Zoom is dropping ‘video’ from its company name

Zoom is changing its name from Zoom Video Communications Inc. to Zoom Communications Inc only. In a post on the company’s blog, Zoom Communications CEO Eric Yuan writes that Zoom is now “the first AI social networking platform” that brings “modern. , hybrid task solutions.” It’s a muddy, if vague, change compared to its rise in 2020 when the classic Zoom Meetings product resembled video conferencing and flourished as companies were forced to shift workers to work from home.

Now, it no longer wants to be known for video as workers are back in the office, and bigger, better-equipped competition from Google, Microsoft, and Slack is offering video as a feature that office suite companies are paying for.

By the end of 2020, Zoom’s full-year revenue had quadrupled, but by early 2022, projections had changed, as Wedbush analyst Dan Ives predicted that “work from domestic beneficiaries… Netflix, Facebook, Zoom, Peloton, they will see plants falling from the cliff.” For both Peloton and Zoom, the next few months and years proved that.

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

…nowadays we all spend a lot of time whether making phone calls, joining meetings, sending emails, deleting spam emails and replying to other messages, we are still very busy. How [do we] develop AI, how do we use Zoom Workplace, to fully automate that type of work? That is something that is very important to us.

Zoom’s AI companion 2.0 was launched in October with improved automation and assistance tools, which it says will “translate into a fully customizable digital twin armed with your institutional knowledge, freeing up a whole day’s worth of work and allowing you to work just four days a week.”