“Business communication is evolving at a rapid pace as the line that once separated video conferencing from traditional internal communications begins to disappear,” Mitch Ricks, global leader, ISV Partners at Zoom, says. “Streamlining how Korbyt’s platform connects with the Zoom platform is an important development that makes it much easier for our customers to enjoy frictionless communications across their businesses.”

Integration with Zoom Ecosystem

Per a statement, Korbyt’s integration with the Zoom ecosystem is the first major product milestone since the company received a significant growth investment from Clearhaven Partners. That is a Boston-based private-equity firm. The investment aims to accelerate Korbyt’s growth trajectory. It will do so by expanding partnerships, facilitating customer-support growth and catalyzing further innovation of Korbyt’s cloud-native SaaS platform, Korbyt Anywhere.

According to the company, Korbyt Anywhere is a cloud-based CMS with capabilities to engage employees via a wide range of channels. This includes digital signage, desktop, web, email and mobile devices. Adding native support for Zoom has the potential to easily double or even triple the number of endpoints, says the company. It does so by expanding the Korbyt ecosystem to hundreds of thousands of conference rooms.

Enabling Seamless Communication

This native app integration thus creates a direct path into the Zoom ecosystem. As a result, conference-room screens — even those not connected to media players — now have powerful management capabilities. With this, it is possible to seamlessly share employee communications content throughout the organization.

“A primary strength of Korbyt Anywhere is the ability to reach employees on their terms, wherever they may be,” Andrew Gildin, vice president, channel sales and revenue operations at Korbyt, says. “Integrating more tightly with the Zoom platform builds on that strength by bringing countless new conference room endpoints within reach to make it easier than ever to manage content seamlessly across any corporate setting.”

The company adds that users do not require any new hardware to display content on conference room screens. They simply have to download and install the Korbyt app from the Zoom App Marketplace. Users can then broadcast content to any network-connected screen via Zoom.

The solution thus delivers a seamless experience and takes full advantage of AV equipment already in place. As a result, it provides businesses a hassle-free internal-communications solution at no additional cost.

Another version of this article originally appeared on our sister-site Commercial Integrator on August 11, 2023. It has since been updated for My TechDecisions’ audience.

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“As more people return to the office, it’s no longer enough to deliver the best remote worker experience; every business needs a solution to deliver the best hybrid meeting experience,” says Smita Hashim, chief product officer at Zoom. “Even with some employees in the office, oftentimes other team members are dispersed, so meeting equity and inclusion become more important than ever. Intelligent Director is the solution that can bring employees together, regardless of location, so they can truly connect face-to-face.”

Intelligent Director is specifically designed for medium- to larger-sized rooms and helps avoid the “bowling alley effect.” Intelligent Director can individually frame up to 16 participants in a Zoom Room using multiple cameras, choosing the best video stream via a Zoom-designed AI, and send that stream to the gallery view of the Zoom Meeting.

An evolution of Zoom’s Smart Gallery feature, which uses a single camera and AI to give each person in a small to medium-sized room their own space in a Zoom Meeting, Intelligent Director takes this same technology for larger conference rooms.

For bigger meeting spaces, it is easier to be hidden by others when only using a single camera; Intelligent Director’s multi-camera configuration and use of video AI technology provide meeting equity to everyone in the room, selecting the best view of each individual, even if they move around or turn their heads. Remote participants can now have face-to-face conversations with each Zoom Rooms participant, allowing in-room participants to be seen and heard.

Intelligent Director is made possible through the support of Zoom’s hardware partner ecosystem. Manufacturers, including Apple, AVer, Dell, HP | Poly, Intel, Logitech, and Yealink have supported Zoom with the computer, controller and camera solutions necessary to produce this major advancement.

Another version of this article originally appeared on our sister-site Commercial Integrator on June 27, 2023. It has since been updated for My TechDecisions’ audience.

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Specifically, the Zoom IQ tools launched today are Zoom Meeting summary and Zoom Team Chat compose, which leverage both large language models from ChatGPT creators OpenAI as well as Zoom’s own large language model.

Meeting summary allows Zoom Meeting hosts to create a summary powered by the company’s own AI models, and the hosts can then share it via Zoom Team Chat and email without having to record the conversation, Zoom says.

Hosts will receive automated summaries, which can be shared with both attendees and those who didn’t attend so they can catch up on what they missed.

Team Chat compose leverages OpenAI’s technology to enable Zoom Team Chat users to draft messages based on the context of a Team Chat thread in addition to changing message tone and length as well as rephrasing responses to customize text recommendations, the company says.

To use these Zoom IQ features, customers will need to go to the Zoom admin console and opt into the free trials for each feature. As part of the opt-in, customers will also select data-sharing options with Zoom. Account admins may change this data-sharing selection at any time. Customer data will not be used to train third-party models, the company says.

Zoom is working on several other AI-powered Zoom IQ features, including email compose, Zoom Team Chat thread summaries, meeting queries, whiteboard draft and whiteboard synthesize.

According to Zoom, its federated approach to AI leverages its own proprietary large language AI models, those from leading AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, and select customers’ own models.

Zoom wants that flexibility to incorporate multiple types of models to provide the most value for its customers’ diverse needs.

“With the introduction of these new capabilities in Zoom IQ, an incredible generative AI assistant, teams can further enhance their productivity for everyday tasks, freeing up more time for creative work and expanding collaboration,” said Smita Hashim, chief product officer at Zoom. “There is no one-size-fits-all approach to large language models, and with Zoom’s federated approach to AI, we are able to bring powerful capabilities to our customers and users through Zoom’s own models as well as our partners’ models.”

The post Zoom Launches Trials for Zoom IQ Meeting Summary, Team Chat Compose appeared first on My TechDecisions.

We turned to Danny Hayasaka, senior director of marketing and emerging technology with Call One, Inc., and Hello Direct, Inc., who has developed a reputation as a product tester for various devices. Today, he oversees a YouTube channel with 10,700 subscribers and well over five million views. One major reason for its popularity is his fierce independence. “I test solutions across multiple brands,” Hayasaka explains. “No one pays me to talk about these devices.” 

So, when Hayasaka praises Yealink’s MeetingBar A10, it’s because the product truly deserves it. “The goal is to help people and businesses make more informed purchasing decisions,” he explains. Discussing his early interactions with Yealink several years ago, Hayasaka recalls the company’s desire to attain excellence and its appetite for candid feedback. “They really are huge into creating the best product for people,” he attests. Those initial conversations, spurred by Yealink looking to break into the headset space, evolved as video blew up during the pandemic. Hayasaka immediately knew Yealink was a natural fit with the solutions Call One and Hello Direct provide to their customers. “They have so many ideas and solutions that they’ve passed my way,” he marvels. 

The Yealink MeetingBar A10: Price and Performance 

Hayasaka is truly excited about the MeetingBar A10, an all-in-one video bar that includes microphones, speakers, a 4K camera and more. It’s designed for smaller meeting spaces, including dedicated offices, small focus spaces and huddle rooms. Leveraging the Android 11 OS, the MeetingBar A10 is remarkably flexible, running Microsoft Teams and Zoom Rooms natively and permitting BYOD. Hayasaka praises the framing modes, which include manual PTZ, auto-framing and speaker tracking. He compliments the MeetingBar A10’s transitions, saying that, if a speaker being tracked moves from one location to another, it’ll do a fade effect. 

With the rise of soft-codec solutions and the shift to the cloud, it’s now possible to video enable many spaces across corporate campuses. Hayasaka recalls, “It [used to] cost anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000 or more to outfit one of these spaces” with bulky, hardware-centric solutions. But with soft codecs, the cost per room has plummeted. Hayasaka praises the MeetingBar A10’s price point ($899), saying, “It’s actually one of the least-expensive options that’s going to be available.” He adds, “Having all the capabilities, features [and] functionality of the MeetingBar A10 for less than $900 is outstanding.” 

The Yealink MeetingBar A10: Simplicity and Wireless Sharing 

Hayasaka praises the simplicity of the MeetingBar A10. Defining “simple” from an end user’s perspective, he explains, “I don’t need to pay some installer to come in and install every room.” Instead, any team member can do it. After all, Hayasaka says, even the most tech-phobic among us can plug in an HDMI cable or plug in a network cable. And users get a familiar-feeling experience because the MeetingBar A10 is certified on Teams and Zoom. 

The MeetingBar A10 truly stands apart in its wireless sharing capabilities. Consider this typical scenario: Someone walks into a collaboration space with their laptop, and they want to not only share content but also take over the hardware that’s in the space — without having to connect anything. Competitor products, Hayasaka says, require a third-party wireless conferencing solution. By contrast, with the MeetingBar A10’s Device Mode and the WPP30 Wireless Presentation Pod (an inexpensive accessory), Yealink achieves true wireless flexibility. Users simply plug the WPP30 into the video bar, get a message indicating successful pairing and disconnect it. Then, they can plug the WPP30 into any laptop (via USB-C or USB-A) to drive the MeetingBar A10. “Within seconds, now you’re sharing,” Hayasaka enthuses. After that initial pairing with the MeetingBar A10, the WPP30 can stay in the room, ready for whoever wants to connect wirelessly. 

Tech Must Adapt to Us 

Device Mode aligns well with our expectation for technology solutions to adapt to our own workflow and preferences. These days, many companies are making an organizational commitment to Teams or Zoom, but the MeetingBar A10, via Device Mode, offers much greater flexibility. “[People] want that wireless capability and the ability to join whatever meeting platform they want, when they want,” Hayasaka propounds. “I can join whatever meeting I want right from my laptop and utilize the MeetingBar A10 as my audio and video device, wirelessly.” It’s just another way Yealink’s MeetingBar A10 stands apart. 

Watch Hayasaka discuss Yealink’s MeetingBar A10:

To get more information, visit https://www.yealink.com/en/product-detail/microsoft-teams-rooms-meetingbar-a10. 

The post Yealink MeetingBar A10: Revolutionizing and Democratizing Collaboration  appeared first on My TechDecisions.

Zoom is first launching this Claude AI chatbot integration with Zoom Contact Center, but has plans to bring it throughout the entire platform, including Chat, Meetings, Phone, Whiteboard and Zoom IQ.

According to Zoom, the videoconferencing and collaboration giant has a “federated approach” to AI that leverages its own proprietary AI models along with those from leading AI companies–such as Anthropic–and select customers’ models.

Zoom says this gives the company the flexibility to incorporate multiple types of models to provide the most value for customers’ diverse needs and allow them to be customized to perform better for a customer based on their specific needs.

According to Zoom, it plans to incorporate Claude and Anthropic AI throughout its Zoom Contact Center suite of tools, which includes Zoom Virtual Agent, Zoom Contact Center and Zoom Workforce Management.

The intended result is to elevate the quality of customer experiences through better self-service and the ability to accurately understand customer intent. Zoom says the AI-enabled suite of contact center solutions will help guide customers to the best resolutions and surface insights that managers can use to coach agents and improve productivity.

Zoom also plans to use Claude and other AI tools to provide the right resources to contact center agents to help improve customer service.

The San Jose, Calif.-based firm says the integrations come with an investment into Anthropic and Claude for an undisclosed amount.

Notably, Anthropic is also backed by a sizable investment from Google, with the news of the relationship coming in February as Microsoft began heavily investing in ChatGPT creator OpenAI and integrating the AI firm’s large language models into its own products and with the goal of integrating AI assistants and other tools across the Microsoft 365 suite.

In a statement, Smita Hashim, Zoom’s chief product officer, calls Anthropic’s Constitutional AI model “primed to provide safe and responsible integrations” for Zoom’s next-generation innovations.

“With Claude guiding agents toward trustworthy resolutions and powering self-service for end-users, companies will be able to take customer relationships to another level,” Hasim said. “Partnering with Anthropic also furthers our commitment to providing customers with our federated approach to AI, optimized to deliver outstanding customer experience outcomes. Additionally, with our investment, we are advancing leading-edge companies like Anthropic and helping to drive innovation in the Zoom ecosystem and beyond.”

The post Zoom to Integrate Anthropic AI’s Claude Throughout Platform appeared first on My TechDecisions.

In between calls while I’m nose-deep in a Word document, I typically throw on some tunes to put me in the zone. However, my home’s acoustics are a little wonky. Noise from my speakers travels very clearly from my home office down the stairwell to the rest of the house.

I’ve experimented with a few different headset/earbud solutions. My first experiment to equip myself for remote working was a gaming headset that I rarely used. In all honestly, it did the trick for a few weeks during the initial lockdown phase of the pandemic. However, the gaming headset was huge and didn’t have the luxury of Bluetooth. I tried a few different other headsets from audio and collaboration manufacturers, which were significantly better. Despite all that, I wanted something that could transition conveniently from taking work calls at my desk, to quickly leaving the house to walk my dogs while listening to podcasts.

About the Poly Voyager Free 60 Series

Poly has an extensive portfolio of videoconferencing and collaboration devices for a variety of different scenarios, but much of the company’s new releases center around one idea: simplicity and flexibility. The Voyager Free 60 earbuds are no different.

The Voyager Free 60 series are wireless earbuds designed for work, but are equally suited to be taken on walks, bike rides, or the gym. (Poly doesn’t recommend hard workouts with these in your ears, but they seem to hold up just fine.) These earbuds are versatile enough to replace multiple sets of earbuds or headsets that hybrid or remote workers usually have for different scenarios.

The company’s newest earbuds come in three versions:

• Poly Voyager Free 60 with a standard charge chase, support for premium calls and music.
• Poly Voyager Free 60 UC with the same standard charge case but equipped with enterprise-grade audio and music and certifications for Microsoft Teams and Zoom.
• Poly Voyager Free 60+ UC with the same features as the Free 60 UC but with a touchscreen charge case.

Poly Voyager Free 60+ features

For our purposes here, we’ll focus on the Voyager Free 60+. Poly markets these as built for work, but designed for everyday life, and I’d say that is a very accurate assessment.

The Voyager Free 60+ earbuds feature a stem design with six microphones, as well as noise cancelling technologies that makes the user’s voice the focus of work calls. Specifically, they feature the company’s NoiseBlockAI and Acoustic Fence technology that blocks out unwanted noises and focuses only on the user’s voice.

The Voyager Free 60+ UC earbuds come with a dongle but can also be connected to another device via Bluetooth, so users can seamlessly transition from a work call from their desktop to music streaming from a mobile device.

The company claims up to five hours of talk time with ANC on, and the charge case provides another 10 hours of talk time. I’d say those claims ring true, as I rarely need to charge the charge case itself. However, it seems to charge quickly.

With the company’s Poly Lens app, users can customize their experience with a range of tools, with the ability to change settings such as wearing sensor, active call audio, auto-answer, auto-pause, noise cancellation and a range of other settings.

For control features on the earbuds themselves, the Voyager Free 60+ UC includes gesture controls for volume, ANC, mute and more. A physical button can pause music or start and answers calls.

However, the charge case itself has a touchscreen with even more functionality, such as call control, media playback control, battery status and other features.

If you’re like me and have a few dozen pairs of airline earbuds because you live in 2023 and don’t own any wired headphones to watch in-flight entertainment, the Voyager Free 60 earbuds have you covered! The earbuds come with an option to plug the charge case into a headphone jack that will stream audio to the earbuds.

Another great feature is transparency mode that allows you to hear your surroundings without having to remove an earbud. If you find talking with earbuds or headphones weird, then this feature can help you to hear your own voice. This really does make a difference. It can be configured to pick up any sounds in your environment or just voices.

Seamless Audio Connectivity

Essentially everything Poly says about these earbuds rings true, and they could compete with other earbuds on the market in terms of sound quality. However, what makes these stand out from others is just how simple and intuitive they are in work scenarios, especially with the charge case.

I’ve had some Bluetooth headsets and earbuds that routinely lose connection and can’t easily transition from my laptop to my mobile device, but the Poly Voyager Free 60+ UC earbuds do so seamlessly. This helps me leave the house to run a quick errand with them still in my ears, but also allows me to hop on a work call when I return.

Earbuds can be uncomfortable to wear for more than a few hours. The Voyager Free 60 earbuds have three conical-shaped earbud tip sizes and are comfortable enough to use all day, if you find the right size.

The post Poly’s New Voyager Free 60+ Earbuds Fit the Bill for Hybrid Work appeared first on My TechDecisions.

The company’s release of small conference room bundles adds to Biamp’s existing conference room bundles that include solutions for both medium and large conferencing spaces.

According to Biamp, the bundles provide options for other unified communication-controlled rooms leveraging Google Meet, Zoom or Microsoft Teams, as well as bring-your-own-meeting (BYOM) scenarios in which users can manage meetings on their own devices.

Biamp’s new BYOM meeting room solution for small rooms starts with the Devio SCR family of devices for PCs running Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, Cisco Webex and other conferencing platforms. The Devio SCR devices support a single USB connection to a host computer for audio and video media using DisplayLink USB graphics technology the company says.

The company’s BYOM bundles include a range of options, such as pairing the Devio SCR-10 with a Vidi 250 camera as an entry-level solution, along with Parlé table mics, Parlé ceiling mics, or pendent mics featuring Parlé Beamtracking technology to intelligently track and mix conversations from around the room.

These systems can also be paired with the Vidi family of 4K conferencing cameras, the company says.

In addition, Biamp says the  Parlé VBC 2500a and Parlé ABC 2500a all-in-one conferencing bars will be compatible with assistive listening systems beginning this month. The bars feature a new dedicated 3.5-militeter output connector with a mono balanced line level output for users requiring hearing assistance.

Included in the room kits is the Biamp Launch software that analyzes and tunes the acoustic performance of the room, including ALS. The Parle bars can be controlled via a BYOM device or through a dedicated UC host device, the company says.

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According to Microsoft this unlocks top-requested Teams Rooms features for both users and IT admins, such as Front Row, persistent chat, consistent remote management capabilities and more. The new Surface Hub 2S with this new experience will become available later this year, and existing Surface Hub 2S devices will have a path to migrate to this experience at a future data, the company says.

“The future of Surface Hub will meet the realities of modern work, combining the latest Teams Rooms features with the iconic Surface Hub 2S design and premium hardware – a thin edge and bezel, dual active inking, and 20-point multi-touch – and providing users with a natural experience for enhanced collaboration,” the company says in a Tech Community blog.

The change means users and IT will have added functionality for Surface Hub 2S in Microsoft Teams Admin Center and Pro Management Portal, consistent with other Teams Rooms devices. In addition, IT can use Microsoft Intune  and classic management options with System Center Manager.

In addition to Front Row and Chat, users can use the Microsoft Whiteboard feature and will be able to quickly start a meeting with remote participants who can collaborate across the same whiteboard in real-time.

The Surface Hub 2S will also pair with the full list of Teams Rooms-certified accessories for use in any meeting space, Microsoft says.

In addition to Teams, users can join Zoom and Webex meetings from then Surface Hub 2S with via a one-touch join experience.

Organizations running the current Windows 10 Team Edition experience on Surface Hub 2S will continue to get support with security updates and critical fixes through October 14, 2025, the company says. The Teams Rooms experience will only be available to Surface Hub 2S devices, both 50 inches and 85 inches.

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The feature essentially allows Zoom users to leverage the identity and access management technology from Okta to authenticate a meeting attendee’s identity by email in end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) meetings.

According to Zoom, users will know when a meeting attendee is authenticated when a blue shield appears next to their name in the meeting participant list. Other attendees can hover over the icon to see a pop-up window that displays authenticated information about that person, including their company domain and corresponding Okta-verified email address. Users can then use that information to verify that it matches the person they were expecting.

Aurora Brigham, Zoom’s lead product manager for privacy, says in a blog that Okta has become a core component of a modern zero trust approach.

“By weaving its technology into E2EE meetings, Zoom is striving to add an extra layer of security to virtual communication while maintaining our seamless and consistent experience,” Brigham says.

According to Brigham’s blog, Okta Authentication for E2EE in Zoom can be enabled by account administrators in the security tab of the Zoom web portal. Admins also need to download the Zoom E2E app from Okta and enable the feature flag called Okta Authentication for Zoom E2E Encryption, the company says.

Once the feature is turned on, a user can choose to enable the sharing of their identity in E2EE meetings by turning it on in settings. Depending on a user’s settings, they may get authenticated automatically or redirected to the Okta webpage to finish authentication with their credentials for two-factor authentication.

Once an attendee is authenticated, the blue shield will give other participants reassurance that the person they’re communicating with is the right person.

Brigham says this can help cut back on the toggle tax, which is defined as the time wasted by switching between apps to get work done.

“With Okta’s robust identity technology available right in your meeting, you can focus on meaningful communication without having to sacrifice effective security,” Brigham writes. “That way, you get to work when and where you want, all while keeping your information safe.”

The post Zoom Users Can Now Use Okta to Authenticate Identity of Attendees appeared first on My TechDecisions.

The videoconferencing giant’s announcements during Enterprise Connect include Zoom Huddles, a new video-enabled coworking space designed to bring the fluid interactions of in-person work to the hybrid workforce. According to Zoom, Huddles replicates the feel of an open office and encourages freeform video collaboration.

Users can join a huddle to get quick answers to questions, brainstorm with a teammate or just get back to the water cooler-type conversations we used to have in the office. Zoom Huddles is available globally for customers to request early access, the company says.

Zoom also announced the planned beta version of Intelligent Director, a new feature that uses multiple cameras and AI to determine the best angle of individuals in a Zoom Room to display within the meeting. This is designed to create a more equitable experience for remote and in-person meeting attendees.

In addition, Zoom is making it easier to schedule meetings with Zoom Scheduler,  a new tool designed to help users find a time for meetings by sharing the host’s availability so others can book appointments. The company says Zoom Scheduler reduces the hassle of manual scheduling by placing a meeting on the hosts’ calendar with a Zoom Meetings link already included, saving both participants time.

The Zoom Scheduler tool works with Zoom Meetings and Zoom Mail and Calendar, and it also integrates with Google Calendar and Microsoft 365 so hosts can use their preferred calendar.

In an announcement blog, the company also highlighted Zoom Mail and Calendar, which is now available for all Zoom users. Zoom Calendar will also have a new feature that makes it easier to control a user’s schedule, including a sidebar panel that captures meaningful meeting elements and insights before, during and after meetings.

In addition, Zoom Contact Center now has a new workforce engagement management solution designed to help optimize customer support.

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