Beyond Video: My Perspective on Zoom
Hold the Phone
I recently attended Zoom Perspectives, the company’s nearly annual analyst event. This isn’t your Uncle’s meeting app. I say Uncle because Zoom is only 15 years old, too young for a paternal reference. But “perspectives” was right as there are many sides to Zoom, more than I appreciated or realized. The company is quietly implementing a massive expansion in vision.
A few weeks ago, at Enterprise Connect, Zoom used an expression: “From Conversation to Completion.” When I heard it, I scoffed. It felt like eight syllables to say UCaaS. I get it, no UCaaS company wants to be a “UCaaS” company, but I missed the point. The emphasis was on completion. The conversation part was the starting point. UCaaS is table stakes.
What they were saying is that work begins with conversations, whether that’s a meeting, a chat, or a cal, and should flow seamlessly to completion. Zoom’s vision is to connect conversations to workflows to completions, and the star of this tale is AI, or more specifically, Zoom AI Companion.
Obviously, work is all about workflows – that’s not new. Workflows have inputs, but they haven’t really been conversations. Over the past few years, generative AI has changed that by allowing us to capture conversations across modalities. This summarization has crept up on us, and Zoom says that our conversations are actionable. Zoom intends to leverage the past AI explosion (Generative AI and summaries) in the next AI explosion (agentic and completion).
What they are describing is more than lipstick on a meeting client. It is a foundational rethink of how the platform (previously known as a UCaaS) can facilitate workflow. It’s so easy to look at AI as a feature, but it’s much bigger than that. We are on the cusp of a revolutionary shift that changes everything, up there with the iPhone, Internet, and steam engine. AI is demanding new processes, business models, and will create new vendor landscapes. While some firms are terrified, Zoom is emboldened. It’s a make-or-break time, and Zoom is well-positioned. It has the cash, the brand momentum, talent, vision, and, crucially, a relative lack of crippling tech debt.
AI Leadership
The other thing is, it’s time to think of Zoom as an AI Leader. When we think of AI leaders, we likely come up with the same shortlist of companies, but LLMs are just part of the equation. What makes Zoom an AI Leader?
- Federated AI: We know that the LLMs are not equal. Many of us have multiple subscriptions and turn to one for this and another for that. But few firms are building intellectual property to automate this switching. Zoom is leveraging expensive AIs for expensive tasks and cheaper AIs for simpler ones.
- Accessible AI: Zoom offers a high Time-to-Value score. By embedding AI Companion directly into the interfaces people already use, they’ve avoided the adoption hurdle of a separate app strategy. It’s practical for the average worker, right out of the box.
- Agentic Capabilities: Their vision extends into agentic AI, meaning the technology will actively execute tasks.
- Customization via AI Studio: Zoom understands that one size doesn’t fit all. AI Studio allows enterprises to customize models to their industry-specific jargon, making the AI more relevant to their front-line workers.
The question of what makes an AI Leader sparked debate among my colleagues. Is Microsoft an AI Leader? It certainly wants to create its own LLM, but it isn’t there yet. It has sold a lot of CoPilot licensing, but adoption has been mixed. It does partner with OpenAI and Anthropic, but it doesn’t have a Federated angle.
But even if you reject Zoom as a general AI Leader, it is one in enterprise communications. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are all in AI, but none of them has as complete an enterprise portfolio (phone, meetings, chat, and contact center). This brings me back to Conversation to Completion – the key here is to capture as many conversations as it can, and that’s why Zoom had to fix MyNotes.
The first version of the meeting notes was limited to the host. This is consistent across most meeting apps. The problem is that one attends more meetings than one hosts; thus, one cannot build a reliable workflow that starts with the conversation. Zoom fixed MyNotes by moving it to the client. Now, the Zoom client can take notes on all Zoom meetings, plus Teams meetings, plus Webex meetings, as well as in-person meetings with the MyNotes App.
We got the input, now what? Well, that depends on the exact nature of the work. To facilitate the process, Zoom can help schedule more meetings or calls, and it now also offers AI Docs, AI Sheets, and AI Slides. These are AI-enabled canvases to get more work done. They can be used collaboratively with colleagues or AI Companion.
This is where Zoom’s vision shines. For example, OpenAI and other LLMs face challenges in finding work portals or distribution channels where their technology can be naturally integrated to everyday users. While the chatbot interface is valuable for specific roles such as software development or marketing, most consumers do not know what to prompt it with. Zoom AI is tightly integrated into the Workplace App, and these new canvas apps help users move past a blank screen with contextual suggestions.
Of course, not all workflows go through a doc, slide, or sheet. Zoom is reimagining work company-wide. This isn’t just about the employee experience (UCaaS/EX) or the customer experience (CCaaS/CX). Its strategy stretches to company-wide culture (Workvivo). Workvivo is more geared toward company culture and employee recognition. Workvivo is growing spectacularly. Zoom recently acquired BrightHire, an enterprise-wide hiring tool, and Bonsai, a customer relationship management solution.
A New Beginning
Yes, Perspectives was the right word. There is a lot going on at Zoom. In this post, I didn’t cover most of the announcements, but I guarantee there are more than you thought. I know this because I’ve seen the list of announcements for Enterprise Connect alone, and there are about three times as many as they actually shared in the keynote. Zoom is making lots of announcements, and I’m covering them separately.
I will say here that Zoom is operating at what they call “Zoomspeed.” Lots of announcements, weekly news. They align nicely through the lens of workflow. For example, the Zoom Phone mobile announcement captures calls made on a cell phone while you are driving as an input to be completed. Everything is about AI and workflows. Zoom has prioritized nearly all of its initiatives and dreams into three (AI) categories. Those that elevate Workplace with AI, those that drive growth of new AI products, and those that scale AI-first CX.
AI is creating a window of disruption where many things will be reinvented. This includes the vendor line-up. Zoom smells an opportunity to reimagine and AI-modernize the way we work. It’s an impressive vision, and the product announcements align nicely. It intends to build this future on the shoulders of its multimodal communications with employees and customers, Godspeed (in the spirit of manned space flights, Artemis II took off the same week as Perspectives).
And while we can argue if any specific feature or even direction is right, here’s what’s really important: Zoom is closing the implementation gap. The industry is full of cool AI tech that few employees actually use. Zoom’s seamless, embedded, and affordable approach is the game to watch.
Zoom is not just reinventing modern workflows; it is reinventing itself and reimagining the fundamental importance of communication at its core. There was so much going on, I literally felt the ground move at this event; it measured 4.7 on the Richter scale.