Zoom and Shure integrate AI for self-healing audio in hybrid meetings

Audio affects how people learn

Zoom and Shure are integrating agentic AI into communication hardware to automate meeting logistics and improve remote audio clarity. Shure CTO Sam Sabet and Zoom Chief Ecosystem Officer Brendan Ittelson confirmed that the companies are moving toward "self-healing" systems that adapt to room acoustics without human intervention. This collaboration aims to solve the "fatigue" caused by poor digital audio in hybrid environments.

Research from Yale University suggests that poor audio quality does more than just annoy listeners. It actively hinders the retention of information and makes it harder for participants to engage with the material. Sabet noted that in educational settings like lecture halls, background noise and poor acoustics can significantly degrade the learning experience for remote students.

Clear audio serves as the foundation for trust and collaboration in a digital-first economy. While users often focus on video quality, the audio stream carries the actual data and intent of a conversation. Shure and Zoom are now prioritizing "pristine" audio as the essential input for the next generation of AI tools.

Shure automates the physical room

Shure has transitioned its focus from traditional microphones to software-defined audio processing. The company’s IntelliMix Room software uses machine learning to perform real-time noise reduction and speech isolation. This allows the system to identify a speaker’s voice and filter out unwanted environmental sounds like air conditioners or keyboard clicks.

The company is also deploying advanced hardware to handle the complexities of hybrid spaces. These tools allow a single room to function as both a local presentation space and a remote broadcast studio. Key hardware and software components include:

• Ceiling Mic Arrays that use beamforming technology to track speakers as they move around a room.
• MXW neXt wireless microphone systems designed specifically for educators and presenters.
• Voice tracking algorithms that sync with intelligent cameras to frame the person currently speaking.
• Self-optimizing software that adjusts audio levels based on the specific dimensions and materials of a room.

Sabet explained that the modern office requires flexibility because meeting layouts change constantly. Shure’s current engineering mission involves creating systems that detect environmental issues and autocorrect them. This "self-healing" capability ensures that IT teams do not have to manually recalibrate hardware every time a table is moved.

Zoom builds an AI stack

Zoom is evolving from a video conferencing app into an "AI-first" work platform. Ittelson described a three-tier AI stack that processes every meeting. The first layer handles raw audio through echo cancellation and noise suppression to create a clean signal. The second layer uses speech AI for real-time transcription and translation into multiple languages.

The third layer introduces generative and agentic AI to act on the information gathered in the first two tiers. This layer produces meeting summaries, identifies action items, and surfaces insights for participants. By processing audio as a rich data source, Zoom can now provide searchable content for every conversation held on the platform.

The company is also addressing "meeting equity" through features like Intelligent Director and Smart Name Tags. These tools ensure that people sitting in a physical conference room appear as individual tiles to remote participants. This prevents remote workers from feeling like they are observing a distant group from the outside.

AI agents manage meeting tasks

Zoom recently detailed its AI Companion 3.0 at the Zoomtopia 2025 event. This version of the software moves beyond simple transcription to perform proactive administrative tasks. The system can now suggest which meetings a user can skip based on their schedule and provide a summary of what they missed.

The platform is also introducing a group assistant called Zoomie to handle live requests during a session. Users can interact with the assistant to check into rooms, adjust lighting, or pull up project updates. This reduces the "administrative busy work" that typically distracts employees from creative tasks. Specific capabilities of the new agentic system include:

• Intelligent scheduling that coordinates across multiple time zones and calendars.
• Contextual preparation that surfaces relevant documents and past notes before a meeting starts.
• Custom AI agents that organizations can build through the Zoom AI Studio.
• Cross-platform integration with third-party tools like Microsoft, Google, and ServiceNow.

Ittelson emphasized that trust and security remain the primary constraints for these AI tools. Zoom does not use customer data to train its underlying models. This privacy policy allows businesses to use the AI Companion for sensitive strategy sessions without risking data leaks.

Hybrid classrooms require specialized gear

The education sector has become a major testing ground for high-end audio integration. Sabet, who also serves as an adjunct professor, noted that hybrid lectures failed in the past because remote students could not hear the nuances of a classroom discussion. Shure’s MXW neXt line addresses this by integrating presenter microphones with room-wide audio capture.

These systems allow students at the "far end" of a call to hear both the professor and the questions asked by students in the back of the hall. This level of clarity requires low-latency wireless technology and precise microphone placement. Shure is currently developing next-generation wireless systems with increased range and reliability for large-scale campus deployments.

Zoom is also tailoring its platform for higher education by integrating with learning management systems. This ensures that meeting recordings, transcripts, and AI-generated summaries are automatically filed for student access. The goal is to make the technology "invisible" so that educators can focus on teaching rather than troubleshooting hardware.

The future of invisible technology

Both Shure and Zoom expect communication technology to eventually fade into the background. As AI companions and audio hardware become more "agentic," they will handle the technical setup of a meeting automatically. Users will no longer need to worry about microphone gain, room acoustics, or taking minutes.

The partnership between hardware providers and software platforms is essential for this transition. "Pristine audio input" is the only way to ensure that large language models (LLMs) produce accurate summaries. If the microphone fails to capture a specific word, the AI agent may hallucinate or misattribute an action item. Shure’s role as the "eyes and ears" of the room provides the high-fidelity data that Zoom’s AI needs to function.

Looking ahead, Shure is focusing on cloud-connected audio that allows IT managers to monitor entire fleets of microphones remotely. Zoom is expanding its open platform philosophy, allowing users to bring their own AI agents into the Zoom ecosystem. These advancements suggest a future where the workspace adapts to the user, rather than forcing the user to adapt to the limitations of the room.