To create a digital avatar, you'll need to record an initial video of yourself, which Zoom's AI will use to create an avatar that looks and even sounds like you.
From there, you can type in the message you want your AI to say, then have it speak for you. This feature will only work with Zoom 's Clips feature , which lets you record brief video updates for your colleagues.
Zoom is taking the possibility of deepfakes into consideration, and Smita Hashim, Zoom's chief product officer, said during a press conference that the company "is handling it very carefully with advanced authentication, watermarking technology, and strict usage policies."
The custom AI avatars will roll out early next year as part of Zoom's AI add-on, which will cost an additional $12 per month. If you don't have the add-on but have a paid Zoom subscription, Zoom will still let you create clips using pre-defined AI avatars and voices, which is probably just as creepy as creating AI avatars of yourself.
During an interview on Decoder in June, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan mentioned his goal of letting you send a “digital twin” to meetings and calls while you’re doing something else.
“In this session today, ideally, I don’t need to join, I can send a digital version of myself to join so I can go to the beach, or I don’t need to check my emails; the digital version of myself can read most of my emails,” Yuan said.
Along with AI avatars, Zoom's new custom add-on will allow its AI to integrate with more third-party productivity apps, like Zendesk and Asana, as well as offer new customization options you can use to create custom meeting summary templates.