Zoom’s Slack competitor is getting a new name and features

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Many of us have been on a lot of Zoom calls, but you might not know that the company has a similar product called Zoom chat. A small change to the name of the product was announced by the company on Monday.

The name change is the first thing we need to discuss. Customers were confused about the difference between the chat you can use in a meeting and the separate communication suite, so they decided to add the word team. Sharvari Nerurkar, the head of product at zoom team chat, said in an interview that changing the product to zoom team chat makes it clear that it is a full collaborative hub product.

The idea is that it can be a singular collaboration hub where you can work with colleagues in real time on calls or text chats. You may be doing this mix of video, voice, and text to talk with your co-workers but across different pieces of software. We do video calls over the phone at The Verge.

If your workplace uses zoom for video calls, you can do most of your communication in one place with zoom team chat and not have to switch between apps. Customers don't want the hassle of jumping from one product to another to work with the same group of people.

New features will be released by the end of the month to improve the experience of using the team chat feature. You will be able to share in-meeting chat right into zoom team chat, which will make it easier to see important notes after the meeting is over. If you are having a text conversation that might lend itself to a call, you will be able to schedule a zoom meeting from a zoom team chat channel.

Image: Zoom

In order to help organizations adapt to hybrid work environments, they are building out their own workplace communication products, which is why they are facing fierce competition. The company may have an uphill battle in persuading companies to switch to Zoom Team chat from other platforms.