Zoom unveils new features to liven up meetings

Video conferencing platform Zoom has unveiled a raft of new features in an effort liven up conference calls and video meetings.

"We believe that people connect better on video, but feeling connected when working from home is still challenging," the company says.

"The casual and fun elements that bring us together in the office seem to be missing from virtual meeting culture - until now."

Zoom says it wants to empower users to feel "your best in virtual meetings, express your individuality, and build moments of fun into your day with some new features that uplevel your video game".

Upgrades to the platform include Zoom filters, reactions, improved lighting capabilities, as well as enhanced noise suppression.

New features announced by Zoom: 

#NoFilter? No thanks!
Grow unicorn horns, wear a pirate eye patch, or hang out on the slopes in aerospace goggles to level up your team calls, happy hours, or game nights.

Use colour filters and turn your video into a black-and-white photo, or dip your world in pink and let your unique personality fill every inch of the screen.

Feel more confident on video
Feel even more video-ready with granular control over the intensity of your touch-ups and lighting adjustment, so you're well-lit in any lighting. Change the brightness of your panel and amount of skin smoothing to put your best video frame forward!

Silence the noise
Barking dogs, a whirring fan, and your kids playing in the background nearly disappear with Zoom's improved background noise suppression. At the low setting, soft background music can complement a yoga class or game night. The high suppression feature gives you distraction-free audio for important meetings and presentations so you can sound your best.

Show your reactions
Silence is no longer awkward with more reactions like celebrate, laugh, or heart. Just click on the Reactions button and share how you're feeling in the moment.

More ways to wow when you present
Present like a boss when you share your PowerPoint or Keynote presentations as a virtual background. Your video will overlay on the slides weather caster style. You can move your video to any part of the screen and even resize so that you're truly one with your message.

Start the fun
To access these features, upgrade toZoom 5.2 here, and check out our short demo video:

Those who want to limit this functionality can disable meeting filters at the account, group, and user levels in the Zoom web portal.