Zoom is Looking to Expand Beyond Virtual Meetings with AI Productivity Tools

Zoom (NASDAQ: ZM) is looking to expand beyond video conferencing notoriety by introducing a slew of artificial intelligence (AI) driven productivity tools. These new AI features include meeting summaries, email drafts, and more to its video conferencing app through its Zoom IQ assistant.

In a blog post, Zoom announced a collaboration with AI darling OpenAI in effort to expand and improve its Zoom IQ offering, evolving the service to "become a smart companion that empowers collaboration."

Under the partnership, Zoom IQ will summarize chat threads for important details, than organize those ideas and draft content that can be used to send a chat message, email or white board sessions in response. The expanded AI software can also create meeting agendas, effectively adding a savvy digital secretary to your Zoom app.

Zoom IQ will also provide AI-generated meeting summaries when you join a meeting midway, making it easier to catch up on lost time instead of having organizers repeat information.

"At work, the little things add up to a lot of time and energy -- the time it takes to compose an email, find the notes about a call you missed, or catch up on unread chats," Zoom said in a the blog. "By expediting these smaller tasks, we gain more than just time. We unlock greater creativity and collaboration for ourselves and our teams."

Zoom also introduced some non-AI features to expand its productivity tools as well. These include Zoom Scheduler, which gives users the ability to share their calendar availability to schedule future meetings, and Zoom Huddles, which are virtual co-working spaces where people can join or exit at any time.

Until now, Zoom IQ was introduced as an intelligence software that had the ability to record highlights, list action items and create meeting chapters. The company also launched Zoom IQ for Sales, which provides insights from video calls to between assist sales teams.

The company said it is inviting users next month to try out the new AI features for Zoom IQ before a broader roll out later.

This new expansion of Zoom IQ, especially with AI interrogation, makes Zoom a powerhouse of productivity tools similar to those offered by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL). Moreover, its effort to remain a relevant workplace tool beyond virtual meetings now puts its in better competition with Salesforce's Slack (NYSE: CRM) and calendar and meeting software provider Calendly.

Shares of Zoom are down nearly 40% in the last 12 months, but are currently outpacing the broader market S&P 500 (NYSE: SPY) so far this year with a gain of 8%. The company posted its first quarterly loss since 2018 of $108 million in its recent fourth-quarter earnings results. However, it is projecting growth of 1.1% this fiscal year, with revenues between $4.435 billion to $4.455 billion.