Zoom Video Communication Inc. is incorporating new artificial intelligence-based features into its suite of tools to compete with Microsoft’s Teams, Bloomberg reports.
The company is introducing a Google Docs-like word processor with collaborative editing features next year. Another tool will use AI to scan non-verbal cues of meeting participants so meeting hosts can identify in real-time participants who want to speak.
Zoom claims to have added over 1,500 features to the platform last year, including the Zoom virtual agent, an artificial intelligence-powered conversation bot that helps deliver personalized experience to users, and which the company hopes will “transform the way businesses assist their customers and employees.” Zoom introduced a suite of generative AI tools to premium Zoom subscribers at no extra cost last month. The features are being embedded in live meetings, chats, phone, email and Whiteboard.
Zoom’s new features will help it compete with Teams, with chief product officer Smita Hashim telling Bloomberg that the tools come with the ability to generate meeting summaries in real-time.
Still, many of these AI functionalities have already been adopted by Teams, Zoom’s greatest rival. Teams continues to command the lion share of the communication and collaborative software market at 42.6% as of March this year, compared to Zoom’s 6.8%. Hashim, however, believes their platform has a superior user experience. “The quality of Zoom is just incredible—it is just heads and shoulders above anyone else,” she told Bloomberg.
Zoom’s revenue has grown fivefold in the three years since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, reaching $4.1 billion in 2022. But the growth curve has begun to flatten during the Great Return as businesses resume office work. Zoom only recorded a 1.8% year over year revenue growth in the first quarter of 2023. Meanwhile, Microsoft extended its dominance in the worldwide the communication and collaborative software market, with revenues rising by 22% year over year to $6.6 billion in the first quarter of this year, according to IDC.
Zoom recently spoke with regulators in the US, UK, Germany, and the European Union about concerns that Microsoft’s operating system gives preference to the Teams product through design and price bundling. This, Zoom feels, is a breach of antitrust rules.
In August, Zoom faced controversy of its own when it silently edited its terms of service to award itself exclusive rights to train its AI models using user data without proper consent, a move that led to a call for developers to quit the platform. The firm has also faced criticism for failing to prevent Zoom-bombing, a phenomenon that’s been a problem for users ever since the platform’s rise to popularity early in the pandemic.
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