Zoom says it’s no longer a video company. What that means for your meetings

Zoom, the video communication service whose star rose in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, is getting out of the video name recreation — properly, form of.

In an announcement on Monday, the corporate mentioned that, whereas folks may not notice it, its official title is “Zoom Video Communications Inc.” as a result of that is the place its focus lies. And whereas that is nonetheless a precedence, Zoom says, the long run is about “a lot greater than video conferences.” 

Consequently, video is out, and the corporate is now simply “Zoom Communications.” This is what that may imply for you.

Like each different firm, Zoom says a severe injection of synthetic intelligence (AI) is on the best way. “What could have been a ‘nice-to-have’ is now a ‘must-have,'” the corporate defined, calling its Zoom AI Companion the “heartbeat” of its future. Proper now, the characteristic can catch you up on conferences, compose messages, and extra. 

Sooner or later, Zoom hopes to proceed creating new AI capabilities, even perhaps “a totally customizable digital twin” that is aware of precisely what you do and may liberate your workday — to the purpose of permitting you to work simply 4 days per week. If that sounds loopy, Zoom factors out that the usual work week was once 48 hours till Henry Ford revolutionized manufacturing. 

Shifting ahead, Zoom appears to be focusing in your total workday, not simply your morning or afternoon video name. It already has Zoom Docs, which helps you to work collaboratively on paperwork each out and in of conferences, and Workforce Chat, which helps you to entry a gathering chat, share a whiteboard, soar into a gathering, and extra.

In brief, your video calls aren’t going anyplace, and Zoom will proceed to be what it has been. Simply anticipate to see extra collaboration earlier than and after the assembly ends, in addition to AI throughout to hopefully make your work life somewhat simpler.