Zoom launches camera-ready, non-bed head AI avatars that attend meetings for you

Zoom is launching photorealistic AI avatars that can attend meetings on your behalf, allowing users to appear polished even when they’re not “camera-ready.” The feature, rolling out to Workplace users in December, represents a significant step toward CEO Eric Yuan’s vision of digital twins that can handle tasks like meetings and emails autonomously.

How it works: Users can create AI avatars by uploading or capturing photos directly in the app, then customize them with professional outfits.
• The avatar tracks your real-time movements and speech during meetings, creating a lifelike representation even if you just rolled out of bed.
• This builds on Zoom’s existing feature that lets users send prerecorded messages with AI avatars, but now extends to live meeting participation.

Built-in safeguards: Zoom plans to implement authentication measures to prevent avatar misuse and ensure transparency.
• The platform will use “live camera authentication” to verify that users are uploading legitimate photos of themselves, preventing people from attending meetings as celebrities like Keanu Reeves.
• Meeting participants will see “in-meeting tile notices” indicating when someone is using an AI avatar.
• “This feature remains in development, and specific enrollment and authentication processes may change before general availability,” said Smita Hashim, Zoom’s chief product officer.

The bigger vision: This launch moves Zoom closer to CEO Eric Yuan’s concept of comprehensive digital twins.
• During a June 2024 interview, Yuan described a future where AI agents use your likeness to make decisions and perform tasks on your behalf.
• The technology could eventually handle routine meetings and automatically respond to emails without human intervention.

Additional December updates: Zoom is also launching real-time voice translation and expanding its AI assistant capabilities.
• The translation feature will convert speech in real-time across nine languages: English, German, Chinese, French, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, Portuguese, and Italian.
• An updated AI assistant will be able to schedule meetings, create video clips, and take notes during in-person meetings on other platforms like Microsoft Teams and Google Meet.