Vocus, Australia's specialist digital infrastructure provider, today launched Vocus Collaborate, a comprehensive unified communications suite based on Zoom.

In an Australian first, powerful AI capabilities are included at no extra cost across all plans.

With 88% of non-technical employees already using some form of generative AI at work (McKinsey, 2024) and 60% of a person's time spent on repetitive tasks instead of skilled work (Asana, 2024), the transformative potential of AI for business productivity is clear.

However, the cost of enterprise AI tools, often upwards of $30 per user per month, has put them out of reach for many Australian businesses, particularly as they struggle with rising costs in an inflationary economic climate.

Vocus is rising to this challenge with Vocus Collaborate, which includes access to productivity-enhancing AI by bundling Zoom's AI Companion suite into all plans at no additional cost.

"We're bringing the power of AI to Australian businesses in a simple, accessible, and affordable way with Vocus Collaborate," said Vineesh Thadakamalla, General Manager Products – Applications, Services and Wholesale, Vocus.

"AI Companion is available at no extra cost in all Vocus Collaborate plans, allowing Australian organisations to use AI to drive productivity without blowing the budget.

“It's a game changer for businesses who need to do more with less in the current climate,” Thadakamalla said.

The AI Companion, powered by Zoom's federated approach incorporates multiple large language models from market leaders OpenAI and Anthropic, and offers businesses a range of productivity-boosting tools.

It can automatically summarise meetings, calls and chat threads; generate ideas and content for brainstorming; draft email and chat responses with tone adjustment; enable participants to catch up if late to a meeting; and provide real-time feedback on presentation skills.

Recent benchmarking showed AI Companion reduced meeting summary errors by over 20% and was nearly four times faster for meeting question scenarios compared to other leading AI tools. This combination of improved accuracy and speed delivers real-world productivity gains to organisations using it.

Pandemic-hardened, tried and tested unified collaboration features

Vocus Collaborate brings together Zoom's comprehensive suite of unified communication tools into one integrated platform.

This includes desk phones, calling on PCs and mobiles, messaging, meetings, whiteboarding, and more, carried on Vocus' secure, sovereign, Australian-based network.

Vocus Collaborate is available in two starter packs tailored for different business needs and sizes:

• Phone Essentials: Moves your phone system to the cloud with AI-powered advanced calling features, from $20 per user per month.
• Complete UC: The full unified communications suite, with comprehensive collaboration tools like video meetings, whiteboarding and team chat, from $42 per user per month.

The Zoom AI Companion functionality is included in both plans.

Vocus Collaborate is available to all businesses across Australia from today.

Pricing is per user on a three-year contract, with a minimum of five users for Phone Essentials and 10 users for Complete UC.