Glean + Zoom AI Companion: Instant Answers in Meetings

Glean’s integration with Zoom AI Companion brings permission‑aware company knowledge into Zoom Workplace, so employees can ask questions in the AI Companion side panel during meetings, chat, or docs. Instead of switching apps, teams get fast answers grounded in existing access controls—helping them align, decide, and act in the flow of work.

If your meetings regularly stall on “Where’s the latest deck?” or “What did we decide last time?”, the problem usually isn’t effort—it’s fragmented knowledge.

Glean’s integration with Zoom AI Companion is designed to fix that. It brings your organisation’s indexed knowledge into Zoom Workplace, so people can get accurate, permission‑aware answers without leaving the meeting or opening yet another tab.

This guide explains what the integration is, what’s changed recently, and how to roll it out in a way your IT and security teams will actually support.

What is the Glean + Zoom AI Companion integration?

Zoom AI Companion includes a Custom AI Companion capability that can connect to third‑party enterprise indexes. When you connect Glean, AI Companion can search and chat through your organisation’s knowledge sources that Glean already indexes (across common workplace apps and repositories).

In practice, this means:

• A side panel in Zoom becomes the place to ask questions.

• Answers are grounded in your company’s content (not generic web results).

• Permissions are respected—people only see what they’re allowed to access.

For organisations already using Glean as an enterprise search layer, it’s a straightforward way to meet employees where they work every day: in Zoom Meetings, Team Chat and Docs.

What’s new (and why it matters now)

Zoom’s direction is clear: AI Companion is becoming more proactive and more connected across the workday, with Custom AI Companion enabling organisations to add business context from third‑party systems.

Glean’s Zoom integration takes advantage of that connector model by bringing your enterprise search index into Zoom. The result is faster decisions and fewer interruptions, especially for distributed teams that rely on meetings to coordinate.

Where it shows up in Zoom Workplace

Depending on your Zoom configuration, you’ll typically see Glean accessible from the AI Companion experience within Zoom Workplace, including:

• Zoom Meetings (get answers in-session)

• Zoom Team Chat (resolve questions without breaking flow)

• Zoom Docs (confirm context while drafting)

The important bit isn’t the surface area—it’s the behaviour change: people stop treating meetings as a scavenger hunt.

The productivity gains you can actually measure

“Productivity” is vague. Here’s what tends to move in real rollouts:

1) Less meeting thrash

Instead of assigning someone to “find the doc and share it later,” teams can answer in the moment. That means fewer follow-up messages, fewer repeated discussions, and cleaner decisions.

2) Faster onboarding and ramp-up

New joiners can ask practical questions—project status, policy details, product context—while they’re in the meeting where the conversation is happening.

3) More consistent answers

When teams rely on memory, you get different versions of the truth. Pulling answers from the same, indexed sources reduces inconsistency and rework.

4) Stronger governance (yes, really)

When access is permission-aware, employees are more likely to use the approved system instead of copying sensitive information into unmanaged notes or chat threads.

How it works under the hood (in plain English)

Glean indexes your company’s connected tools and applies the same access controls your systems already use.

When you open Zoom AI Companion and choose Glean:

1. Your question is routed to the Glean index.

2. Glean returns relevant answers and sources based on your permissions.

3. You use that context to move the meeting forward.

This model is especially attractive to enterprises because it avoids the “upload everything to a new AI tool” pattern. Instead, it uses an existing, governed index.

Setup: practical steps for admins

Exact steps vary by tenant and policy, but the rollout typically looks like this.

Step 1: Confirm prerequisites

• Your Zoom account must have AI Companion available and enabled.

• Custom AI Companion / third‑party index connectivity must be enabled at the account level.

• Your organisation must have Glean deployed and indexing the relevant sources.

Step 2: Enable the Zoom settings you need

In Zoom admin settings, ensure the AI Companion panel is enabled in Zoom Workplace. Then confirm the Custom AI Companion settings that allow connection to third‑party indexing services.

Step 3: Install/enable the Glean app in Zoom

Install the Glean integration from the Zoom App Marketplace (or approve it for your account, depending on your governance approach). Ensure users can authenticate to Glean.

Step 4: Pilot with one high-value team

Start with a team that spends lots of time in meetings and has clear information needs:

• Product & Engineering (roadmaps, Jira/Confluence context)

• Customer Success (account history, implementation notes)

• Operations/IT (policies, incident runbooks)

Step 5: Define “safe questions” and usage norms

A lightweight enablement guide helps:

• What to ask in-meeting vs after the meeting

• How to cite sources when making decisions

• What not to request (e.g., confidential HR cases, sensitive legal matters)

Step 6: Measure, iterate, and scale

Track adoption signals (usage, repeat users) and meeting outcomes (reduced follow-ups, faster time-to-decision). Then expand to the next group.

Real-world examples (what to ask during a meeting)

Here are prompts that map to common meeting friction points.

Example: Product stand-up

• “What’s the latest status of the payments refactor project?”

• “Show the last decision on scope for Q2.”

Example: Sales handover

• “Summarise the latest notes for the Acme account and open risks.”

• “What are the agreed next steps and owners?”

Example: HR / People Ops

• “What’s our current hybrid working policy for UK employees?”

• “Where is the most recent parental leave guidance documented?”

Example: Incident review

• “Pull the runbook for service degradation in Region A.”

• “What did we change before the last recurrence?”

The best prompts are specific, time-bounded, and tied to an outcome (“so we can decide”).

Common pitfalls (and how to avoid them)

Pitfall 1: Index gaps create “AI disappointment”

If key sources aren’t connected to Glean, people will assume the integration ‘doesn’t work’.
Fix: confirm high-value repositories are indexed before you launch.

Pitfall 2: No meeting etiquette

If everyone asks the assistant at once, meetings become chaotic.
Fix: set simple norms (e.g., one designated person uses AI Companion for retrieval, or use it during specific agenda sections).

Pitfall 3: Governance is an afterthought

Security and compliance concerns can stall rollouts.
Fix: involve IT/security early, document permissions, and define a controlled pilot.

How Generation Digital helps

Generation Digital supports organisations adopting Glean in a way that’s secure, measurable, and genuinely useful.

We can help you:

• Deploy and configure Glean for your environment (connectors, governance, rollout)

• Define high-impact use cases for Zoom meetings and chat

• Create enablement materials that drive adoption without creating risk

Explore Glean with Generation Digital: /glean/

Summary and next steps

Glean + Zoom AI Companion reduces the friction that slows meetings down: searching, guessing, and rehashing.

Next steps:

1. Identify 3–5 meeting scenarios where knowledge retrieval is a bottleneck.

2. Confirm Glean indexes the sources those teams depend on.

3. Run a short pilot in Zoom with clear success measures.

4. Scale with training, governance, and iteration.

If you want help validating readiness or planning a pilot, contact Generation Digital.

FAQ

Question: What is Glean’s Zoom AI Companion integration?
Answer: It connects Zoom AI Companion (via Custom AI Companion) to your Glean enterprise index, so employees can ask questions in Zoom and receive permission-aware answers grounded in company content.

Question: Where can I use it in Zoom?
Answer: It’s designed for Zoom Workplace experiences such as Meetings, Team Chat and Zoom Docs, so users can retrieve context without switching apps.

Question: Does it respect permissions and access controls?
Answer: Yes. Results are based on the same permissions your tools already use, so people only see what they’re authorised to access.

Question: What teams benefit most?
Answer: Teams with frequent meetings and high information needs—Product, Engineering, Customer Success, Sales, Ops, and HR—tend to see the fastest time-to-value.

Question: What do we need to set it up?
Answer: You’ll need Zoom AI Companion enabled (including Custom AI Companion / third‑party index connectivity) and Glean deployed with the relevant sources indexed.