Monday, September 01, 2025
Zoom has taken a significant step forward by integrating its Virtual Agent with Zoom Phone, enabling businesses to connect callers directly with the right department without unnecessary transfers.
Traditionally, many customer calls pass through the contact center, where live agents either redirect the customer or act as intermediaries. Now, this new functionality introduces a powerful “24/7 AI receptionist” that can instantly route callers to the most relevant department.
Beyond simple call routing, the Virtual Agent engages with customers, identifies their intent, processes inputs, and leverages that information to streamline resolution. By capturing critical details upfront, it ensures employees receive helpful context, accelerating troubleshooting and improving overall customer experience.
Contact Center Technology Insights: Akamai and Aptum Partner to Help Customers Scale in Cloud
Departments using Zoom Phone can also take advantage of this AI-driven tool to automate routine tasks such as appointment scheduling and status updates. This democratizes capabilities that were once confined to large contact centers, making advanced automation accessible across diverse business setups.
Smita Hashim, Chief Product Officer at Zoom, emphasized the impact of this innovation: “When someone calls your business, it should feel easy and personal from the first hello. By combining AI that can listen, understand, and take action with the reach of Zoom Phone, our concierge virtual agent provides seamless and personalized support to all callers.
She further noted that the concierge can instantly assist with everyday needs like scheduling appointments, checking order status, or confirming product availability — escalating to live employees only when necessary.
This launch underscores Zoom’s strategy of unifying CCaaS, UCaaS, and conversational AI into one powerful platform. The company highlights that this approach particularly benefits organizations without large centralized contact centers — for example, healthcare providers or universities that operate multiple, smaller service points.
Contact Center Technology Insights: Motability Operations Selects AudioEye to Enhance Accessibility
In healthcare, the Virtual Agent can route patient calls directly to the nearest clinic and even schedule appointments via voice. Similarly, in education, universities can streamline inquiries across departments such as housing, medical services, and hospitality, all while maintaining a centralized support experience.
Even within large contact centers, the Virtual Agent acts as a concierge, capturing intent and relevant details before passing the customer along. This eliminates wasted time, as employees no longer need to search for information — the AI has already gathered it.
Of course, Zoom is not alone in this race. Competitor RingCentral launched its own AI Receptionist (AIR) earlier this year, with over 1,000 businesses adopting the solution within three months. Yet Zoom differentiates itself with a more comprehensive conversational AI platform that many enterprises already use, making it easier to extend existing deployments and strengthen swarming strategies.
Additionally, Zoom promises quick deployment “within minutes” using a no-code setup. The Virtual Agent already supports English, French, German, Portuguese, Japanese, and Spanish, with more languages “on the way.”
Contact Center Technology Insights: Hello Sugar Taps PolyAI to Scale and Automate CX
Alongside this integration, Zoom revealed several other enhancements to its enterprise communications suite:
AI Companion Auto-Scheduling
Zoom’s AI Companion, free for all users, now makes scheduling smarter and easier than ever. It reviews calendars, time zones, and out-of-office notices for both employees and external partners, then recommends the best meeting time. If someone declines, it suggests an alternative slot — reducing the tedious back-and-forth of meeting planning.
The New Zoom Hub
A major addition to Zoom Workspace, the Hub allows employees to store meeting summaries, whiteboards, documents, and clips in one place. Using natural language commands, the AI Companion helps teams quickly surface key assets, improving organization and collaboration.
Enhanced Zoom Team Chat Experience
Zoom has also upgraded its Team Chat by embedding the AI Companion directly into the mobile app’s compose bar. Users can generate draft messages, catch up on conversations, and even summarize stored files with a single click.
To join our expert panel discussions, reach out to sudipto@intentamplify.com
Tags:
Boost.ai recognized as a Leader for strong execution and a clear, complete vision in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Conversational AI Platforms.
Beckerman will lead cross-functional growth and drive key strategic initiatives across strategy, operations, and company culture at iQor.
