In the sudden age of all Zoom everything, Around wants to make video meetings “less.”

From a UI perspective, Around looks different than traditional video conferencing software, prioritizing AI-based camera framing that finds your face as you move, cropping out the background behind you. There’s also optional filters to set a “vibe” for the call, meaning nobody has to feel “vampire-awkward” when tuning in at night due to different time zones. Around also has an auto-mute feature that uses AI to eliminate common background noises like sirens, dog barks, washing machines, smoothie blenders and laptop fans to prioritize the human voice (sort of like Krisp). On top of that, Around’s signal processing technology lets multiple laptop microphones and speakers stay enabled in the same room without echo or feedback.

“Around respects your time and privacy, and that's why we've built all the technology behind it — to make it even less distracting than any other video calling products on the market. Around is primarily a hard tech company — great audio and video is a real science, and off-the-shelf services and libraries are far from great. So we went heads down for two years and wrote all the audio and video greatness ourselves,” Around CEO Dominik Zane wrote on Product Hunt.

Similar to video conferencing apps like Zoom, users can simply share a link (or fire it up from Slack) to start an Around call. 👋

Here’s what early adopters think:

“This is an amazing antidote to being stuck inside a rectangle and unable to collaborate. Zoom is good but Around is essential for actually doing work like you are sitting next to someone.” - Garry

“Cool UI and AI features. How do I convince people to use this over from Zoom?” - Al

“One of the worst things about video conferencing is the failure to create a persistent or ambient connection. Sometimes you just need to have someone feel like they're with you for a while without really saying anything or disturbing you. This looks like it might really help with that.” - Dean

Would you use this? Let us know. 🗣

Random pasta recipes. You're welcome. 🍝