Zoom just made an announcement earlier today that they will be acquiring Karlsruhe Information Technology Solutions (KITeS). While an acquisition of another firm may not sound like much, this is a significant acquisition for Zoom. This acquisition should improve the experience and the interface that is Zoom.
Zoom has been an immensely popular platform since its rise in the recent pandemic situation. In the situation that is the COVID-19 pandemic, most of us are driven to work-from-home measures. That also means that communication with your colleagues and friends are limited to phone calls, online chat platforms, mobile text messaging, and video calls for more intimacy. Hence, the boom in Zoom’s popularity last year.
The company has also been facing plenty of challenges and criticisms when it comes to its user friendliness and, most of all, the platform’s overall security. Of course, the ever so popular video conferencing solutions provider responded to all the security issues pointed out by its users as swiftly as they can. Most of the issues have been rectified, according to Zoom.
The pursuit to the best video conferencing experience is a never ending one for the likes of Zoom though. Recently, Cisco’s Webex have been updated with new interfaces and features. One of the includes a live transcription and even instant highlights of the video call with the help of a clever integrated Artificial Intelligence (AI).
KITeS is a developer of a real-time translation and transcription software, or AI. In some ways, the technology that KITeS is working on mimics the capabilities that Google wants for its Google Translate software except that everything is sort of integrated. At the same time, the technology does sound promising for companies like Zoom.
Zoom already has their own real-time transcription algorithm integrated within Zoom though. The only issue with the real-time transcription function in Zoom is that it only works with English and no other languages. That is the problem that Zoom’s latest acquisition looks to solve.
With the acquisition of KITeS, Zoom hopes to integrate their clever AI into their video conferencing app to ensure that real-time transcriptions are more accurate than before. On top of that Zoom hopes that the AI would also allow real-time translations from other languages to eliminate the language barriers altogether in international video conferencing.
Zoom did not provide a timeline to when the said functions would make it to Zoom. We also know that Zoom will not be the only video conferencing solutions provider that is looking to integrate more accurate real-time transcription and translation functions in their app. Platforms like Google Meets has already integrated real-time translations into the platform thanks to their clever Google Translate. Microsoft’s Translate algorithm is also integrated into Microsoft Teams, if you are wondering.
Zoom is available for free on all major computing and mobile platforms in the world. Of course, free membership also means limited access to Zoom’s functions. Free membership also means that your video calls are only limited to 40 minutes at a time. Paid subscriptions range from US$ 14.99 a month to US$ 19.99 a month with differing access to features in Zoom. You can find more information on Zoom in their https://zoom.us/.