Customer Story
Zoom AI Companion uses real-time
web intelligence through Perplexity’s API
“We’re excited to partner with Perplexity to build on our AI Companion experience. With its API, we extended AI Companion’s knowledge federation to include up-to-date web information, without users having to sift through multiple search results, right from inside a meeting or within workflows across Zoom Workplace, saving time and increasing the accuracy of responses.”
Xuedong Huang, Chief Technology Officer, Zoom
The Task
Expanding Zoom AI Companion’s context to support its AI-first open work platform, Zoom Workplace, with enhanced native AI features
Like most operators working at high-growth software companies, Will Siegelin, senior product manager of AI Products & Responsible AI at Zoom, wears many hats. But one of his primary responsibilities is empowering users to get more work done in Zoom Workplace, the company’s AI-first open work platform. One opportunity Zoom saw was enabling in-platform search, as a core skill, instead of requiring users to leave the app for a separate search engine.
To make this a reality, Zoom added web access to AI Companion through Perplexity’s API. With Zoom’s federated approach to AI, AI Companion uses Zoom-hosted and third-party models to get users high-quality responses with the information the models have access to. These models can help AI Companion take actions for users by searching company data, session-based data like meetings and other interactions, content on the Zoom platform and connected third-party platforms, and ask questions that help users generate new content. To expand upon these capabilities, Zoom turned to Perplexity to provide up-to-date web knowledge.
As Will points out, “The thing that frustrates folks the most when they’re utilizing AI is when it says, ‘I don’t know that answer.’” So, Zoom started looking for a partner to help retrieve answers from the web:
Streamlining Workflows
When users can easily pull external knowledge without exiting Zoom Workplace, they maintain focus on the task at hand and complete their work faster. After context-switching, it can take an average of 23 minutes to regain focus.
Reducing Errors
In one study, 93% of people said they believe AI hallucinations can cause harm. With thousands of companies relying on its platform, Zoom understands that providing highly accurate results is critical.
The Solution
Integrating the Perplexity API for native search in Zoom’s unified UX
Perplexity’s API is just what Zoom needed to enable external search within its platform without a time-consuming, expensive in-house build.
Will notes that the API allowed his team to create a unified user experience so teams can easily “tackle core challenges.” With AI-generated meeting summaries and in-app search in addition to existing products like Zoom Team Chat, Zoom is equipped to become an all-in-one tech stack for the modern workplace.
Streamlining workflows with Zoom’s powerful AI Companion
With the Perplexity API, Zoom offers native web search as a skill in AI Companion. ”Perplexity opens Zoom to knowledge beyond an organization’s four walls,” Will adds. Now, the platform’s users can ask top-of-mind questions and trust that AI Companion will give them useful answers sourced from the web, as well as their content and communications on Zoom Workplace.
Users can think of AI Companion as a helpful teammate who can help with the research required to complete tasks like understanding more about a competitor’s strategy.
Building user trust with citations and flexible controls
Will points out that with the Perplexity API, Zoom “flexed and expanded” its AI Companion capabilities, taking on more responsibilities in a person’s workday and providing “grounded responses” to questions people may have. Rather than waiting for responses from others, people can self-serve with the API for significant time savings. Critically, Will has confidence that Zoom users get accurate results.
In-Platform Search Designed for Trust and Consistency
Building trust with AI takes time. By grounding responses in information from Perplexity and the Zoom Workplace Platform, users start to understand how much better work can be with AI helping them along.
Having the internet at your fingertips is one thing, but being able to trust and save time with AI-generated results is something far greater. As Will puts it: “Consistency drives trust. When you’ve got that day in and day out, you build a habit. And that’s exactly what Zoom and Perplexity has helped provide to users.”
The Result
AI Companion is streamlining workflows and helping users get work done
With AI Companion’s capability to manage AI Agents, skills, and models that deliver high quality results at no additional cost, workflows are more efficient across the board.
Rather than waiting for responses to information requests or conducting extensive searches, AI Companion’s embedded Perplexity API allows users to receive the relevant information they need right in the Zoom platform. As a result, there’s less context-switching and significantly less time wasted.
Perplexity’s API also gives Zoom a competitive edge over the hundreds of remote work tools in the marketplace — before in-app AI search becomes the industry standard. “Implementing AI search early was extremely important for us for building trust with users who are just getting comfortable with AI,” Will says. “And Perplexity was the ideal partner to make it happen.”
Just like Perplexity, Zoom aims to democratize AI, offering AI Companion at no additional cost to Zoom customers with the paid services in their accounts. With the Perplexity API in their team’s corner, the team knows they can bring new AI Companion features to life faster and improve people’s work lives.
