When Zoom started leaning hard into AI-first messaging, I was not instantly convinced.
Like a lot of people, I wondered whether this was just another rush to stick AI onto everything because the market expected it. Another layer of hype. Another buzzword. Another promise that technology would magically solve problems it barely understood.
But the more I have watched Zoom evolve, and more importantly, the more I have used it in the real world, the more I think I was looking at it the wrong way.
Zoom is not really an AI-first company.
It is becoming a data-first company, powered by AI.
That is a very different thing for me, although marketing see it as the same. Because when you look across the Zoom ecosystem properly, you start to see the bigger picture.
- Every meeting.
- Every webinar.
- Every event.
- Every phone call.
- Every document.
They are not isolated products. They are part of the same connected environment.
They create context. They generate reference points. They build continuity. They become part of one wider operational picture.
And once that clicks, Zoom’s AI direction starts to make much more sense.
AI is not the product. AI is the intelligence layer sitting across the products, and that matters. Because in the real world, we do not work in neat little boxes.
We jump from calls to meetings. From meetings to webinars. From webinars to follow-up. From follow-up to documents. From documents to planning the next thing.
Our work is connected, even when our tools are not.
That is why the idea of AI inside Zoom is more interesting than simply “an assistant in a meeting.”
If Zoom gets this right, AI Companion is not just there to summarize one conversation. It becomes a way of helping you understand the bigger picture across how you actually work.
And that is where I started to shift my thinking.
I am not a Zoom product manager. – I live in the real world.
I make phone calls. I run meetings. I host webinars. I build systems. I use Zoom products as part of day-to-day business, not just as features on a roadmap.
So when I talk about Zoom, I am not talking from a corporate script. I am talking from experience. That is also why I want to break these conversations down into separate shows.
There is now too much happening in the Zoom ecosystem to cram it all into one stream of updates and expect people to follow it comfortably.
Different people care about different things.
Some want better meetings. Some want webinar strategy. Some want production ideas. Some want AI. Some want to understand how all the pieces fit together.
So rather than throw everything into one giant bucket, I want to make it easier to follow, easier to learn from, and easier to apply.
That is why, from April 2026, AI Companion will have its own show on hub.LordZoom.com.
And the first question we are going to explore is this:
What does AI Companion 3.0 actually look like in practice?
Not in the abstract. Not in a press release. Not in polished launch language.
In practice.
What does it look like for people who are running businesses, managing conversations, hosting sessions, creating content, and trying to make sense of an increasingly connected digital workspace?
For the sake of the show, we are giving AI Companion a more friendly name:
C3 – And yes, we are going with that. it is less of a mouthful if you are going to use it multiple times on each webinar!
Because sometimes giving a thing a face, a voice, or a personality helps make the conversation easier to have.
This new show is not about pretending AI is magic.
It is about exploring what it actually means when a platform starts connecting your calls, meetings, webinars, events, and documents into one intelligent system.
- It is about asking better questions.
- It is about testing what is useful.
And it is about helping people understand where this is going before they get left behind by it.
So yes, another show. But this one matters. Because AI is no longer a side topic.
Inside Zoom, it is becoming part of the whole story.
And I think that story is only just getting started. So, AI helped we write this too !
Follow along at hub.LordZoom.com from April 2026 as we launch Lord Zoom Conversations with Companion and start exploring the world of C3.