Video conferencing platform Zoom has announced human avatars to its meeting app, which will let users appear as a cartoon version of themselves.

The company added avatars to their collection of filters, to make meetings more flexible and fun.

“With numerous personalisation combinations, you can display the ‘virtual you’ in a way that is original and fun! Avatars mirror your movements and facial expressions, allowing you to present yourself dynamically without needing to be on video and providing a more engaging alternative to static profile pictures to inject more fun and energy into your meetings,” Zoom said in a blogpost.

Avatars are currently available in beta to all Zoom users globally.

The company said as they progress in beta, they will continue to expand with additional facial features, hairstyles, and more customisation options when creating your human avatar.

Meanwhile, Zoom also announced Meeting templates, threaded messages and in-meeting chat experience, and Q&A in meetings in other features.

With Meeting templates, users can now create, save, and choose from custom meeting templates, which automatically apply the right settings for their needs.

“Using Meeting Templates will help you feel comfortable knowing you’ve got the right type of meeting scheduled, focus on your content, rather than spend time toggling settings,” said the blogpost.

Moreover, to enhance the in-meeting chat experience, later this month the company will be releasing threaded messages and reactions, which will allow meeting participants to create message threads and consolidate emoji reactions in the in-meeting chat.

This feature will help organise the chat messages and clarify which messages participants are responding to.

Further, the Q&A feature will allow meeting hosts to stay more organised by having one place to view and answer questions.

“Now you won’t have to sift through meeting chats to make sure you’ve answered all of the questions. From the Q&A pop-out, hosts and co-hosts can view, answer, or dismiss questions,” the blogpost mentioned.

Q&A in meetings is available in Zoom One Business, Zoom One Business Plus, Zoom One Enterprise, and Zoom One Enterprise Plus accounts.