Zoom Communications Bets on AI to Turn Meetings Into Revenue-Driving Workflows

Key Points

• Zoom is repositioning meetings as AI-powered business workflows, using conversational context to trigger actions in tools such as Jira and Salesforce. The company believes converting conversations into measurable business outcomes will drive customer value and revenue.
• Zoom’s enterprise strategy focuses on expanding beyond meetings through Zoom Phone, AI-enabled customer-experience products, ZoomMate and sales technology, while its online segment—about 38% of the business—works toward stabilization.
• AI monetization will be selective: routine features such as meeting summaries will generally be bundled into paid plans, while higher-ROI offerings—including ZoomMate, sales AI and contact-center tools—will carry greater monetization potential. Zoom is also targeting an 80% long-term gross margin and a 40.7% fiscal 2027 operating margin.

Zoom Communications NASDAQ: ZM is positioning its platform as an AI-enabled “system of action” that can turn conversational data into business workflows, according to Michelle, the company’s CFO, speaking at a company event.

Michelle said Zoom’s strategic opportunity rests on the context generated in human-to-human conversations, much of which historically has not been captured in systems of record. The company aims to use AI to extract that context and help customers take actions within other business applications.

“What really matters to the customer is getting them to action, because when we know there’s action, then there’s business value,” Michelle said. “The good news is when we can deliver business value to our customers, it drives revenue.”

From Meetings to Business Workflows

Michelle described examples in which an engineer could use information from a Zoom meeting to update Jira without leaving the platform, or a salesperson could automatically update Salesforce after a customer conversation. Zoom sees those workflows as a differentiator because it operates where many customer conversations occur, she said.

The company’s growth focus is centered on its enterprise business, while its online business has been working toward stabilization. Michelle said the online segment represents about 38% of Zoom’s business.

Zoom’s enterprise growth strategy includes broadening its product portfolio beyond meetings, integrating AI into core products, expanding through channels and pursuing larger customers. Michelle said the company has seen year-over-year, multiquarter declines in churn and continued growth in Zoom Phone.

She also pointed to Zoom’s customer-experience business, which she said has delivered high-double-digit growth, defined as just below 100%, on a quarter-to-quarter basis. The business is being driven by AI-enabled contact center products, agent assistance and virtual agents, according to Michelle.

AI Architecture and Monetization

Zoom uses a federated AI architecture that can route workloads among smaller language models, large language models and open-source technologies rather than relying on a single provider. Michelle said the approach supports both product quality and cost management, including the use of smaller models for high-volume workloads.

The company has cited multimillion-dollar annual recurring revenue deals in which its AI approach was a key differentiator, Michelle said. She added that deployment flexibility, including on-premises options, can be important in larger customer deals.

Zoom does not intend to charge separately for every AI feature. Some capabilities, such as meeting summaries and note capture, are included in paid meeting offerings because customers increasingly expect those features as part of the experience, Michelle said. Zoom expects those features to help reduce churn, attract customers and support competitive wins.

However, the company intends to monetize AI tools where it sees clearer customer return on investment, including ZoomMate, sales AI products and customer-experience offerings.

• ZoomMate: Provides search across Zoom and non-Zoom data sources, integrations with enterprise systems, agentic actions and content creation capabilities.
• Customer experience: Combines contact center, AI-assisted agents and virtual agents, with the ability to hand off interactions across contact center and unified communications products.
• Revenue technology: Combines Common Room’s customer insights with Zoom Revenue Accelerator’s conversational intelligence for sales workflows.

Michelle said ZoomMate deployments differ by customer type. Enterprise customers tend to focus first on governance, trust, integrations and search, while smaller businesses are looking for simple, out-of-the-box tools. She named MongoDB, Oracle and Salesforce as customers that have made broad ZoomMate deployments.

Margins, Phone Growth and Acquisitions

Despite AI usage growing by roughly 100% to 200% year over year for some time, Zoom has maintained gross margins while expanding its product portfolio, Michelle said. She attributed that performance to the company’s federated AI approach, core efficiencies and monetization efforts.

Zoom continues to target a long-term gross margin of 80%. Michelle said the company’s latest fiscal 2027 operating-margin guidance of 40.7% reflects where it expects to operate unless it sees a more substantial revenue-growth inflection.

“Only when we see a more notable inflection in revenue growth will we change short of our operating margin,” she said, adding that the company is focused on growth while maintaining margins at its current growth rate.

Zoom Phone continues to grow at a double-digit rate, supported by both cloud and on-premises customer demand, Michelle said. The product also creates opportunities to sell adjacent offerings such as contact center services and AI Receptionist.

On acquisitions, Michelle said Zoom has acquired two companies in its first 15 years and three in the past year. The company will consider acquisitions tied to its three strategic priorities, provided they have a clear financial rationale, do not slow existing progress and can support durable margins and revenue growth. She said Zoom’s focus will likely remain on small- to medium-sized transactions, citing Bonsai, BrightHire and Common Room.

Looking ahead to its Zoomtopia conference in October, Michelle said investors should expect continued AI product innovation and further refinement of the company’s growth priorities. She also said Zoom plans to hold an Investor Day featuring longer-term guidance and additional operating metrics.

About Zoom Communications (NASDAQ:ZM)

Zoom Communications, Inc NASDAQ: ZM is a communications technology company that provides cloud-based tools for video meetings, collaboration and business communications. The company was founded in 2011 by Eric Yuan and is headquartered in San Jose, California. It was previously known as Zoom Video Communications before adopting the Zoom Communications name.

Its product portfolio includes Zoom Meetings for video conferencing, Zoom Phone for cloud-based business telephony, Zoom Team Chat for workplace messaging, and Zoom Rooms for conference-room collaboration.

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