Zoom opens the door to “disguised” meetings to attract a new audience

Zoom has just rolled out a new avatar feature that allows users to replace their own face during a video call with a cartoon animal of their choice. The feature works Memoji style on the iPhone but on Zoom video calls between users – and on almost all platforms, including Windows, macOS, iOS… Except Android. “Available for Zoom Meetings and Zoom Webinar, Avatars replaces your appearance with a virtual pet that mirrors your head movements and facial expressions,” Zoom says in a blog post.

The feature aims to make Zoom’s offering more enticing as a large chunk of workers and students are currently returning to the site, though they still rely on online video meetings for days when they work from home. Microsoft has also responded to this hybrid return to work by revamping its Teams collaborative work platform, including a focus on enterprise scenarios, such as pitching a business idea with PowerPoint and Teams.

With this new feature, Zoom is targeting consumers who work from home and in the office, as well as students and teachers. “This fun new feature helps make your meetings and webinars more enjoyable and relaxes the atmosphere, whether you’re at home, in the office or in class”, argues the company, which intends with this offer to attract new users with a less professional profile.

To enable avatars, you must ensure that you have a Zoom desktop client or mobile app running version 5.10.0 or higher and that the feature is enabled by an account owner or administrator. Next, make sure your web camera is turned on and video is enabled. Then, in the meeting toolbar, open your video options by selecting the “Stop Video” menu, select the Choose Virtual Background or Choose Video Filter option, navigate to the Avatars tab and there you will just have to choose which one will be yours!

A timely new feature!

The launch of this new offer will not go without posing privacy issues: it uses the device’s camera to capture and process live images of a person, then render the user’s face. on another person’s device like an animal. However, Zoom wants to be reassuring, even though the company has already been singled out for shortcomings in the protection of its users’ data and the encryption of its meetings. According to the company, the image of the user’s face that it processes does not leave the device. Likewise, the user’s image is not stored or sent to Zoom’s servers.

Zoom also claims that the feature does not use facial recognition software and therefore does not identify the person. “While the Avatars function can tell what is or is not a face, it does not recognize or distinguish individual faces,” said a Zoom marketing manager.

The launch of this feature is central for Zoom, which hopes to revive itself as it experiences some turbulence after two years of uninterrupted growth due to the health crisis and containment measures decreed around the world. In February, the platform was already reporting weak prospects for the first quarter of its staggered fiscal year, as it will not see the same growth as at the start of the pandemic. However, the company still has room. It thus recorded revenues of around $ 1.05 billion in the fourth quarter of its 2021 financial year, up 21% year on year. It now has 191,000 client companies, a workforce up 35% over one year.

“To maintain and strengthen our leadership position, we plan to grow our platform to further enrich the customer experience with new cloud-based technologies and expand our go-to-market motions, which we believe us, will allow us to stimulate future growth”, thus argued the CEO of Zoom, Eric Yuan. It now remains to be seen whether this offer will succeed in attracting a new audience to allow the videoconferencing platform to secure a new growth driver capable of sustaining its activity after the health crisis.