New Zoom innovations designed to help make collaboration more meaningful and simple debuted today — specifically aimed at making hybrid meetings better.

The first is called Zoom Huddles, a new video-enabled virtual coworking space designed to bring the fluid interactions of in-person work to modern teams. Zoom Huddles replicates the “working alongside” aspect of an open office and encourage freeform, video-first collaboration. Hop into a huddle to get quick answers to questions, brainstorm with a teammate or to just feel closer to your coworkers. Zoom Huddles is now available globally for customers to request early access.

Second, they’ve finally added Zoom Mail and Calendar to the platform — no more hopping between your inbox and Zoom Team Chat. Zoom Mail Client, which lets you connect your third-party email account like Gmail or Microsoft 365 directly in Zoom, is now available for all Zoom users. Zoom Mail Service, which provides hosted email, is available with specific paid plans.

Zoom Calendar, which allows you to view your third-party calendar within Zoom, will have a new feature that makes it even easier to take control of your schedule. A persistent sidebar panel captures meaningful meeting elements and insights before, during, and after meetings. You’ll love seeing who has joined your meeting before entering the meeting room, so you can see if you’re late or have a moment to take a breath.

And, Zoom talked about new AI features coming in the next few months, such as AI-generated meeting summaries, the ability to create and attach a Zoom Whiteboard to your invite and the ability to quickly auto-populate fields when scheduling follow-up Zoom Phone calls. Building on the popular smart gallery feature for Zoom Rooms, a new feature called Intelligent Director is planned to be available soon in beta. Intelligent Director uses multiple cameras and the latest AI technology to determine the best angle of the individuals in the Zoom Room to display within your Zoom meeting. Intelligent Director promotes a more equitable meeting experience for remote and in-person attendees.

Workforce engagement management, now available in beta, allows you to predict agent workloads (in a call center environment) and accurately estimate their schedules so you can staff appropriately. It also provides coaching and learning opportunities based on past customer conversations so agents can improve their performance. Powered by Zoom IQ, it’s fully integrated into our all-in-one unified platform, making it simple and seamless to use.

Finally, meetings scheduled using Zoom Scheduler show up on your calendar with a Zoom Meetings link already included. Zoom Scheduler works seamlessly with Zoom Meetings and Zoom Mail and Calendar, and integrates with Google Calendar and Microsoft 365.