Zoom may have experienced a minor fall from grace during the pandemic when Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and a plethora of other videoconferencing tools emerged to swipe its crown.
But the California-based technology company is coming back swinging with a raft of new features and upgrades which could see it regain status as top dog.
The most interesting feature is Zoom’s new ‘Immersive Scenes’, which is suspiciously similar to Teams’ ‘Together Mode’.
Zoom’s Immersive Scenes allows users to set up a background during a meeting which places all participants in a shared scene, like a classroom or conference room.
It also added more non-verbal sounds, reactions and animations to the chat function, such as the word ‘yes’ and the sound of clapping.
The next feature is Video Waiting Rooms, where hosts can see a guest’s video when they are in awaiting room to allow them to verify their identity before admitting them.
This is perhaps a response to Zoom’s early security and privacy issues during the start of Covid-19 where users who were not invited were able to join and spy on meetings easily.
Zoom is also adding end-to-end encryption, which will be available as a technical preview from next week, allowing users to host up to 200 people on an end-to-end encrypted video call.
This feature means no one has the keys to access your Zoom meeting, including Zoom itself and even law enforcement.
Microsoft Teams and Google Meet are encrypted, but not end-to-end.
“End-to-end encryption is another stride toward making Zoom the most secure communications platform in the world,” said Zoom CEO Eric S. Yuan.
“This phase of our E2EE offering provides the same security as existing end-to-end-encrypted messaging platforms, but with the video quality and scale that has made Zoom the communications solution of choice for hundreds of millions of people and the world’s largest enterprises.”
Other features added to Zoom this month include Recording Highlights, which uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to extract key insights from your recording transcripts and make it easy to review the meeting highlights.
It also added a debrief room for hosts to chat after a Zoom call has ended and a customised lobby.
Read more about Zoom’s new features and upgrades here.
