Zoom is a cloud-enabled video conferencing and communications platform developed by Zoom Video Communications. Designed to connect people by video, audio and messaging across devices, Zoom provides tools for live meetings, webinars, team chat, phone services and room-system integrations. The company behind the product was founded in the early 2010s and grew into a widely adopted service for business, education and personal use.
Core features
- Video meetings with screen sharing, recording and participant controls
- Chat for instant messages and file exchange, both inside and outside meetings
- Webinars and virtual events with host controls and attendee management
- Breakout rooms, virtual backgrounds and live transcription/captioning
- Cloud and local recording, and optional end-to-end encryption for meetings
- Zoom Phone (VoIP) and Zoom Rooms (conference-room appliances)
Zoom offers a tiered model: a free plan with limits on group meeting length and participant counts and paid subscriptions that expand capacity, administrative controls, cloud storage and advanced security options.
History and development
Zoom was created to simplify video conferencing, prioritizing ease of use and reliability. After its launch and a public listing toward the end of the 2010s, the platform experienced rapid, high-profile growth during the global shift to remote work and distance learning in 2020. That surge led to intense scrutiny of performance, privacy and security, and to a sequence of product and policy changes meant to strengthen protections and add enterprise features.
Because of its breadth of features and wide adoption, Zoom is used in corporate meetings, telemedicine, online education, social gatherings and broadcast events. Its conveniences—such as cross-platform clients, calendar integration and hardware options—contributed to mainstream acceptance. At the same time, users and administrators must manage bandwidth, access control and moderation to avoid disruptions sometimes called "Zoombombing".
Today, Zoom remains one of several major players in web conferencing, distinguished by its focus on usability, a growing set of communications offerings and continuous development of security and administrative tools.