Zoom’s AI avatars to replace people in meetings?

Zoom announced, at its annual developer conference, that it's launching a new feature, in early 2025, which will allow users to create photorealistic AI-generated avatars of themselves which they can use to send messages to their teammates. 

Users will need to record a video of themselves, talking, and Zoom’s AI will analyze and translate it into an avatar that looks and sounds like them, complete with a head, arms, and shoulders.   

Then, they’ll be able to type out what they want to say to their workmates, and Zoom will create the audio, syncing the words with the avatar's lip movements to make it realistic. 

Zoom said they believe the new feature will enable better, asynchronous communication, especially helpful in remote environments, and allow employees to communicate in a “faster, more productive” way. However, Zooms CEO—Eric Yuan—established that, eventually, he sees people sending their digital clones to meetings, in place of themselves, leaving them to focus on their day-to-day tasks, without the interruption of meetings, which can often be unproductive. 

Other AI digital clone products, produced by the likes of Tavus and Microsoft, have implemented strict safety protocols to prevent misuse and deepfakes—such as requiring verbal and written consent from users—but Zoom has remained slightly vaguer, claiming they are building  “numerous safeguards” into its new feature, including “advanced authentication” and watermarking.