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Zoom Has a ‘SWAT Team’ to Stand Out on ChatGPT and Gemini
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Good morning. Today, a household-name brand watches its reputation with large language models.
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Chief Marketing Officer Kimberly Storin is trying to help Zoom show up the way it wants to with large language models. Zoom Communications
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Yet another new job duty has skyrocketed in importance for chief marketing officers, Megan Graham reports for The WSJ Leadership Institute: optimizing how their companies appear in conversations with large language models like ChatGPT or Google Gemini.
But marketing leaders’ latest critical mission is also a moving target, Zoom Communications CMO Kimberly Storin tells Megan.
Storin says she assembled a “SWAT Team” to track and act on new research and developments with large language models.
“SEO has to play a role,” Storin said. “But so does content, so does our web team, so does our data team, so does our brand and media team. It’s so complex. How are we changing the way that we’re building content?”
I asked Megan for a couple key takeaways from their talk.
Why does a famous brand like Zoom need to worry about what the chatbots say? It doesn’t seem likely to be overlooked, or misunderstood.
Megan: Every business has to worry about this now. With consumers of both products and services often going to their LLM of choice to research businesses first, it’s not a choice. And it’s hard to see this going in any other direction in years to come. I would be super curious to hear how—if ever—brands have dealt with outright false information getting pulled onto LLMs, though.
Zoom is also expanding beyond its roots in video meetings, so it needs the LLMs to be aware of those new offshoots and help it compete in those areas.
What can other marketers learn from Zoom’s approach?
Megan: I think the biggest theme from our conversation is having all the experts in the room to try to make sense of this together. The answers can change from day to day, and various parts of the internet—whether it’s a company’s press releases or executives’ posts on LinkedIn—can rise and fall in importance. Kimberly’s point was that all teams touching this area need to be in this together.
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Content from our sponsor: Deloitte
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How AI Agents Could Transform SaaS Business Models, Customer Experience
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As agentic AI pervades the SaaS market, how organizations experience and leverage software will likely change—shifting business models, capabilities, and expectations. Read More
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“If Greg Abel says, ‘We need to update the Berkshire Hathaway website,’
I will sell my shares.”
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— Audrey Lee, an SEO expert who has owned Berkshire stock since 2023, on the company’s ’90s-era website. Many Berkshire fans hope that Abel, the new CEO, will put his stamp on the conglomerate but keep the site as it’s been since the days of the Macarena, “Seinfeld” and “Irrational Exuberance.”
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Roblox cut its full-year guidance as efforts to boost its safety features weighed on its latest quarterly results. Jean-Christophe Verhaegen/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
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Yesterday morning, I mentioned the possibility that adverse court rulings over social media’s effect on teens could lead Meta Platforms to tweak its offerings, possibly to the detriment of its ad business. Yesterday afternoon, Roblox’s latest results gave us a glimpse of that kind of scenario in action.
The online videogame platform that’s popular with children said its rollout of age checks, a feature aimed at limiting users’ chats to others in a similar age group, weighed on daily active user and bookings growth more than expected, Kelly Cloonan reports.
“While our aggressive push to enhance safety lowers our expectations for topline growth in 2026, it makes our platform fundamentally better,” Roblox said in a letter to shareholders.
Safety efforts will boost its long-term growth potential through more effective content targeting, tailored communication experiences and improved community sentiment, the company added.
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One more note on Meta’s earnings: Mark Zuckerberg said there was a “trajectory change” in Meta’s ad business after the start of the U.S. war in Iran in late February, Meghan Bobrowsky reports.
“If oil prices go up,” the Meta CEO said in a companywide meeting, “then consumers spend more of their money on oil, on gas, and less on things that they would just buy that are just kind of discretionary things that the advertising might serve.”
Zuckerberg was discussing the market’s negative reaction to Meta’s first-quarter results. He attributed the 8% drop in Meta’s shares to investor concern over an upward revision in its expected capital expenditures and to its preview of slower growth in the second quarter.
“I think the trajectory that we’re seeing for our businesses is still very strong,” he said, according to a recording reviewed by the Journal. “But I think Q1 was, like, really insanely strong and Q2 is merely strong, and I think the combination of that and the capex increase is what drove the near-term reaction. But I don’t know.”
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9,000-10,000
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Job cuts now planned by Estee Lauder, up from an
earlier estimated range of 5,800 to 7,000. The owner of
beauty brands such as MAC, Smashbox and Jo Malone said the increase will largely affect point-of-sale demonstration roles in stores as it pivots toward higher-growth channels.
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The community where marketing leaders drop the corporate speak and share what’s actually happening. The WSJ CMO Council unites leaders from the world’s most influential brands including Adobe, Audi, Google, IBM, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Meta, Taco Bell, P&G and Verizon.
Tap into the connections and WSJ intelligence that move careers forward and separate the prepared from the scrambling.
Request Information
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PayPal named former HP CMO Antonio Lucio its new chief marketing and corporate affairs officer as part of a broader shakeup. Diego Scotti, who had been general manager of the consumer group, global marketing and communications since 2023, is leaving. [Adweek]
Auto floor-mat maker WeatherTech parted ways with Pinnacle Advertising, ending an agency relationship that spanned 17 years and 14 Super Bowl commercials. [Ad Age]
L’Occitane Group promoted Sol de Janeiro Chief Marketing and Digital Officer Jordan Saxemard to CEO of the brand, succeeding co-founder Heela Yang. [Global Cosmetics News]
Spotify introduced a “Verified” badge for artists who get consistent audiences, comply with the streamer’s policies and are human, not AI. [The Next Web]
Netflix’s updated mobile app includes a feed of vertical video. [Deadline]
NBA fans (ahem) have grumbled about having to find playoff games across broadcast and streaming this year. But moving games to NBC’s broadcast network from their longtime home on TNT has helped lift playoffs viewership some 20% in the first week and a half. [MediaPost]
Disney+ is marking National Deaf History Month by reanimating song sequences from “Frozen 2,” “Encanto” and “Moana 2” with sign language. [Creative Bloq]
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