The way we work has undergone a seismic shift in recent years. From fully remote setups during the pandemic to the current push for hybrid and in-office models, companies are navigating uncharted territory. In Southeast Asia, where urban congestion, diverse workforce expectations, and digital transformation are reshaping professional environments, the debate over flexible work is more than just a passing trend, it’s a fundamental conversation about productivity, engagement, and the future of work itself.
At the heart of this transformation is technology, and few companies have been as closely tied to the evolution of modern workplaces as Zoom. Once synonymous with video calls, the company has expanded its capabilities to become an AI-first work platform, integrating tools that streamline communication, enhance collaboration, and ultimately improve efficiency for businesses of all sizes. From AI-driven productivity tools to integrated communication solutions, Zoom is positioning itself as a key player in shaping how businesses operate in the digital age.
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But in a region as diverse as Southeast Asia, where business needs vary widely from one market to the next, how does a global technology company like Zoom adapt its strategy to remain relevant? And as AI continues to reshape workplace interactions, what role will it play in fostering a more connected and efficient workforce?
Lucas Lu, Head of Asia at Zoom, brings a unique perspective to these questions. With firsthand experience in driving the company’s growth across the region, he understands the challenges businesses face in balancing employee expectations with operational efficiency. In this conversation, he shares how Zoom is evolving beyond video conferencing, the company’s approach to AI-powered workplace solutions, and what the future holds for hybrid work in Southeast Asia. From fully remote setups during the pandemic to the current push for hybrid, virtual offices and in-office models, companies are navigating uncharted territory.
From tackling the return-to-office movement to making AI more accessible and valuable for businesses, Lucas offers insights into how organisations can future-proof their workplace strategies. As Southeast Asian companies look to navigate an increasingly complex work environment, Zoom’s evolution serves as a case study in how technology can bridge the gap between flexibility and productivity.
Read on for a deep dive into the changing workplace landscape, the role of AI in collaboration, and what businesses should expect as they adapt to the future of work.
How does Zoom view the growing “return to office” movement, and what impact do you think it will have on long-term workplace flexibility in Southeast Asia?
Organisations are striving to build workforces that are both highly productive and collaborative. While we are seeing many companies attempt to implement return-to-office policies, there is no one-size-fits-all approach, especially in a dynamic region like Southeast Asia. Its large, young, educated workforce is not going to sit for hours in traffic just to commute to the office. At the same time, they still want to connect with their teammates authentically.
A balanced approach is essential. Leaders must align their business needs with employee expectations to create flexible work models that work best for them. Certain tasks like creative work, brainstorming and team-building may benefit from in-person meetings. While AI can now take meeting notes to facilitate better collaboration, there is still something uniquely energising about meeting face-to-face. However, organisations must continue to ensure that remote and hybrid employees remain equally supported and connected.
Technology will play a critical role in enabling long-term flexibility. As organisations seek to reduce friction in the transition to hybrid ways of working, having the right technology in place that can support both employee productivity and employee engagement is a key piece for organisations of the future, no matter their workplace models.
Zoom Workplace can help organisations address the challenges of remote and hybrid workplace environments by streamlining communications and improving productivity – all in one platform.
How is Zoom adapting its strategy to ensure continued growth in the region?
There are three ways we are adapting our strategy for Southeast Asia.
First, we have fully transformed into an AI-first work platform designed to address the region’s evolving workplace needs. We are no longer just a video platform; we are enhancing communication and collaboration by integrating AI tools that improve productivity and streamline workflows. Our recent rebranding from Zoom Video Communications to Zoom Communications reflects this broader vision.
Second, we know that for many of our customers, cost is a significant barrier when adopting AI so we’ve taken cost out of the equation. Zoom AI Companion is available at no additional cost for eligible paid users to enhance an employee’s capabilities by using generative AI to boost productivity with features like meeting summaries, Team Chat compose, live translations, and more. We have a unique federated approach to AI, where we take advantage of many closed and open-sourced advanced large language models (LLMs) working together for the best results at no additional cost.
Lastly, we continue to innovate at ‘Zoom speed’, consistently introducing AI-first innovations to our platform. With other solutions like Zoom Phone and Zoom Contact Center, we are able to unify video, voice and chat channels. Collaboration features like Zoom Docs, Zoom Whiteboard, Zoom Scheduler, and more can be accessed from the same interface. Integrations with third-party apps reduce what we call ‘toggle tax’. For instance, products like Zoom Mail and Calendar allow users to connect their existing email and calendar accounts directly to Zoom, consolidating work processes without leaving the Zoom application.
Many organisations are now looking beyond video calls and towards integrated workplace solutions that enhance collaboration and productivity. Can you share how Zoom’s platform has evolved beyond its core video conferencing capabilities to meet these changing demands?
The way organisations collaborate is evolving, and Zoom has grown alongside these changes. While video meetings remain a core part of our identity, we have expanded far beyond that to become an AI-first company delivering modern solutions for hybrid work.
Today, our platform goes beyond video to support seamless collaboration via the use of AI tools to improve our customers’ and employees’ day-to-day work experience. Since launching in September 2023, AI Companion has been enabled on more than 4 million accounts, helping to enhance user skills with capabilities such as meeting summary, meeting questions, chat compose, and more, thereby freeing up time for more meaningful tasks.
We are constantly improving our platform, adding more things in terms of functionalities and features into our platform. We continue to have video and voice that covers all forms of communication. In collaboration, we have a variety of solutions like Zoom Whiteboard, Zoom Docs, and even scheduling capability. For marketing purposes, we have Zoom Events.
Our Zoom Contact Center and Zoom Phone solutions are designed to improve agent productivity, enhance customer satisfaction and improve business outcomes with AI. Zoom Phone offers customers an enterprise-grade, integrated phone, video and chat capabilities that allow them to communicate with their customers on their preferred channels.
We also acquired the employee engagement platform Workvivo to bring a new area of employee experience within our platform.
As you can see, we have a very rich AI-first work platform in place that is way more than video.
With AI playing an increasing role in workplace automation and communication, how does Zoom see AI reshaping the way meetings and collaboration happen?
Too often, employees are caught up in ‘work about work’, or repetitive tasks that do not add much in terms of personal development or business value. In fact, according to a Morning Consult survey we commissioned, nearly half of Singapore leaders (45%) spend at least one hour a day catching up on overdue tasks when they should instead be focused on strategic work like business development and training employees.
If organisations want their employees to thrive, they need to be able to focus on the work itself, not be worried about whether they have all the resources they need to do their job.
With Zoom Workplace, powered by AI Companion, employees can now focus on work that matters most. For example, instead of manually taking notes during a meeting, soon Zoom Docs will allow employees to transcribe in real-time and automatically populate a document as the discussion unfolds, with AI Companion helping to verify the information. We also recently announced the development of AI agents within Zoom Workplace to help retrieve project updates, summarise key conversations, and assign tasks, helping teams stay aligned and productive. All this allows employees to focus on more important aspects of the meeting ,such as creative ideation and important decision-making that will impact the business.
Most companies are thinking about how they can make their employees more productive, and AI plays a huge role. But today, they also need to start thinking about how to help employees feel more connected. In such a diverse market as Southeast Asia, having an AI tool that is built for multiple languages and enables communication across geographies will be a game-changer for workplace collaboration. AI Companion supports more than 30 languages, including Chinese, Bahasa, and Tamil, just to name a few – to make sure every employee’s voice is being heard.
By providing employees with a simple, innovative, and cost-effective platform with rich AI capabilities, organisations can help employees collaborate better and feel more connected to each other.
Looking ahead, what trends do you foresee shaping the future of work in Southeast Asia, and how is Zoom positioning itself to stay ahead of these trends?
Firstly, today’s workforce is more diverse than ever, with five generations collaborating simultaneously, and organisations must be prepared to meet employees where they are.
Different generations have different formative experiences that shape their perceptions and expectations of a workplace. Younger employees love to receive praise, recognition and awards for their work. They like connecting and learning through social platforms and sharing information online. They learn through immersive, bite-sized videos and short-form content. On the other hand, we’ve found that older employees prefer to learn in structured, formal ways and prefer to do these training in person.
With Workvivo, our employee engagement platform on Zoom Workplace, employees can stay engaged by recognising colleagues with internal awards, create community spaces with colleagues that have like-minded hobbies and interests, and be kept up-to-date on key company announcements. It also collects employee opinion, feedback and other insights to drive engagement and retention.
Having a balanced approach that incorporates elements that appeal to different communication styles can be effective in fostering a more connected and engaged workforce. This will pay massive dividends in the long run, fostering a strong company culture, happier customers, and a resilient organisation.
Second, AI will be a critical enabler in helping organisations enhance customer experience. Customers today expect personalised interactions across all touchpoints. Companies that focus on delivering an exceptional user experience will be best positioned to come out on top. This year, we will see a new class of companies emerge that use AI to make customer service much more human while also saving costs.
Zoom helps organisations create holistic experiences to power the modern workday for back office teams, front line employees, and contact centre agents, as well as to enable better collaboration with external customers so organisations can grow their businesses. With AI built into Zoom Contact Center and Zoom Phone, customer experience teams have the tools they need to deliver exceptional service. With Zoom AI Companion, agents are presented with conversation summaries to get quick context before taking a call or responding to a query. These interaction summaries also reduce the post-call burden of note-taking, allowing agents to move on to the next interaction faster.
Lastly, we will see a rise in agentic AI. Zoom is already integrating agentic AI into our platform, which enables AI to go beyond simple prompts and responses, managing multi-step tasks autonomously. These agents will be able to reason, plan, and learn from past actions, providing support for real-time decision-making and automation at scale. Our federated AI approach will ensure that AI agents can execute actions efficiently and in collaboration with other agents to achieve goals.
We believe that AI assistants will evolve to handle complex workflows, make decisions in real-time and drive automation. This will empower organisations to streamline operations and support more efficient decision-making.
What’s next for Zoom in Southeast Asia?
At Zoom, we have always focused on being customer-first, constantly listening to feedback and evolving to meet the unique needs of our users. Looking ahead in Southeast Asia, we remain committed to driving customer value and innovation based on real-world business needs. Our roadmap is guided by the goal of empowering our customers to achieve their objectives more efficiently with AI.
One of the exciting developments on the horizon is Zoom AI Studio, which gives users the flexibility to customise AI Companion to better suit their market needs. We are also working on streamlining everyday tasks, as seen with the introduction of Zoom Tasks, which helps users organise action items seamlessly across Zoom Meetings and Team Chat, reducing the complexity of managing to-do lists.
To further enhance customer experience, we continue to improve tools like Zoom Contact Center, which now offers AI Expert Assist for more efficient and personalised customer service. This capability allows agents to analyse conversations on the fly and provides information they need, right when they need it, ensuring faster and more accurate responses during customer interactions.
In Southeast Asia, we see an immense opportunity in helping SMEs bridge the AI adoption gap by offering accessible and effective AI tools to elevate productivity, reduce operational burdens, and foster innovation for smaller businesses. Zoom Workplace is designed to help SMEs streamline communications, increase employee engagement, optimise in-person time, and improve productivity across flexible work – all within a single platform. We are also committed to ensuring that AI tools like Zoom AI Companion remain accessible at no additional cost to eligible paid Zoom Workplace users, especially for businesses looking for a cost-effective solution that can scale.
We believe that with this, companies in Southeast Asia can stay competitive in a fast-changing business environment.