A Look Back and Looking Ahead: Zoom’s 2021 Innovations in Review and What To Expect in 2022

In 2021, the world was faced with new challenges as organizations began to plan their safe return to the office while simultaneously accommodating their employees working from home. Zoom has been hard at work developing the solutions and features its users need to face these challenges head-on and succeed in new work environments.

2021 in Review: Innovations from the past 12 months

1. Smart Gallery: Smart Gallery, a new Zoom Rooms feature, uses cutting-edge hardware from partners like Neatand Poly, along with AI to create individual video feeds of in-room participants, giving remote participants a clearer view of their in-room counterparts and creating equity in the meeting experience.
   2. Auto-generated captions: Creating a meeting experience that everyone can enjoy is key to Zoom’s mission of delivering happiness. Auto-generated captions empower all employees to engage in their meetings, including those who may be hard of hearing or in a noisy environment where they can’t hear clearly.
2. Video mail: The video mail feature for Zoom Phone enables users to leave other Zoom Phone users a video voicemail, providing a more personable alternative to standard voicemail and streamlining collaboration.
3. Zoom Rooms voice commands: Currently in public beta, native voice commandsprovide on-site employees with a seamless solution for controlling their Zoom Rooms experience, all while reducing the sharing of devices to prevent illness while maintaining productivity. Zoom Rooms appliances will also support Alexa for Business, allowing you to perform tasks hands-free.
4. Virtual receptionist and Zoom’s kiosk mode: Virtual receptionist, a Zoom feature that allows staff to interact with on-site stakeholders via Zoom’s kiosk mode, creates that personal touch that crucial facility personnel provide while protecting their health and safety.
5. Workspace Reservation: In public beta now, Workspace Reservation enables users to easily book spaces using an interactive map whether they are on-site or remote, creating a seamless experience for all employees.
6. Zoom Apps: Zoom Appsgives users access to their favorite workspace solutions, interactive games and apps inside of their desktop Zoom Meetings.
7. Zoom For Home: Creating a professional meeting experience with high-quality audio and video and dynamic functionality is critical for any organization, especially for those with remote workers. Zoom for Homeenables that experience in remote workspaces by empowering Zoom users to deploy purpose-built personal collaboration devices for video meetings, interactive whiteboarding, and more.

Exciting innovations coming next year

Here’s a sneak peek at some Zoom innovations that you can look forward to in 2022!

1. Huddle view: Bring your dispersed teams together in a digital space with Huddle view, which will give you a visual representation of a channel, giving teams a sense of togetherness while they chat and collaborate.
2. Zoom Events Backstage: Zoom’s backstage feature gives speakers, panelists, and production support a centralized space where they can respond to Q&A, monitor chat, or mingle before going live.
3. Zoom Whiteboard: The all-new Zoom Whiteboard enables on-site and remote participants to collaborate in real-time on a persistent digital whiteboard, anywhere, any time. The new Zoom Whiteboard works anywhere Zoom Meetings do.
4. Zoom Widget: To help you connect with teams and streamline workflows, Zoom is developing the Zoom Widget, which enables you to receive an at-a-glance view of your meeting schedule, see who is already in a meeting, send a quick chat, and more.
5. Zoom Apps for Mobile and Webinar: Zoom Apps is now being added to the Zoom mobile app and Zoom Video Webinars! Bring your favorite workspace applications into meetings held on your mobile device or into your webinars or create new opportunities for engagement. Zoom will also be releasing Immersive Apps, enabling you to create customized Immersive Views.
6. Video Engagement Center: Built with the same cloud-first scalability and trusted video architecture you’ve come to expect from Zoom, the Video Engagement Center will be an intuitive, cloud-based solution that enables you to connect experts and end customers over video.
7. Enhanced translation and transcription: Zoom is extending its auto-generated captioning to support a variety of languages and add live translation in the next year.
8. Jumpstart by Zoom:, Zoom is developing Jumpstart, its new app builder tool that helps developers who need industry-leading, reliable video in their app to move faster. After entering a few key configuration fields and selecting from some pre-designed features, branding inputs, and platform options, Jumpstart will generate code that brings Video SDK functionality seamlessly into an existing app.