Zoom Video earnings on deck as pandemic era star looks to AI boost

Zoom Video Communications  (ZM) - Get Free Report shares edged higher in pre-market trading ahead of the video conferencing specialists' second quarter earnings slated for after the closing bell. 

Analysts expect Zoom, which has been facing both intense competition from larger rivals such as Microsoft  (MSFT) - Get Free Report and Salesforce  (CRM) - Get Free Report as well as a fall-off in post pandemic demand for its 'work from home' conferencing solutions, to post an adjusted bottom line of $1.05 per share, a tally that would largely be flat to last year's total.

Group revenues are also likely to be little-changed from the second quarter of last year, at $1.1 billion, with enterprise sales likely offsetting another decline in online revenues - a division comprised of smaller and medium-sized businesses. 

Earlier this spring, Zoom lifted its full-year sales forecast to between $4.47 billion and $4.49 billion, a 2% bump from its prior forecast.

Zoom may also articulate its developing AI strategy, but will likely face ongoing privacy concerns related to its use of customer data to train AI models, including its own 'Zoe' chatbot.

"Security and data protection, inaccuracies, copyright, bias and notably the absence of watermarking are issues for all generative AI entrants, including OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta and Google." said Benchmark analyst Matthew Harrigan, who carries a 'buy' rating on Zoom stock with a $95 price target.

Zoom shares were marked 0.33% higher in pre-market trading to indicate a Monday opening bell price of $66.51 each. 

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