What is AI Companion in Zoom?

Zoom AI Companion was Zoom's built-in AI assistant, designed to handle transcription, meeting summaries, and task tracking inside your meetings. With AI Companion 3.0, launched in December 2025, it expanded from note-taking into a full agentic assistant that works across your apps and workflow. As of June 2026, Zoom is retiring the AI Companion brand, with its features living on natively within Zoom Workplace.

Here's what you'll learn:

• What Zoom AI Companion was and how it worked
• Key Zoom AI Companion features now part of Zoom Workplace
• What's replacing it with ZoomMate
• How to access and enable Zoom's AI features today
• How Tactiq compares as an alternative

What Was Zoom AI Companion?

Zoom AI Companion was an agentic AI assistant built directly into the Zoom platform. It went beyond transcription and note-taking to surface information and automate follow-up tasks across your workflow. You could also access it outside of live meetings via a browser.

It worked across:

• Zoom meetings
• Zoom Phone
• Zoom Team Chat

As of June 2026, the AI Companion name is being retired. Its features remain native tools within Zoom Workplace, now under the ZoomMate brand. More on that below.

Zoom does not use customer audio, video, chat, screen sharing, or other communications to train Zoom's or third-party artificial intelligence models. Your meeting data stays yours.

💡 Pro tip: If your team meets across Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, Tactiq keeps all your transcripts and summaries in one place. No switching tools between calls.

Zoom AI Companion Features (Now Part of Zoom Workplace)

Zoom AI Companion offered a range of AI features built directly into the Zoom platform. Since the June 2026 rebrand, these capabilities continue as native Zoom Workplace features, just without the AI Companion label. Here's a look at what they cover.

Real-time transcription and meeting summaries

Zoom AI Companion captured spoken words in real time and turned them into a live transcript. This let participants follow along without taking manual notes, even across different accents and languages. The real-time transcription feature worked across Zoom meetings, picking up audio from all participants regardless of accent or dialect.

Meeting summaries were generated automatically after each call, pulling out key discussion points, decisions, and action items. You can also access past meeting summaries outside of live meetings at ai.zoom.us, making it easy to catch up or share notes without digging through recordings.

Smart recordings took this further, automatically dividing cloud recordings into smart chapters so you can skip directly to the important moments.

Agentic AI and cross-app retrieval

AI Companion 3.0 introduced agentic retrieval, which pulls relevant information from across your connected tools without manual prompts. It searches across:

• Zoom meeting summaries, transcripts, and notes
• Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive
• Zoom Docs

You can also access this at ai.zoom.us outside of any live meeting. Zoom Phone users benefit from Phone to Tasks, which automatically converts follow-up actions from call summaries and voicemails into Zoom Tasks, assigning owners and deadlines without any manual input.

Availability and pricing

AI features are included at no extra cost with paid Zoom Workplace plans: Pro, Business, and Enterprise. Basic (free) users get limited access, including summaries for up to three hosted meetings per month and 20 AI queries per month.

What's Replacing Zoom’s AI Companion: Introducing ZoomMate

Launched June 1, 2026, ZoomMate is Zoom's new agentic AI product, built to move work from conversation to completion. Where the native Zoom Workplace AI features handle specific in-meeting tasks, ZoomMate operates across your entire workday: capturing context, executing follow-ups, and taking action across connected business systems without manual prompting.

ZoomMate connects to tools like Salesforce, Jira, ServiceNow, Slack, Google Workspace, and Microsoft 365 to automatically create tasks, update records, and generate deliverables directly from meeting context. It also includes the full AI Productivity Suite (Canvas, Slides, Sheets, and Paper) for turning meeting insights into polished documents and presentations.

Advanced capabilities run on a credits model. Each paid plan includes 2,200 AI credits per user per month. Some features are available without credits:

• AI queries
• Basic workflows
• Search across Zoom assets

ZoomMate is available in two tiers:

• ZoomMate Basic: Free, included with Zoom Workplace Basic. Covers meeting summaries for three hosted meetings per month, 20 AI queries per month, and limited agentic search.
• ZoomMate (paid): $16.67/user/month billed annually. Includes unlimited note-taking, custom agents, third-party app connections, deep research, and the full AI Productivity Suite.

How to Access and Enable Zoom's AI Features (Post-Rebrand)

Zoom's AI features are built into Zoom Workplace and ready to use once your admin enables them. First, update your Zoom Workplace app to the latest version. Then an account admin needs to enable AI features at the account level before anyone on the team can access them.

To enable AI features as an admin:

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal as an admin.
2. Click Account Management, then Account Settings.
3. Click the Zoom AI tab.
4. Toggle on Allow AI on this account.
5. Under Meeting, toggle on Meeting Summary with AI.
6. Optionally toggle on Allow users to ask meeting questions with AI.
7. Optionally enable Auto-start when the meeting starts.
8. Click Save.

The meeting host is the only person who can start or stop AI features during a live meeting. Participants can request it, but cannot control it themselves.

To turn off AI features during a meeting:

1. In the top-right corner of the meeting window, hover over the sparkle icon.
2. Unselect Meeting Summary, or click Stop AI Companion to turn off all features.

To turn off AI features at the account level:

1. Go to Account Management > Account Settings > AI tab.
2. Toggle off Meeting Summary with AI.
3. Use the visibility option to hide the button from the meeting toolbar.

You can also visit ai.zoom.us to access Zoom's AI features outside of any live meeting. This is useful for reviewing past meeting summaries, catching up on action items, or running agentic searches across your connected tools.

Why Tactiq Is the Ideal Alternative to Zoom AI Companion

If you need a flexible AI meeting summary tool that works across platforms, Tactiq is a strong alternative. It works as a Chrome extension and transcribes your meetings in real time across Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. No bot or recording required.

Key advantages of Tactiq:

• No recording required. Tactiq gives you AI summaries, action items, and meeting notes without recording the session. Your meeting attendees won't see a bot join the call.
• Instant AI access. Get real-time meeting insights right after the call, including summaries, action items, and team spaces to keep your whole team aligned.
• Seamless integration. Works across Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, and connects with tools like Google Drive, OneDrive, and Slack to keep your workflow moving.

To get all the benefits of AI meeting transcription without platform lock-in, Tactiq is worth adding to your stack. Add the Tactiq Chrome Extension for free and start transcribing your next meeting.

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Making the Most of Zoom's AI Features

Zoom AI Companion set the standard for built-in meeting AI. Its core features, like transcription, summaries, and task automation, continue inside Zoom Workplace after the rebrand. For teams already on a paid Zoom plan, those capabilities are still there, just without the AI Companion label.

ZoomMate takes things further for teams that need deeper automation and cross-app execution, while Tactiq remains the go-to for flexible, bot-free meeting transcription across platforms.

Whatever your setup, the goal is the same: spend less time on manual follow-up and more time on the work that matters.

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