The chief marketing officer discusses how user behavior has shaped the platform and how that informs its next phase.
Kim Storin
15 years after its launch, Zoom is taking stock of how it became a default tool for work and what that position means for the business today. For Kim Storin, who joined the company this past year as chief marketing officer, that process began before her first official day.
In the weeks leading up to her arrival, Storin spoke with roughly 50 customers and non-customers across SMB, mid-market and enterprise organizations. Rather than focusing on feature comparisons, many of those conversations centered on habit and comfort. “I started to build this hypothesis that people just love Zoom in a way that people don’t typically love tech,” she says. “People really identified themselves as Zoom users, compared with our competitors.”
As those discussions continued, similar themes surfaced repeatedly. “Simplicity, ubiquity, ease of use. The fact that your mom knows how to use the platform and so does your office. And then there’s reliability. It just kept ringing true.”
Taken together, that feedback offered insight into how Zoom often enters organizations, through individual preference that later becomes institutional standard.
That pattern has influenced how Zoom approaches growth today. Internal teams are paying closer attention to how people encounter and adopt the platform inside companies, where usage frequently spreads through day-to-day work rather than formal rollout plans. “We’re already in popular vernacular and popular culture,” Storin says. “Using Zoom as a verb lets us show how people actually get work done and how they’re their most productive selves.”
Over recent years, the company has expanded its product set beyond meetings to include customer support, internal communications, webinars and events, sales tools and contact center services. “We’re so much more than just meetings now. What you’re seeing is the breadth and depth of the platform in a way we really haven’t leaned into before.” Communicating that expansion remains a challenge for a brand still closely associated with video calls.
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AI now sits across much of that product portfolio, though Storin acknowledges the difficulty of discussing it in a crowded market. “There’s a lot of AI washing happening right now,” she says. At Zoom, AI is being added to existing workflows around meetings and follow-up tasks, with the aim of reducing manual effort. “Whether you’re preparing for a meeting, in a meeting or following up, that’s where it helps reduce friction.”
From a measurement standpoint, Storin said the company is watching how customers stay with the platform and how their use develops over time. While reach and attention still play a role, retention, expansion and multi-product usage are central to how progress is assessed. “Marketing is meant to drive sustainable growth. That means acquisition and retention together.”
As Zoom moves beyond its 15th year, the company is navigating how to evolve a platform that many users already take for granted while responding to changing expectations around collaboration, productivity and automation. For Storin, the most consistent guide remains the same source she started with: close observation of how people actually use the product.
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