Zoom AI Companion is the assistant bundled into paid Zoom Workplace plans. Its most-used job is simple: it listens to a meeting, then sends the host a summary with the main points, decisions, and next steps a few minutes after the call ends. If you already pay for Zoom, you probably have it and may not have switched it on.
It does more than summaries. During a meeting you can ask it questions in a side panel, such as what a colleague said about the budget or a catch-up if you joined late. Across the rest of Zoom Workplace it drafts and summarizes Team Chat threads, composes replies in Zoom Mail, generates whiteboard content, summarizes calls and voicemails on Zoom Phone, and turns cloud recordings into chapters and highlights.
The honest framing: it is a good-enough notetaker that costs nothing extra, tied to one platform. Dedicated tools like Otter and Fireflies join meetings anywhere and push notes into your CRM. Zoom's answer to that gap is a paid add-on, so the no-extra-cost part only holds inside Zoom. For teams that live in Zoom, it is the first AI feature worth turning on.
Best for
- Teams already on paid Zoom plans who want meeting notes without adding another vendor or another bot in the room
- Managers who skip meetings and want decisions and action items in their inbox instead of a recording
- Hosts who want a private way to ask what was said while the meeting is still going
- Companies whose security team has already vetted Zoom and would rather not approve a new notetaking vendor
- People who spend the day in Zoom Team Chat and Zoom Phone and want summaries in the same place
Not ideal for
- Teams that meet across Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams and want one notetaker for all of them
- Sales teams that need call notes pushed into a CRM with deal fields filled in automatically
- Free Zoom Basic accounts, which do not get AI Companion
Key features
Pricing
Included at no additional cost with paid Zoom Workplace plans (Pro, Business, and Enterprise tiers) for licensed users. The free Basic plan does not include it. A paid Custom AI Companion add-on adds custom meeting templates, connectors to third-party apps, and notes for meetings held on other platforms. Pricing changes often; check Zoom's current plan comparison.
Your account admin must enable AI Companion and can switch individual features on or off. If you cannot find it, that is usually why.
Pricing changes often. Confirm current plans on the vendor's site before you buy.
Pros and cons
Pros
- No extra subscription for most paid Zoom users, which makes it the easiest AI feature to justify
- No third-party bot joins the call, so attendees see a familiar Zoom notice instead of a stranger in the participant list
- Summaries arrive within minutes and are usually good enough for a status update
- Zoom states it does not use customer audio, video, chat, or screen content to train its AI models
Cons
- Only meetings hosted by a paid Zoom user get summaries; bringing it to someone else's Google Meet requires the add-on
- Summaries flatten nuance: tentative ideas and 'let's park that' often come back as firm decisions
- Speaker attribution and names get mangled in crosstalk, and industry jargon is frequently misheard
- Weaker than dedicated notetakers on searching past meetings, CRM syncing, and structured exports
How people use Zoom AI Companion at work
Project managers: turn every status call into a tracked action list
Enable the summary for your recurring standups, then paste the next-steps section into your project tool. Check that each item has an owner and a date; the summary often captures the task but not who agreed to do it.
Executive assistants: brief the boss on meetings they skipped
Forward the summary with three bullets of your own on top: what was decided, what needs their sign-off, and what changed since last week. Your three bullets are the part they will actually read.
Sales professionals: catch up mid-call without losing the thread
When a prospect refers to something said before you joined, ask the side panel what has been said about pricing and keep the conversation moving. Afterward, copy the summary into your CRM notes and fix any misheard product names.
HR professionals: document interviews consistently
Use the same summary format across candidate interviews so hiring panels compare like with like. Tell candidates that AI notes are on, follow your consent and retention policy, and never rely on the summary alone for a hiring decision.
Getting started
- Confirm you are on a paid Zoom Workplace plan, then ask your admin to enable AI Companion in the account settings if the AI Companion icon is missing from your meeting toolbar.
- In your personal settings under AI Companion, turn on Meeting Summary and choose whether summaries go to all attendees or only you. Start with only you until you have read a few.
- Host a low-stakes internal meeting, start the summary, and use the side panel once to ask a question. Compare the summary against your own notes to learn what it tends to miss.
- Add a line to meeting invites saying AI summaries are on. Some states require all-party consent for recordings, and clients appreciate the heads-up either way.
Alternatives to Zoom AI Companion
Otter.ai
Meeting transcription and summaries that follow you into Zoom, Teams, and Meet.
Fireflies.ai
A meeting note-taker with deep integrations, search across calls, and an AI assistant.
Microsoft Copilot
AI inside Word, Excel, Outlook, and Teams, with your company's data protections.
Gemini
Google's assistant, strongest when your work already lives in Google Workspace.
Frequently asked questions
Is Zoom AI Companion free?
Does Zoom use my meetings to train its AI?
Can attendees tell when AI Companion is on?
How does it compare to Otter or Fireflies?
Independent review. Pricing is described in words because plans change often; check the vendor's site.