous video workflows. The announcements promise new productivity plumbing (cross-application notetaking, “free up my time” scheduling), a paid low‑code Custom AI Companion add‑on, and realistic AI-generated avatars for times when participants aren’t “camera-ready.” These changes are set to roll into paid Zoom Workplace accounts in the coming months, with some avatar and media capabilities arriving toward year‑end. (news.zoom.com)

Background / Overview​

Zoom’s September keynote framed the changes as part of an “AI‑first” work platform strategy: an AI layer that doesn’t only summarize conversations but acts — retrieving context, prioritizing tasks, and executing routine work across apps and meeting platforms. The company calls this class of features “agentic AI” and positions AI Companion 3.0 as a unified work surface that will operate across Zoom meetings, chats, phone calls, emails — and crucially, across other meeting platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Google Meet. (news.zoom.com)
Two clear thrusts defined the announcements:

• Productivity & automation — expanded note‑taking, proactive tasking and scheduling, custom agents and integrated third‑party app connectors.
• Presence & media — photo‑real avatars, higher frame‑rate video, multi‑stream HD support, and expanded video management for recordings and clips. (news.zoom.com)

Zoom frames these as no small UX updates: they are meant to reduce busywork, let people skip or optimize meetings, and let organizations scale recorded or asynchronous communication via AI-generated clips and avatar‑assisted Zoom Clips. (techcrunch.com)

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What is AI Companion 3.0?​

AI Companion 3.0 is the next iteration of Zoom’s in‑app assistant. Rather than only transcribing and summarizing, Zoom says the assistant will:

• Understand user context (conversations, documents, calendar events) and retrieve relevant enterprise knowledge.
• Create and expand notes, generate actionable action items, and suggest meeting preparation and follow‑ups.
• Run proactive agentic skills such as “free up my time” (recommended meetings to skip), group assistance for team queries, and in‑meeting prompts. (news.zoom.com)

Key product-level changes include:

• A single work surface in the web browser and Zoom Workplace desktop app that adapts dynamically to context.
• Agentic retrieval — the ability to surface enterprise documents, chats, emails, and even external public research to inform outputs.
• A Custom AI Companion low‑code builder for admins to create tailored agents and workflows (paid add‑on). (news.zoom.com)

Zoom’s timeline: AI Companion 3.0 features are slated to be generally available to paid Zoom Workplace customers in coming months (company announcements name November for GA on many capabilities), while some advanced or custom add‑ons will be paid extras. (news.zoom.com)

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Cross‑platform interoperability: notes outside Zoom​

Perhaps the most consequential move is interoperability: AI Companion’s note‑taking and summarization will operate in meetings that happen outside Zoom — including Microsoft Teams and Google Meet — and in in‑person meetings via a mobile voice recorder. That means Zoom’s AI can capture and synthesize conversations even when those conversations don’t occur within the Zoom client. (news.zoom.com)
Why this matters

• Many organizations use heterogeneous meeting stacks. Cross‑platform AI notetaking makes Zoom’s assistant valuable even to employees who aren’t using Zoom as their primary meeting client.
• It positions Zoom as a cross‑platform productivity layer — not just a video provider — and threatens to commoditize partner and competitor meeting logs unless admins control data flows. (techcrunch.com)

Caveats and verification

• Zoom says WebEx support is “coming soon,” and that in‑person/third‑party meeting support will be available for paid Workplace users; rollouts and regional availability can vary. Organizations should confirm availability for their tenant and region with Zoom before relying on cross‑app capture for compliance workflows. (news.zoom.com)

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Lifelike AI avatars: what they are and how they’ll be used​

Zoom demonstrated and described photorealistic, “lifelike” AI avatars that mimic a user’s live video feed so the avatar’s facial movement and gestures match the person’s performance. Zoom positions them as ideal for professional situations when a participant is not camera‑ready but wants a polished presence. The avatars will also be usable in Zoom Clips and waiting room greetings. (news.zoom.com)
Notable avatar capabilities and product notes:

• Avatars can be generated from the user’s likeness and will mime live video feed input.
• Hosts can deploy avatars in waiting rooms and in Zoom Clips to deliver asynchronous, avatar‑driven messages.
• Zoom indicates built‑in safeguards such as gesture checks and watermarking to indicate AI origin and detect manipulated footage. (zoom.com)

Availability and packaging

• Zoom has signalled consumer and workplace rollouts by late 2025: many outlets report avatar experiences and higher‑quality media features appearing for customers by December, while AI Companion expansions arrive earlier (GA in November for many features). The Custom AI Companion add‑on (avatar generation and advanced customization) carries a price tag (announced at about $12 per user per month). (news.zoom.com)

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Video, media, and performance upgrades​

Zoom also announced media improvements intended to make synchronous and asynchronous video more production‑ready:

• Support for 60fps high‑frame‑rate video, higher bit‑rate streams, and multi‑HD stream support to improve visual fidelity for dynamic content. (businesstoday.in)
• Zoom Rooms with wired HDMI connections are being primed for higher input quality and 1080p/60fps and expanded 4K content sharing workflows via capture devices/Capture Card support — Zoom’s documentation already lists certified capture devices and wired HDMI screen‑sharing capabilities at various input resolutions. (support.zoom.com)
• New video management tools for storing and organizing lectures, training, and recorded material to support scaled asynchronous workflows. (businesstoday.in)

Why this matters for IT and AV teams

• Higher frame rates and multi‑HD streams increase bandwidth and codec requirements. AV teams will need to validate capture devices, network QoS, and room endpoints to support consistent 60fps experiences.
• Zoom’s certified capture devices and Zoom Rooms firmware are already showing support for up to 1080p/60fps input on select hardware — but real‑world performance will depend on endpoint certification and network conditions. (support.zoom.com)

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Pricing and availability — the practical timeline​

• AI Companion 3.0 core features: GA announced for November 2025 for paid Zoom Workplace customers; some capabilities are included at no extra cost with paid Workplace licenses. (news.zoom.com)
• Custom AI Companion add‑on: announced as a paid add‑on (around $12 per user/month) with advanced avatar and customization features. Some avatar features may be packaged as separate SKUs later. (news.zoom.com)
• Avatar and high‑quality media rollouts: several outlets and Zoom’s messaging point to consumer and workplace availability for avatar experiences and real‑time translation by December 2025; exact feature sets and region timing may vary. (businesstoday.in)

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Security, privacy, governance: the hard questions​

Zoom’s new capabilities raise a suite of governance and security challenges that IT and compliance teams must weigh before broad adoption.
Data collection, retention, and indexing

• Cross‑platform note taking, BYOI (Bring Your Own Index) connectors, and agentic retrieval mean AI Companion can surface sensitive internal data if indexes and connectors are misconfigured. Admins must control what indexes agents can access and how long conversational memory is retained. Zoom documents features for BYOI and agent connectors — but organizations control configuration. (zoom.com)

Deepfake and avatar misuse

• Photoreal avatars and synthetic speech introduce deepfake risk. Zoom says it is adding authenticity and watermarking safeguards and gesture checks to mitigate misuse, but detection is imperfect and adversaries will attempt to bypass protections. Organizations with regulated communications (finance, healthcare) should treat avatar outputs as synthetic and place policy or technical blocks where required. (zoom.com)

Authentication and non‑repudiation

• When an avatar speaks “for” a user, organizations need methods to assert provenance: who authorized the clip, whether the avatar output was human‑approved, and whether it should be admissible for audit logs or legal evidence. Implement strict access controls, approval workflows, and preserved metadata and watermarks for synthetic outputs. (zoom.com)

Regulatory compliance and cross‑jurisdiction risk

• Real‑time transcription and cross‑platform capture implicate local privacy laws (e.g., audio recording consent) and sector rules (HIPAA, financial services). Before enabling cross‑app capture across Microsoft/Google meetings, confirm how consent and data residency are enforced. Zoom’s docs state features may vary by region; admins must evaluate compliance risk carefully. (news.zoom.com)

Model provenance and third‑party LLM use

• Zoom disclosed support for Model Context Protocol and integrations with multiple model providers; enterprises should map where models execute (on‑prem, cloud, which provider) and confirm whether any user content is used to train third‑party models. For sensitive workloads, prefer models and indexes that guarantee no training/derivative usage without consent. (zoom.com)

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Enterprise implications and use cases​

Where these features help most

• Distributed training and academic institutions — higher‑quality recordings and avatar‑assisted clips can scale lectures and office hours.
• Sales and CX teams — agentic prospecting and Virtual Agent enhancements (including “bring your own voice”) can automate outreach and intake work. (news.zoom.com)
• Hybrid work orchestration — AI Companion’s workspace reservation and “who’s in the office” workflows help coordinate hybrid attendance and in‑person meeting capture. (news.zoom.us)

Where to be cautious

• Regulated industries should limit avatar and synthetic‑voice usage until auditing, watermarks, and provenance are operationally enforced.
• Legal/eDiscovery teams must update policies to treat AI‑generated artifacts (avatar clips, expanded notes) as distinct classes of evidence with preserved metadata and approval history. (zoom.com)

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IT admin checklist: preparing for AI Companion 3.0 and avatars​

• Inventory current meeting platforms and record sources (Zoom, Teams, Meet, WebEx).
• Map sensitive data indexes and set strict access policies for BYOI connectors and agentic retrieval.
• Define consent and recording policies for cross‑platform and in‑person capture; update employee and external participant notices.
• Validate Zoom Rooms and capture hardware for 1080p/60fps workflows; test bandwidth/QoS for multi‑HD streams. (support.zoom.com)
• Configure governance for Custom AI Companion: approval workflows, admin whitelists, and audit logs.
• Decide where avatar usage is permitted; block in regulated meetings by default and require manual enablement with managerial approval.
• Train legal, compliance, and security teams on synthetic media policies and incident response for misuse.

These steps reduce friction and protect regulated processes while enabling useful AI features for the broader organization.

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Strengths: what Zoom gets right​

• Practical interoperability — making AI useful across Teams and Meet addresses real enterprise fragmentation and increases the value of Zoom’s assistant beyond the Zoom client. (news.zoom.com)
• Integration-first approach — BYOI and Model Context Protocol support lets enterprises tie AI outputs to their own knowledge graphs and indices, a critical requirement for business adoption. (zoom.com)
• Focus on asynchronous workflows — Zoom Clips + avatar generation + video management is a coherent product push for recorded/async communications, which enterprises increasingly favor over ad hoc meetings. (techcrunch.com)

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Risks and watchpoints​

• Deepfake/identity risk — photoreal avatars carry real reputational and compliance hazards; watermarking and gesture checks help but are not foolproof. (zoom.com)
• Data governance complexity — cross‑platform capture multiplies data flows; every admin must understand where conversational data ends up and how it’s indexed. (news.zoom.com)
• Operational overhead — higher frame rates and multi‑HD streams increase AV complexity and bandwidth needs; smaller orgs or remote participants may see degraded experiences without careful provisioning. (zoom.com)
• Vendor lock‑in and model provenance — using third‑party LLMs and protocols without clear contractual limits risks unintended data use; insist on contractual guarantees about training usage and data handling. (zoom.com)

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Recommended policies for cautious rollout​

• Start with a pilot group for Custom AI Companion and avatars limited to non‑sensitive use cases (training, marketing, internal comms).
• Require explicit manager approval for avatar or clip publication to external audiences.
• Enforce watermarking for all avatar outputs and preserve raw source recordings for auditability.
• Maintain a whitelist of allowed indexes and connectors for agentic retrieval; default to deny.
• Test network and room hardware for 60fps/HD streams prior to enabling organization‑wide. (zoom.com)

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Conclusion​

Zoom’s Zoomtopia 2025 announcements crystallize a broader industry shift: video conferencing vendors are no longer selling only media transport — they’re selling an AI productivity layer that interacts with the rest of the stack. AI Companion 3.0’s agentic focus, cross‑platform reach, and avatar capabilities make Zoom a contender for the role of “work OS” in hybrid enterprises. But the same features that promise automation and improved presence bring real governance, privacy, and anti‑fraud challenges.
For IT leaders, the immediate task is pragmatic: test, govern, and pilot. Validate capture and AV hardware for the new media profiles, lock down which enterprise indexes agents can surface, and treat photoreal avatars and synthetic voice as sensitive capabilities that require approval workflows and forensic metadata. Done well, these features will save hours of busywork and scale communication; done poorly, they risk compliance headaches and brand damage.
Zoom’s roadmap and pricing are now public: the company positions many AI Companion 3.0 features for GA in the weeks ahead for paid Workplace customers, with advanced customization and avatar features on a paid add‑on. Organizations should confirm exact availability and regional rollouts with their Zoom account team and incorporate the new capabilities into security, legal, and AV readiness plans before broad deployment. (news.zoom.com)

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Source: TechRadar Zoom is working on realistic avatars - and its AI companion will finally now work with Microsoft Teams and Google Meet