Transform workplace intelligence with Zoom AI Companion and Amazon Q index

By: Ajit Mungale – Sr Solution Architect, AWS
By: Martin Ristov – Senior Partner AI Technologist, AWS
By: Lijuan Qin – Head of Product AI, Zoom

The number of applications and data sources they use daily overwhelms today’s professionals. This fragmentation of workplace tools, while intended to enhance productivity, often achieves the opposite effect, creating digital friction and reducing efficiency.

Zoom and AWS worked together to address these challenges, introducing an integration between Zoom AI Companion and the Amazon Q index. The collaboration means better workplace productivity answers, matching Zoom’s agentic power to AWS’s data framework, simplifying teamwork through quick access to enterprise data across fragmented apps and silos.

In this blog, we’ll look at the key features of both services, the value of the integration, and a practical example that shows how businesses can solve common workplace challenges.

Zoom AI Companion

Zoom AI Companion leverages advanced artificial intelligence – including agentic AI, Zoom’s own small language models (SLMs), and large language models (LLMs), alongside third-party LLMs —to empower users to work more efficiently, deliver higher-quality outcomes, and build stronger relationships with colleagues and customers.

The integration with Amazon Q index is available with the Custom AI Companion add-on, which can be tailored to address businesses’ needs, including expanding its knowledge to increase its relevance and accuracy, empowering teams with the right tools to enable professional growth and impact, and adding new skills to AI Companion so that it can help users complete tasks across third-party applications.

Amazon Q index

The Amazon Q index brings a transformative approach to enterprise data management. Enterprise organizations build an index of their data spanning their own knowledge bases stored in Amazon S3 and applications like Atlassian Jira, Google Drive, and Microsoft 365. Through its data accessors feature, enterprises can securely share securely share their data with verified Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). Enterprises then choose verified ISVs, like Zoom, to access their Amazon Q index. ISVs can access relevant data to enhance native generative AI experiences with data from across an enterprise’s other apps.

The Amazon Q index can automatically aggregate and synchronize data from across multiple third-party applications, helping to facilitate accurate and context aware responses, leading to improved end-user engagement and satisfaction.

As in Figure 1, before Amazon Q index, users had to navigate through multiple disconnected enterprise applications to find information, which was time-consuming and inefficient. As an example, a typical user might need to access up to eight different applications to complete a single task, with no integration between these systems.

Figure 1. Amazon Q index Integration – Before and After

Now, Amazon Q index unifies various applications into a single, interconnected data repository. These managed integrations enable data accessors to create more streamlined, context-aware generative AI experiences directly in their applications.

The Amazon Q index Search Relevant Content (SRC) API help authenticated users to securely search across enterprise data in real-time. During Zoom Meetings, AI Companion users can access authorized content from tools like Atlassian Jira without leaving Zoom. Administrators can specify which data sources are available, ensuring users only see content they have permission to access. For supported connectors, visit the Amazon Q connectors webpage.

Key benefits for organizations

This integration brings three key benefits to organizations. First, it enables secure access to enterprise applications. Second, it enhances the accuracy of AI responses by finding and using relevant source documents across multiple applications. Third, it helps enterprises maintain security and control of their data by maintaining user level permissions across data sources. Additionally, this integration retains ISVs’ existing investment in UI/UX and AI features by increasing the quality and usefulness of existing AI features. Together, these capabilities transform how end users access and utilize data, leading to improved efficiency and decision making.

Use case walk through

The Zoom AI Companion and the Amazon Q index integration helps users across roles and industries find information without switching between multiple applications.

Figure 2. Amazon Q index enhancing the Zoom AI Companion experience

Consider the following scenario. During a Zoom Meeting, a project manager needs to access task details. Traditionally, this would involve juggling between applications like checking Asana for status updates, searching Google Docs, Microsoft SharePoint, or Box for documentation, and reviewing previous meeting notes. This process disrupts the meeting flow and consumes valuable time.

Using the Custom Zoom AI Companion add-on with Amazon Q index the project manager can simply ask a question through Zoom AI Companion, which then:

• Retrieves relevant content from connected enterprise applications
• Pulls historical context from previous Zoom Meetings
• Delivers comprehensive, contextual information quickly
• Maintains each user’s permissions from third-party applications

This seamless experience extends beyond project management use cases.

Let’s explore how different teams across your organization can transform their meetings using Zoom AI Companion with Amazon Q index integration:

In summary, the Zoom AI Companion with Amazon Q index integration enables seamless, data-driven meetings without disrupting workflow.

Implementation approach

Here are high-level steps to create an Amazon Q index for enterprises. For example, consider ACME Corporation, which uses enterprise apps like Asana, Salesforce, and Zoom for collaboration with the Custom AI Companion add-on for Zoom Workplace enabled.

Set up Amazon Q Business (customer environment):

1. If you’re an enterprise (e.g., ACME Corp) without an Amazon Q Business application, create one in the AWS Console to access your enterprise’s Amazon Q index. Select “AWS IAM Identity Center” and use prebuilt connectors to connect with your data sources while maintaining user access controls.
2. Once an application is created, go to the “Data sources” menu and add the connectors for required enterprise apps to connect (e.g., Salesforce, Asana). Optionally, specify which data sources and users should be granted access.

Parameters to be shared with the ISV

1. To connect an ISV and enterprise customer, the customer must provide Amazon Q Business parameters using app settings or manual input as required by the ISV. These parameters include the Amazon Q Business app ID, App Region, Retriever ID, Data accessor app ARN, and IAM Identity Center Region.
2. The ISV can then begin retrieving content from the Amazon Q index by calling the SearchRelevantContent API.

Find detailed steps on enabling Amazon Q Business data accessors in this blog post or read our technical guide, “Customer grants ISVs (data accessors) access to their Amazon Q index“.

Unifying AI’s future through Amazon Q index

While agentic AI technologies evolve rapidly, organizational data continues to grow and become more distributed across systems. Amazon Q index is transforming this landscape by connecting data across multiple applications. This unified data access isn’t just about retrieving information. It supports the next generation of intelligent automation where AI agents can make informed decisions and securely execute complex workflows.

Conclusion

Zoom AI Companion and Amazon Q index revolutionize workplace efficiency by providing secure access to enterprise data within communication applications. This solution demonstrates its value across business functions by enabling seamless information retrieval across your business applications.

As organizations continue to rely on distributed data, this integration paves the way for smarter workplace experiences. By delivering contextually relevant information when needed, this collaboration represents the future of intelligent workplace collaboration.

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Zoom – AWS Partner Spotlight

Zoom is an AWS Advanced Technology Partner and AWS Competency Partner whose mission is to provide an AI-first open work platform for human connection. Zoom Workplace with AI Companion empowers teams to be more productive and Zoom’s Business Services for sales, marketing, and customer experience teams, including Zoom Contact Center, strengthen customer relationships throughout the customer lifecycle.

Contact Zoom | Partner Overview | AWS Marketplace