Remember, in 2020, the company Zoom took full advantage of the boom in teleworking to become one of the benchmarks in videoconferencing. However, this is not enough for its CEO and founder Eric Yuan who is much more ambitious for the future. Let’s take stock.
A change of name
In a blog postthe executive explained that his company no longer wants to be known just for video conferencing, but as a company focused on AI. This notably involves a change of name. “Zoom Video Communication Inc.” thus becomes “Zoom Communications Inc.”
A very comprehensive AI tool
Zoom also wants to promote AI that changes life at work with products that “lets you work happier, smarter and faster”. Joining actions to words, she presents AI Companion :
Integrated with Zoom Workplace, AI Companion frees us to focus on more important tasks and minimizes time wasted on less meaningful tasks. By summarizing meeting tasks, drafting email responses, and preparing for meetings, AI Companion is your digital assistant that reduces your work hours.
Literally selling dreams, Zoom believes that these essential features could free up an entire day of work and would therefore be the ideal ally for moving to the four-day week.
Zoom has competition
Still, the American company is clearly not the only one to have this idea. Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, has already pivoted his company towards AI and is also considering a name change.
Google also touts the massive use of AI by its employees, particularly for coding purposes. Let us also mention Microsoft, Amazon or Meta who also praise their AI products for professional purposes.
The effect of Zoom on our brains
As a reminder, scientists from Yale University wanted to know if video interactions and face-to-face interactions produced different effects in our brain. To get a better idea, they recruited 28 healthy American adults and measured their brain activity face-to-face and on the Zoom app.
Joy Hirsch, neuroscientist and lead author of this academic work, summarized the findings of this experiment: “Overall, the dynamic and natural social interactions that occur spontaneously during in-person interactions appear to be less apparent or absent during meetings. Zoom. This is a really robust effect.” More information in our previous article here.
