Zoom announces avatars for its meeting app

San Francisco: Zoom announced human avatars for its meeting app, making users appear as cartoon versions of themselves. The video conferencing platform added that its collection of filters will add more fun and flexibility to the platform, IANS reported.

Zoom said in a blog post, "With numerous personalisation combinations, you can display the 'virtual you' in a way that is original and fun! Avatars mirror your movements and facial expressions, allowing you to present yourself dynamically without needing to be on video and providing a more engaging alternative to static profile pictures to inject more fun and energy into your meetings."

Currently, avatars are available in beta versions of Zoom globally. It will expand with additional facial features, hairstyles, and more customisation options in the main version's update, to create the user's human avatar.

Further, the platform also announced Meeting templates, threaded messages and in-meeting chat experience, and Q&A in meetings in other features.

Meeting templates would help users create, save, and choose from custom meeting templates, which automatically apply the right settings for their needs.

"Using Meeting Templates will help you feel comfortable knowing you've got the right type of meeting scheduled, focus on your content, rather than spend time toggling settings," said the blog post.

Threaded messages, to be released later this month, could create message threads and consolidate emoji reactions in the in-meeting chat. It will aid the users in organising the chat messages and clarify which messages participants are responding to.

Further, the Q&A feature will allow meeting hosts to stay more organised by having one place to view and answer questions.

"Now you won't have to sift through meeting chats to make sure you've answered all of the questions. From the Q&A pop-out, hosts and co-hosts can view, answer, or dismiss questions," the blog post mentioned.

Q&A in meetings is available in Zoom One Business, Zoom One Business Plus, Zoom One Enterprise, and Zoom One Enterprise Plus accounts, IANS reported.