From: Oumid Ahmad from Evvyword Newsletter <evvyword@substack.com>
Reply: "Oumid Ahmad from Evvyword Newsletter" <reply+oa42a&pn9d2&&ec494396b98f6e720fc5cabdf6924f9ddb12d18804ade66265c72ec8b4a357d3@mg1.substack.com>
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2021 19:38:02 +0000
Subject: How Zoom leverages AI to provide the best videoconferencing experience
Zoom adopted artificial intelligence at the core of its product. By
optimizing connections, video compression, and audio transfer, Zoom
guaranteed an improved video quality. AI was also used to develop
additional features to augment the experience and the interaction with
users.
HOW ZOOM LEVERAGES AI TO PROVIDE THE BEST VIDEOCONFERENCING EXPERIENCE
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Oumid Ahmad
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Sep 1
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Zoom adopted artificial intelligence at the core of its product. By
optimizing connections, video compression, and audio transfer, Zoom
guaranteed an improved video quality. AI was also used to develop
additional features to augment the experience and the interaction with
users.
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After 9 years of sustained growth, Zoom was well positioned when the
covid pandemic hit. With 2,500 employees and a profitable business,
the company had just done its IPO less than one year before. Thanks to
a UX-centric videoconferencing experience, and a cloud-native
architecture which proved to be easy to scale, Zoom was able to scale
from 10 million daily meeting participants to 200 million daily
meeting participants in just one month.
Zoom was definitely one of the biggest winners of the pandemic and the
quarantine. Its stock price more than tripled, and by June 2020 the
company had capitalized a 169% year-over-year increase in their
revenues. Their mobile app was downloaded 600,000 times in a single
day. Zoom was able to position itself as the standard software for
videoconferencing, even against the biggest and most renowned tech
companies. From traditional enterprise solutions like Cisco WebEx, to
suite-integrated products like Microsoft Teams and Google Meet,
competition was fierce. The reason why Zoom was able to win over
Cisco’s flawless track record and reputation, and Microsoft’s and
Google’s existing synergies, was most probably its superior video
technology.
Since its inception, Zoom decided to take a video-centric approach
and, instead of using legacy solutions, decided to engineer and patent
its own technology architecture. Zoom allows hundreds of simultaneous
participants in their meetings, making it necessary for the service to
handle connections of dissimilar qualities across different
geographies. Therefore, Zoom was designed as a cloud-based technology,
with servers distributed around the world, and mediating the transfer
of audio and video, instead of using peer-to-peer (P2P) connectivity.
Additionally, Zoom adopted artificial intelligence at the core of its
product. By optimizing connections, video compression, and audio
transfer, Zoom guaranteed an improved video quality. AI was also used
to develop additional features to augment the experience and the
interaction with users.
Almost every aspect of the product uses some sort of Artificial
Intelligence:
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PATHWAYS TO A JUST DIGITAL FUTURE
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VIRTUAL BACKGROUNDS: Being one of its flagship features, Zoom allows
users to blur its background or to replace it with an image or a video
in order to increase their privacy during meetings. This feature uses
a machine vision technique known as Image Segmentation which can
identify the subject and subtract the background. Additionally, the
app includes a feature called “touch up my appearance” which
applies a filter to smooth the user’s skin and reduce blemishes.
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VIDEO COMPRESSION: Similar to the technology used for virtual
backgrounds, the video algorithm identifies the most relevant sections
of the image and maximizes the resolution of those areas. As people
tend to focus more on faces than in the background, this feature
prioritizes the subject when the bandwidth is limited.
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AUDIO PROCESSING: Zoom uses Deep Learning algorithms to process audio
signals and improve audio quality in meetings. Using toolkits like
Keras, Tensorflow or PyTorch, the system implements machine learning
models like Noise Suppression, Voice Activity Detection, Speaker
Recognition, Speech Enhancement and Music Detection.
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LIVE TRANSCRIPTION: Using several NLP (Natural Language Processing)
technologies like Speech-to-Text, translation, summarization, and
sentiment analysis, Zoom now offers meeting hosts to include a live
transcription of the conversation, which results specially useful for
participants with a bad audio quality or in a noisy environment.
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Anti-Fraud:
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Zoom uses machine learning techniques to develop fraud detection
models in order to identify and prevent unwanted abuse of Zoom
services, like pornography, telephone fraud, and spam.
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Integration with AI assistants: Since February 2021, Zoom integrates
with Google’s AI Assistant. Users can start a meeting from their
Nest Hub devices by just saying “Hey Google, Start a Zoom Call”.
Additionally, Google WiFi and Nest routers can be set up to prioritize
Zoom traffic.
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ZOOM ROOMS: As the covid pandemic comes to an end, and the world
transitions to the “New Normal”, Zoom’s next challenge is to win
the office space. Zoom offers recommended hardware for setting up Zoom
Rooms with special features and an improved meeting experience. Again,
AI is at the center of the experience, enabling features like
auto-tracking cameras, speaker focus, and people counting.
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