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3 minute read
Summary
On this episode of Direct from the Expo, The Collab Collective’s Craig Durr talks with Smita Hashim, Chief Product Officer of Zoom, live from Enterprise Connect 2025. Their conversation dives into Zoom’s AI advancements, the shift from AI Companion to Agentic AI, and how this evolution impacts collaboration, workplace efficiency, and customer experience.
Their Discussion Covers:
- The Evolution of Zoom AI Companion: How Zoom’s AI has progressed from meeting summaries to full task automation.
- Agentic AI Explained: What agentic AI means and how it enhances collaboration and efficiency.
- New Zoom AI Features: A look at AI-driven calendar scheduling, document creation, and industry-specific solutions.
- AI’s Role in Work and Education: How AI is shaping productivity, education, and customer interactions.
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Transcript
Craig Durr: How are you doing? This is Craig Durr, Chief Analyst and Founder of The Collab Collective, and we are Direct from the Expo at Enterprise Connect 2025. I’m really excited about this next interview because it features one of today’s keynote speakers from Zoom, Smita Hashim, Chief Product Officer of Zoom.
Welcome. How are you?
Smita Hashim: I'm doing great. Thank you for having me here.
Craig Durr: You had an incredible story on stage. First, I think you had everyone's attention, which is always great. You were talking about AI and how Zoom is evolving in this space. We've talked about Zoom AI Companion before, but now you’re introducing the concept of agentic AI. Can you share that story?
Smita Hashim: Yeah, absolutely. We love AI, and we love generative AI. The possibilities are tremendous. We started this journey two years ago with meeting summaries, and we’ve been evolving ever since. I want to talk a bit about this journey to put things in context.
We approached AI in a very thoughtful and considered way. First, we saw its potential and decided every user should benefit from it. That’s why we included Zoom AI Companion at no additional cost for all paid licenses.
Second, we wanted our customers to be comfortable using AI in Zoom, so we took a stance—we do not use customer data for training either Zoom’s models or third-party models.
Finally, we focused on making AI easy to use and high quality. Since different AI models have different strengths, we adopted a federated approach, dynamically selecting the best model for each task.
Craig Durr: You’re hitting all the key points. Zoom AI Companion 1.0 introduced AI into workflows, but now you’re taking it further with agentic AI. The term agentic is getting used a lot lately. How should we think about it in the Zoom context?
Smita Hashim: Agentic AI is about AI acting more like a human assistant. It incorporates reasoning, memory, orchestration, and task execution—just like how you and I decide what tools to use to complete a job.
For example, if I need to schedule a meeting, AI should recognize the context, find the right people, coordinate availability, and take action—just like a human assistant would. That’s what we introduced today.
Craig Durr: That’s an exciting shift. What are some of your favorite features coming out of this?
Smita Hashim: Personally, I love the calendar scheduling feature. With complex schedules and multiple stakeholders, it’s a challenge to find the right time. Our AI does this automatically, even kicking off a chat conversation to confirm details.
Another feature I love is Zoom Docs. AI can now pull relevant information from past meetings, chats, and even external sources to help create documents. It then suggests edits and expansions while allowing you to refine the content.
Craig Durr: And you also introduced industry-specific AI applications, right?
Smita Hashim: Yes. One example is education. As someone from a family of educators, I love this use case. Our AI can generate lecture materials by pulling together data, making them more interactive. Teachers can see heatmaps of where students struggle, helping them adjust lessons in real time.
In healthcare, we’re developing AI-powered clinical note-taking to reduce the documentation burden on doctors. These are just a couple of ways AI can create meaningful impact.
Craig Durr: You ended your keynote with a powerful perspective on AI’s role. Can you share that here?
Smita Hashim: For us, AI isn't about AI itself—it’s about helping people do more impactful, fulfilling work. AI should remove mundane tasks so we can focus on meaningful connections and creative problem-solving.
Craig Durr: That’s a great philosophy. When can users start seeing these new AI features in their Zoom experience?
Smita Hashim: Starting in April 2025, customers will get access to AI Studio, where they’ll start seeing more agentic skills and the ability to build AI-powered agents. This rollout will continue throughout the year.
Craig Durr: I’ll be keeping an eye out—especially for that calendar agent to help us coordinate our next conversation! Smita, thank you for sharing these insights today at Enterprise Connect 2025. I appreciate it.
Everyone, this is Craig Durr with The Collab Collective, bringing you more insights Direct from the Expo.
