This new document tool includes Zoom’s AI Companion, a generative AI built on models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Zoom’s own models. The AI Companion can take a meeting transcript and organize it into templates, tables, checklists, and trackers to help streamline processes and tasks. These documents can be easily integrated into Zoom meetings for seamless sharing and editing.
Smita Hashim, Zoom’s chief product officer, emphasizes that AI differentiates their offering by handling mundane, high-friction tasks that consume a lot of time. The introduction of Zoom docs represents the latest update to their collaborative tool, Workplace, launched in March. Zoom aims to attract customers in a market dominated by Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, both of which have already integrated AI features into their tools.
According to Will McKeon-White, a senior analyst at Forrester, the market is tough but not impenetrable. Google Docs, for instance, has flourished in a domain once dominated by Microsoft Word. Today, Google Workspace boasts over 3 billion users, while Microsoft Teams has more than 320 million monthly active users.
Zoom is banking on pricing to attract customers. Its Workplace plans, which include the AI Companion, range from $14 to $19 per user per month for smaller companies. In contrast, Microsoft’s Copilot for 365 add-on costs $30 per user per month, while Google’s Gemini for business is priced between $20 and $30 per user per month, on top of the base service costs.
Google’s Gemini helps users brainstorm in Google Docs, create images, and summarize and refine text. Microsoft’s Copilot works across Word, PowerPoint, and Excel to analyze information, rewrite content, and create presentations. Convincing businesses to switch workplace tech providers is challenging, but Zoom is betting on the fact that many organizations already use Zoom alongside other providers, making them more open to transitioning.
Zoom has been seeking the next big innovation to replicate its rapid growth during the COVID-19 lockdowns, a period when people relied heavily on Zoom for work, socializing, and even weddings. However, by early 2023, Zoom hit a plateau as the number of paying clients stabilized and fewer people turned to Zoom for casual calls. The company was removed from the Nasdaq 100 at the end of 2023, and its share price has fallen nearly 90 percent from its 2020 peak. Early in 2023, Zoom laid off about 15 percent of its staff, but it has since been integrating more features, such as calendar functions and cartoon avatars, to stay competitive. Zoom has also seen growth in its Contact Center, a customer service channel for businesses, but it needs to do more to compete with bundled services like those offered by Google and Microsoft.
To evolve beyond its pandemic-era hype, Zoom has made a strong push to incorporate AI into its platform. In April, Zoom announced its Workplace collaboration tools, which include an AI assistant capable of summarizing meetings and chats, as well as writing messages and emails. In July, Zoom expanded its workflow automation tool to send automated and recurring reminders tied to meetings and regularly scheduled tasks, such as summary notes and project updates.
Zoom’s CEO, Eric S. Yuan, envisions a future where AI-driven digital twins stand in for people during meetings and handle email correspondence. Although Yuan did not specify if Zoom is currently developing digital twins, he imagines a future where AI allows us to work less.
One of the major challenges for workplace tech is managing the chaotic nature of notifications from emails, chats, phone calls, and various document storage locations. AI could help streamline this process, especially if all information is centralized within one company’s software. Zoom’s platform has strong potential, particularly among frontline workers who have not traditionally been targeted by Google or Microsoft and are in need of digital disruption and tech solutions.
However, implementing transformative AI changes in the workplace requires substantial investment in capital and employee training. While companies are eager to lead in AI adoption, some have provided little guidance to workers on its use. The full impact of these investments might not be apparent until later in the decade.
To prove that its tools are worth the investment, Zoom needs to continue expanding its AI capabilities. Normalizing AI use among a wide range of workers will take time, but Zoom is on the right path to making it happen.