In this exclusive conversation, Cathy Yum, Regional Head of Marketing and Demand Generation at Zoom, speaks to Anannya Saraswat, Reporter (Public Sector & Leadership), CXO Media and APAC Media, about how the company is shaping the future of collaboration with AI.
She discusses the evolution of Zoom’s agentic AI, the barriers organisations face in adopting AI-powered tools, and how Zoom’s focus on simplicity, transparency, and accessibility continues to drive strong engagement and adoption across regions in a post-pandemic world.
How do you see agentic AI evolving from just assisting to actually taking ownership of repetitive tasks?
At our annual flagship conference in September, we announced Zoom AI Companion 3.0. It’s the next step in our AI journey. This version focuses on memory and reasoning. It understands the context of who you are and what you’ve been working on, so it can take meaningful actions for you. It can make decisions, complete tasks, and even orchestrate entire workflows.
For example, if it detects you need a meeting based on a chat or meeting summary, it can automatically find a suitable time across participants’ calendars and set it up for you. It’s like having a personal assistant that handles routine work. Our AI can also collaborate with other agentic AIs, such as ServiceNow, to complete more complex operational tasks.
According to you, what are some of the barriers organisations face when adopting AI-powered collaboration tools, and how is Zoom addressing those challenges?
The biggest barrier is human nature, as it makes people cautious about new technology. There can also be some hesitation around how AI uses data. At Zoom, we tackle that head-on by being transparent. We’ve publicly announced that we do not use customer content—audio, video, chat, or other communications-like content—to train our AI models or the third-party models used in our products.
Another barrier is cost. Many companies charge extra for AI features, which can limit adoption. We’ve taken a different approach—AI Companion core features are included with your paid Zoom Workplace license at no extra cost. This allows everyone in an organization to use it, which maximizes the value of AI across teams.
Zoom is synonymous with virtual collaboration. Beyond technology, what factors do you think drive strong customer engagement and adoption across regions?
First, Zoom is easy and intuitive—it just works. That simplicity helps with adoption. In today’s ever-evolving workplace, that’s how people view collaboration. Flexibility is now expected. Whether you’re working from home, traveling, or in the office, people want tools that support that lifestyle.
We’ve seen variations across regions. For example, in Australia, hybrid work remains strong, similar to the U.S. In Korea, work culture is more traditional, but even there, people need easy and familiar tools when remote work is required. Many users tell us they prefer sending Zoom links for customer meetings because it’s so much simpler.
