When the COVID pandemic forced the corporate world to operate online, Zoom was suddenly thrust into everyday vocabulary. “Can we have a quick catch-up in the kitchen?” was suddenly replaced with a simple “Zoom?”
But now, the $19 billion video-calling giant no longer wants to be known for the very thing that made it famous.
Zoom is “so much more than just video meetings,” Graeme Geddes, Zoom’s chief growth officer, told Fortune. “Video is our heritage—so we’re going to continue to lean in there, push the market, there’s a lot of innovation that we’re doing—but we’re so much more than that.”
So what does the company primarily known for enabling remote workers to connect through a screen want to be known as going forward?
“We want to be known as an AI-first collaboration platform,” Geddes responded.
While jumping on the AI bandwagon has become an Olympic sport for business leaders—with companies like Alphabet and Microsoft mentioning the term more than 50 times each on recent earnings calls—Zoom’s transparent attempt to rebrand as an AI company does fit with its concerted efforts to expand beyond video and into the wider productivity realm.
Earlier this year it launched Zoom Workplace, where users can access a variety of tools for hybrid environments, from its virtual whiteboard and visitor check-in tool to its flexible workplace reservation technology and feedback forms.
Meanwhile, it similarly acquired Workvivo last year for around €250 million ($272 million).
The employee engagement tool, which acts like Slack but has an interface similar to Facebook, is now being used by the likes of Amazon, Bupa, and Ryanair—and, as Geddes points out, “has nothing to do with video.”
“We’re helping our customers in the way that their customers show up to their website, having a chatbot automation service that can escalate into a phone call,” Geddes added. “A lot of workflows that have no video involved.”
Zoom needs a second act if it wants to remain relevant
It’s no coincidence that Zoom is shifting away from being known as a chief enabler of video meetings, as businesses are increasingly distancing themselves from the pandemic-era work style.
Last autumn alone, some 1 million workers were issued RTO mandates.
Now bosses are increasingly demanding workers come in five days a week, practically removing the need for workers to dial into meetings remotely—and Zoom’s stock has tanked back to pre-pandemic levels as a result.
In October 2020, Zoom’s shares rose to a peak of $559—up from around $66 at the end of 2019—but they’re now back to around the $60 mark.
“At the start of the pandemic, I think there were tons of people who flocked to Zoom,” Jacqueline Barrett, economist and founder of the Bright Arc, tells Fortune.
“There was probably a little bit of overexcitement in terms of the stock, with people anticipating that the growth was going to be like that indefinitely, and then with the increased competition, I think that growth or maintaining all those users was difficult for them to do,” Barrett explains.
In addition to return-to-office mandates resulting in fewer people requiring Zoom’s services on a day-to-day basis, workers now have more platforms than ever to choose from.
It’s why, she says, Zoom has to highlight that it offers more than just video-calling services.
“There’s so many other players in the market that are offering these new features that have already bundled things together or that are constantly unveiling new features with generative AI. If it’s not the legacy players like Google or Microsoft or Cisco, there’s so many startups that are focused on pretty much every little niche imaginable with generative AI,” Barrett says. “So you have to stay up to date. Otherwise your product just isn’t going to be as useful.”
Zoom’s next act: Don’t attend video meetings at all
Of course, Zoom isn’t oblivious to the fact that dialing into daily video calls may soon become a distant memory reserved for the pandemic days—in fact, that’s a scenario it claims to be ready for.
“Even when people are all back in the office, there’s still a use case for Zoom,” Geddes said, pointing to the company’s foray into AI.
“We have customers that they’re in a conference room, there’s no remote participant, and guess what? They’re having AI companion automate the note-taking of that meeting, summarize the next steps and action items,” Geddes explained. “No remote participant. No video being used. But there’s still value in the Zoom platform participating in that session.”
Perhaps more surprisingly, the company plans to encourage people to ditch attending video meetings altogether, thanks to this technology.
Earlier this month, Zoom’s founder and CEO Eric Yuan revealed that the company is developing deepfake avatars—or as he puts it, “digital twins”—that’ll look like you, talk like you, and make business decisions on your behalf during meetings.
“Today we all spend a lot of time either making phone calls, joining meetings, sending emails, deleting some spam emails, and replying to some text messages, still very busy,” Yuan said.
But in the future, he added: “I can send a digital version of myself to join so I can go to the beach.”
While Zoom’s digital twin technology is still quite some way away from becoming a reality, Geddes said that he’s already using the company’s current AI capabilities to manage being missing in action without leaving his team adrift.
“A month ago, I was in Sydney—I’m based in California, so definitely a couple of time zones away—and when you travel the one thing that doesn’t stop is all the meetings that I’m supposed to be in,” he shared.
Instead of coworkers canceling calls until his return, business continued as usual—just without his presence. Thanks to the platform’s smart summary, Geddes boasted that he was able to wake up in the morning and act on whatever was discussed in his absence.
“I was empowered; I didn’t attend the meeting. Had a good idea of what was discussed,” he added. “Now, how much time would I have lost if I waited two weeks to get back and the teams were waiting for me to make that decision?”
“So that leads to the conversation about: If I can get a summary, is there an option for my virtual assistant to show up on my behalf? So this is a natural evolution that we’ll see of the platform of how we can deliver more value to our customers.”
