Zoom 2.0 returns to the market as an artificial intelligence company without video in its name

Zoom changes its name from Zoom Video Communications Inc. on Zoom Communications Inc. In entry on the company blogZoom Communications CEO Eric Yuan writes that Zoom is now a “first AI work platform for human communication” that provides “modern, hybrid work solutions.” That’s a insignificant, if vague, change from the growth of 2020, when the classic Zoom Meetings product became synonymous with video conferencing and thrived as companies were forced to move employees to work from home.

Now it no longer wants to be known for video as workers return to offices and larger, better-resourced competition from Google, Microsoft and Slack offer video as a feature of office suites that companies already pay for.

By the end of 2020, Zoom’s annual revenue had quadrupled, but in early 2022 the forecast changed as Wedbush analyst Dan Ives predicted that “work from home will be the beneficiary…Netflix, Facebook, Zoom, Peloton will see growth decline from the cliff.” For both Peloton and Zoom, the next few months and years confirmed this.

Zoom has fought back by introducing more comprehensive communication tools, starting with Zoom Team Chat. Now Zoom offers its own complete Zoom Workplace solution with Google and Microsoft-style productivity apps, a business email client, and more.

…today we all spend a lot of time making phone calls, joining meetings, sending emails, deleting spam and replying to some text messages, we are still very busy. How [do we] use artificial intelligence, how to use Zoom Workplace to fully automate this type of work? This is something that is very important to us.

Zoom AI Companion 2.0 launched in October with improved summary and help tools, which it says will “translate into a fully customizable digital twin powered by institutional knowledge, freeing up the entire workday and allowing you to work just four days a week”. “