Zoom Video Communications Inc. is upgrading its videoconferencing platform with a new set of email and calendar features. 

The features made their debut today at the company’s annual Zoomtopia 2022 product event. During the event, Zoom also introduced an artificial intelligence assistant for fielding customer support requests and new developer tools.

Users can now access third-party email and calendar applications through the Zoom interface thanks to two new integrations. The integrations are designed to save time for users by removing the need to toggle between multiple tabs. “The Zoom Mail and Calendar Clients (beta) will let any Zoom user — free or paid — access their existing email accounts from popular third-party email services directly in the Zoom desktop app,” Zoom Chief Product Officer Oded Gal wrote in a blog post. 

In parallel, the company is rolling out its own internally developed email and calendar services. The services, which are known as the Zoom Mail Service and Zoom Calendar Service, run on cloud infrastructure hosted by the company. The Zoom Mail Service offers up to 100 gigabytes of inbox storage capacity as well as end-to-end encryption features.

“Zoom Mail Service offers end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for emails sent directly between active Zoom Mail Service users and expiring emails with access-restricted links for external recipients,” Gal detailed.

The services made their debut alongside a new AI assistant called the Zoom Virtual Agent. The assistant, which is set to become available next year, can be used by companies to automatically answer common customer support requests. Zoom says the Zoom Virtual Agent can help improve the customer experience while saving time for help desk teams.

The offering expands Zoom’s growing lineup of department-specific products. The company also offers Zoom IQ for Sales, a tool that enables sales departments to analyze customer presentations and find areas for improvement. The offering is now being updated with a new training feature called Zoom IQ Virtual Coach that salespeople can use to hone their skills.

Organizations can also integrate third-party sales tools and other software products with Zoom using pre-packaged connectors distributed by the company. The connectors are available through a software catalog known as the Zoom App Marketplace.

As part of the updates announced today, Zoom will make it easier for third-party developers to monetize software they distribute through the Zoom App Marketplace. The task of integrating a third-party application with multiple Zoom products is set to become simpler as well. Information technology teams, in turn, are receiving a feature that will reduce the amount of manual work involved in deploying software from the Zoom App Marketplace.

Image: Zoom