AI-Led Customer Experience 2026 — Fireside Chat with Kimberly Storin & Angela Winegar

Julia Nimchinski:
Huge pleasure. Thank you so much again, and we are transitioning to our next session. Welcome to the show, Kimberly Storen, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Zoom, and Angela Winingar, Head of Marketing at Invisible Technologies, and we have Eric Charles. I just saw you, Eric. One session away. But yeah, welcome to the show, how are you doing?
Kimberly Storin:
It’s great, it’s a beautiful day here in Austin, Texas. We launched a brand campaign this morning, so things are good!
Angela Winegar:
Amazing. Well, we’ll have to dig in and have you tell us a little bit more about that campaign, but… and thank you, Eric, for joining, for our audience. I am actually, in the Caribbean for a work event, but my Wi-Fi’s been a little spotty, so Eric is gonna jump in and continue the conversation if I, tune out at any point. But very excited to have you, Kimberly. for our audience, so, Kimberly, your background is pretty impressive. It spans, I believe this is your third CMO-ship, and so, as the… you are the Chief Marketing Officer at Zoom, leading global brand, comms, go-to-market strategy, and I know you’re in the process of repositioning the company as an AI-driven collaboration platform. Kimberly’s also a three-time CMO with a background across Deloitte, Dell, AMD, IBM, Zio Group. rapid deploy, and I know you’re about 6 months into role, and you know, you’ve had this amazing experience across your career, but I’m curious, 6 months in, maybe… obviously, we’re going to be talking about AI a lot, but maybe to ground that in where you’re at and the problems you’re trying to solve. What has surprised you the most in the last 6 months at Zoom, since you’ve taken Seed?
Kimberly Storin:
So, I think the… the biggest surprise and the biggest opportunity, is what you really see come to life in our brand campaign that launched today, and it started with me doing about 50 interviews with Zoom customers before I even started. Grounding myself in the reality of what I was about to embark on, and I heard over and over again From these 50 customers, and then, of course, going into, like. the rabbit hole of Reddit and Facebook and other places, that people love Zoom. And we’ve proven this out with our NPS scores and the fact that 100% of the time, if you’re comparing us to a competitor, people select our platform. And so, understanding this preference, this user preference for the tool, for the platform, was really what informed a lot of the strategy that we’re trying to drive. Most people don’t know that we’re way more than meetings, right? We now have everything from a event and webinar platform, which we’re on today, so thank you for that. You know, to a contact center platform, to an AI tool that sits within and is really embedded into our platform across the board. And people don’t know these things. They don’t know that we have an employee engagement platform. And so, as I’ve kind of uncovered these customer insights, I’ve recognized that there is, A, an opportunity to tap into the user love for the platform. And B, there’s a tremendous opportunity to share the evolution of Zoom with with everyone who loves us, even if it’s just for meetings. There’s so much more at their disposal. And so that’s been really, you know, in the past 6 months, what we have been putting together the strategy that launched today.
Angela Winegar:
I love that because, I did not know that you guys had a call center solution, or honestly, employee engagement, so that’s incredible. I’m curious, I mean. Zoom, especially during the pandemic, you know, Zoom became a verb. It is such a household word at this point. How do you think about changing that very ingrained brand perception to, you know, that broader suite of tools?
Kimberly Storin:
So, it starts with product truth, and that’s what’s so great about working at Zoom, because this business was built on a product that is simpler, easier to use, more reliable, high security, and it just works. And so that product truth has, you know, spanned across every product that we’ve rolled out in our entire suite, like the breadth and the depth of the portfolio. And so starting there makes marketing a lot easier, right? When you can go back to that product truth, and the, you know, when you think about what we’ve done from an AI perspective, you know, in particular. We’ve taken a really unique approach that’s a federated AI approach, where we are tapping into the best models across the board, but we’re also singularly focused on solving a workflow challenge, which is the meeting’s workflow. And so we’re not trying to AI wash everything, we’re not bolting on AI. we’ve really stepped back, thought about the problems that we can help our customers solve, and how we can truly embed AI into that meeting’s workflow, so that we can reduce meetings friction. At the end of the day, like, we want people to be in less meetings, and the meetings that they are in, we want those to be productive. And so, by embedding that AI, whether it’s before your meeting, getting ready. during your meeting. I mean, we have a 3-hour executive meeting every Monday, and I don’t know if I’ve made it once without having to step away for a quick break, and… and I love the catch-me-up feature of our AI, so I know immediately if somebody assigned me an action item in my, you know, my quick… my quick break. But… And then after the meeting. So, moving from this idea of… I call it meetings to milestones, or, you know, conversations to completion. And so. Agentic AI really does play a role, and I love the way that we’ve embedded it into our product truth, and haven’t tried to just, you know, AI wash everything, but really are trying to solve that friction that our customers are facing every day in that workflow.
Angela Winegar:
That’s amazing. I’ve heard so many investors talk about whoever has the unstructured data is gonna win the age of Gen AI, and.
Kimberly Storin:
You’ve got the data, right? Like, yeah.
Angela Winegar:
talk about it, you guys are so well positioned, and especially you combine that with, like, Gcal integrations, you know exactly who’s meeting, when, what they’re discussing, all the follow-up items, it’s just… the power makes so much sense, and I actually see then how you can branch out into every other, honestly, sector of, you know, employee engagement. How much someone’s talking on a Zoom actually was a really good indicator of employee engagement, so there’s… that’s really, really powerful. Okay, you’ve talked a little bit about how you guys are thinking about AI… using AI in the product. I saw a stat recently that was something like. 88% of marketers in 2025 use GenAI daily, and I’ve heard you talk about how marketers specifically need to use AI, and it needs to be part of the operating system versus bolted on into your internal operations. Can you tell us a little bit, you know. I guess 8 months into role, you’re coming in to see, you’re… you probably, like every other marketing leader, I know I’m facing it, is being charged with, okay, do more with less, you know, produce more with AI. How are you thinking about that for your organization?

Kimberly Storin:
So, really strategically. And, you know, it’s great being part of a company that… that really has embraced AI at the product level throughout the entire organization. That gives us a lot of permission to take calculated risks, to play around with things, and when it comes to marketing, I think, you know, the biggest thing I think about is that AI doesn’t care what marketing function you’re in. It doesn’t care if you’re a content marketer, or campaigns, or… brand, it only cares about the workflow. And so what it’s really been able to help us do is to step back. and be more workflow-oriented, and solve the problem of an end-to-end campaign, or, you know, an end-to-end content rollout. Because we can look at everything from ideation, and how we start to leverage AI as a strategic thought partner. all the way through that workflow to leveraging AI to help us measure and, you know, use it for analytics, etc. And so there’s a lot in between there, I mean, whether it’s, you know, critiquing your content, or drafting your content, or, you know. Really, like, viewing it as a strategic thought partner has helped us across the workflow. And I still am a big believer that human in the loop is critical. I mean, AI dings you for using AI, so that’s one reason why you should not just slap the blog you wrote on AI Companion into, you know, into the, The internet, but it gives us a chance to… to be more effective. And to, you know, to second-guess ourselves, and, like, use it as a critiquing partner, and make sure that we’re heading in the right direction. It tells us a lot of things, you know, it makes us feel good a lot. As well, so you’ve got a question, and that’s why the human in the loop is so critical. Otherwise, we’re going to think we’re the best writers, the best marketers.
Angela Winegar:
Yeah, and everyone’s voice ends up sounding the same, you know.
Kimberly Storin:
Totally the same. So we have to cut through it. Absolutely.
Angela Winegar:
Absolutely.
Kimberly Storin:
And I think, you know, with our new campaign that launched today. we’ve looked out there, and we see the AI slop that companies are producing across the board, and it all just kind of sounds the same. And so we wanted to take a really different approach, something that cut through the noise, and wanted to find this intersection of humanity. And humor and product truth. And that’s really hard. And so you have to… like, that is a… that is not a task for AI.
Angela Winegar:
Totally.
Kimberly Storin:
Right? AI is not yet funny. Let’s be honest. And so, you know, that really required us to, you know, have that human in the loop as part of that campaign, but you can scale, you can brainstorm, and you can do so much more having, like, AI as your sidekick. And… and that’s really what we’re trying to do.
Angela Winegar:
And tell me more, I mean, I love you kicked off this session, and you’re like, I don’t just want to talk about AI washing, so maybe help us get a little nitty-gritty on this. you’re talking about doing this at the workflow level, and which workflows are good versus which need humans in the loop. What have been the most, kind of, compelling workflows for you and your team to build out? Maybe taking this campaign you launched today as an example, like, where was AI really helpful in this, and where did you actually need that human in the loop?
Kimberly Storin:
So, I mean, AI is… we’re using it every day as a brainstorming and thought partner, and I think that’s the place, especially in taking on something of this magnitude, and thinking about all the ways, like the, you know, 360 degrees approach that we had to take to bring a campaign like this to life. And so, leveraging AI all the way up front in the ideation process. Using it to help us craft rough drafts of content and to refine content, whether that content is, you know, to get our internal teams jazzed up. or social content, or executive content, or talking points, prepping for interviews with, you know, Adweek and Ad Age, etc. And so we’ve really been able to… to leverage it throughout the workflow, and… and really empower… you know, I think about our integrated marketing managers, and… our content managers in particular, their role now is orchestrator. Even if you’re an individual contributor, you’re managing agents. And you’re managing a team of agents, and you have to be leveraging multiple agents in order to ensure that you’re pressure testing yourself in the right way, and you’re not letting yourself You know, go down a specific route, and like, almost hallucinating, you know, hallucinating with the same AI platform, and so I think that’s been really helpful for us as well.
Angela Winegar:
I, I completely agree. I actually feel like the entire, comm… every single comms workflow, deep research has been so powerful for pulling up everything a specific reporter has written, helped me prep for this interview, gave some amazing color on your background and everything that’s out there in the public domain about you, and to that end, you have led turnarounds, integrations, you’ve worked across multiple industries. You know, super rapidly growing companies, you know, very fast-changing companies. what patterns do you see from, you know, especially M&A, like, private equity world, venture capital, hypergrowth world? What patterns do you see in the AI era that you’re like, oh, this kind of rhymes with things that have happened in the past, and what do you feel like is completely new and untrodden territory right now?
Kimberly Storin:
So I think the speed… of this is… I mean, even though, you know, I was kind of coming of age in the early 2000s, in terms of my career. And… and there were elements of the, you know, the internet era that felt like this in some ways, but the speed did not feel… and maybe, again, it was because we weren’t inundated with social media, right? I think… I think it was Friendster, if anybody remembers that one. I still was faxing Reporters back then.
Angela Winegar:
Wow.
Kimberly Storin:
Right? So, you know, it was… we were, like, kind of on this cusp of two eras.
Angela Winegar:
Right? You had one foot in the old world, and then you had this foot in, like, you were starting…
Kimberly Storin:
to, like, IM, you are starting to, like, use email as your primary tool, but yet you still… faxed things on a regular basis. And I think as I look at AI and, like, where we are right now, the speed of which we’re moving in the last two years two and a half years has been incredible. Now, I will also remind everyone that the Dartmouth Conference was 1954. That is when Marvin Minsky and Alan Newell and all of the, like, AI geniuses sat in a room and started talking about machine learning and deep learning. So when you have that context. 1954, Right? My parents were 3 years old, and… and so… it is a long ti… you know, it has been a long time that we’re talking about this technology, but the difference is that It took a long time for us to get to a point where you know, we were talking about HPC and machine learning and deep learning, and, you know, the first time I launched a accelerated server was 2015 at IBM with NVIDIA, and… It was… we’re talking to data scientists. That’s who our primary audience was. Maybe some IT, but you had to be pretty HPC IT, right? You had to be, like, the JP Morgans of the world who were… were really quant heavy. To be having those conversations. Now, I’m having a conversation about AI with my 22-year-old stepson and my 75-year-old father, right? And that’s the difference, I think, in terms of that acceleration over the past couple of years. It’s now AI everywhere. And so it does feel… it feels different, because there’s… it’s so much coming at us at any given point. Versus, like, if we look at the, like, late 90s, early 2000s. It wasn’t inundating you in the same way, because we didn’t walk around with a cell phone. Right? For me to use a cell phone, I had to, like. Put my antenna in, and take it out, and, you know, plug it in somewhere.
Angela Winegar:
page someone and tell them that you were gonna give them a call from the, you know… Right.
Kimberly Storin:
And, like, turn down my mixtape so that I could hear them. And so it just… it feels like the speed of technology is… is moving so fast, but then when I step back and say, well, 1954 was a long time ago, you know, it’s… I think it’s just these last two and a half years have aged us all.
Angela Winegar:
Absolutely. It’s funny, I saw a stat recently that was something like, I think 20% of job titles that exist today didn’t exist in 2000. Right.
Kimberly Storin:
Can you imagine talking about somebody being an orchestrator? Like.
Angela Winegar:
I mean, even… even every, like, you know, every subset of engineering, right? Data engineers, data analysts, like, all those terms were probably things that were just emerging in the 2000s, and, you know, it definitely… it does feel like that in particular is speeding up, which is a little scary. To that end, how do you think about keeping up, having your organization keep up with these rapid changes in AI, making sure that they have the latest tools, they know the latest use cases, like, what has that kind of transformation over the past year looked like?
Kimberly Storin:
Well, again, I feel very blessed and lucky to be working at a company where, like, AI is embedded into how we think about our product.
Angela Winegar:
Yeah.
Kimberly Storin:
So our organization… is constantly talking about AI. We are the beta users, right? We eat our own dog food, so we are in there as an organization, playing around with AI Companion before it goes out into the world. So, in a lot of ways, like, we’ve really we’ve trained our team to be thinking about this stuff because we’re building it, right? We’re building, and so we do want that feedback of how is this helping your meeting experience? Is it reducing your friction? Is it taking away hours of busy work? And the team is, you know, used to that because they are they’re in those betas, they’re leveraging our own platform before we get out there, and so that makes it easier from a marketing standpoint, and I really think there’s three… like, key attributes that marketers in today’s age should be thinking about when it comes to AI, and it’s curiosity. So just always being… kind of thinking about what’s next, keeping your eye on the news, having a pretty diverse Set of sources of information in which you’re reading and digesting every day. being agile, meaning, like, while curiosity, I would say, is, like, looking forward, I think of agility as kind of looking back and saying, like, what’s not working, and how do we fix that? And so I think agility is the second attribute for marketers today that’s really important. Like, what are the things that we’re spending a lot of time doing that we shouldn’t be? How do we become more strategic, and how do we get rid of some of this busy work? And then the third one is calculated risk-taking. And… and ultimately. there is some inherent risk in adopting these technologies and playing around with them, and I think as long as we’re thinking strategically about Those calculated risks, and Where we should pilot, how do we scale fast, how do we kill something fast? How do we fail fast? it gives us the permission to… to get out there and play around, and so having those AI champions, who are kind of the spiritual leaders within your organization. To help, you know, drive that throughout the… throughout the team, those three, you know, attributes, that mindset. Ultimately, it’s a cultural transformation more than a technology transformation.
Angela Winegar:
It’s funny, I think that’s also where comms and market… internal comms especially can play such a large role of how do you amplify what those, you know, I think we’ve all seen those super AI users in our organizations, and how do you help them share what’s in their heads and get that out in front of people, just to get them thinking about the possibilities of how you can use these tools.
Kimberly Storin:
Right. And then you’ve got to be ready to, like, dial some people back, where you’re like, don’t put an M dash in every single paragraph.
Angela Winegar:
Yeah, yeah.
Kimberly Storin:
Like, as a communicator who came up through, like, the age of the AP style, it makes me sad to see what’s happened to the M-Dash, but…
Angela Winegar:
It’s awful. As a formerly big MDASH user who was then accused of using AI, you know, quite a lot, it does make me sad as well, so can empathize there. It was like…
Kimberly Storin:
comma and the M dash, let’s keep them Sacred. Yeah.
Angela Winegar:
Yeah, yeah. Just maybe, yeah, figure out how to dial them back a little bit in the models. tell me a little bit more along those lines, and like, you know, how we keep connectedness in marketing. I think connection is something you’ve talked a lot about in the past, and it is a shame because, you know, I love M dashes, but now when I communicate, people are like, oh, she’s writing with AI, and so they automatically feel less connected, which is, like, a very interesting kind of stylistic thing that I’ve had to be aware of. How do you think about maintaining connection in the age of AI?

Kimberly Storin:
Well, I think it’s more important than ever. So, I… you know, I’m really getting… feedback from our customers and prospects that they’re tired of the AI slop. They don’t want to see all of… like, their feed is just full of it. And they feel like they’ve lost the authenticity with a brand, but more importantly, with the, you know, the people that they’re buying from, who they’re engaging with. And that’s why, like, experiential events are back with a vengeance. In the last year or so, people want to… Be out connecting with you, having those shared experiences, and… and building that trust. people do 80% of their research before they ever talk to you. And now, like, we’re moving to this zero-click world, where everything is starting in an LLM. And… and so… Those moments of trust-building, those moments of connection. become even more critical. And so, we do it in a few ways, right? We have a monthly table talk series that we do over Zoom, where it’s just… it’s not a demand gen activity. It is truly a community-building activity, and it’s by cohort. So I lead one with CMOs, I have a counterpart that leads the IT and the customer support. you know, various roles, and we bring them together, and we bring great speakers, and we just have open and honest dialogue, and let people build community and connection. And then we’re showing up at events more than we have in the past, and we’re also investing in PR, because yes, like, PR feeds into those citations, which feed into the LLMs, and, like, that’s all great. But also having… the same thing as customer references. People see… the press, and it means something now, because it doesn’t feel like it’s a brand that’s just throwing out this AI content at you. It feels validated, it feels third-party, I mean, it is third-party. And, and, you know, that with customer references is really kind of leading the charge in terms of driving credibility. And rebuilding that trust with prospects and customers. So I think, in some ways, we’re, like, going back to basics.
Angela Winegar:
It’s just good marketing?
Kimberly Storin:
And AI can be our superpower. But people still want that authentic connection, and they’re still buying from a brand, they’re buying from humans that work in a brand, and they want to know how they’re spending their… it’s an emotional decision. They want to know how they’re spending their money, and what you’re going to deliver for them, and how you’re going to solve their problems. And none of that goes away.
Angela Winegar:
I love that you called it going back to basics, because it’s funny, in my head, you know, I think very similar, we’ve been approaching, and I think this is true of many marketing orgs, of a lot more in-person, a lot more PR, like, a lot more focus on what I call, actually, and I think the other big channel that I see you using a lot is LinkedIn. I think one other kind of common threads between these channels that everyone’s suddenly investing more in is their heart. like, I think for a long time, we relied on, like, oh, well, we’ll just send out a, you know, an email blast, and we’ll blast our prospect list, and, you know, it was… it was… relatively easy, and now you have to show up, and you have to take the time to, you know, go through the entire workflow of, like, okay, I have to design a booth, I have to set up a booth, I have to get swag, I have to staff the booth, I have to train everyone at the booth on the talk track, and you, you know, it’s actually just… it is, it’s hard. It is, like, a… you know, there’s physical components. And it’s very interesting, because I think about it a lot of marketing alpha versus marketing beta, where beta is these easy, like, yeah, of course we can go blast another email, we can blast out a tweet, and, like, hope people hear it, but what are you actually going to do that’s differentiated and outsized that creates value for your organization?
Kimberly Storin:
It surprises and delights them in some way, right?
Angela Winegar:
Absolutely. To your point on connection, it’s like, and I think that’s why in-person is, you know, especially in a post-pandemic world, has become, you know, so, so critical. Well, I know we only have a few minutes left. I would love to hear more about this brand campaign that you guys launched today, and maybe where we can see it, and check it out, and maybe give us the, kind of, like, the full story of what was the origin, you know, thinking behind it, and then how has it manifested in the world today.
Kimberly Storin:
Yeah, absolutely. So, like I mentioned, I started by speaking to over 50 customers, and kind of in this internet rat hole, and realizing this opportunity to really speak to the people that love our product. And so, we flipped the script. Instead of you know, marketing to IT decision makers, we decided to write a love letter to our users, and wanted to find that intersection of heart, humanity, and product truth. So, we tapped into some of our… I thought to myself, who is, you know, who can help us be humorous? And while I think I’m really funny. Not everybody does, and so… I’ve appreciated it today, so… We wanted to tap into people that really do understand humor, and can help us reach this, like. really unique intersection that we were trying to hit and really be differentiated from the competition. And so, Colin Jost, wrote the script. His production agency, No Notes, was our production company, and Bowen Yang stars in The commercial. It’s a 30-second spot, it launched today. And think of it as a little bit of a mix of Dead Poet society, like that rebellion. When… when you’re told that you have to use… enter competitor’s name, here’s clunky technology that your clients are going to actively be mad when you send them a link.
Angela Winegar:
And what happens when people stand up for the technology that makes their life easier?
Kimberly Storin:
And so, you see this great opportunity, and Bowen is absolutely hilarious as our… as our villain. And, you know, each one of… the… the Zoomies that stand up and say, I use Zoom with, such pride and… and a little bit of rebellion in… in their… and a little bit of swagger with how they say it. And we’re able to showcase the product portfolio. So we could add in some product truth. I use Zoom AI Companion. I use Zoom Contact Center. we could get a little ridiculous and bring it outside of the office, showcase some of our product features, like our translation, which our AI companion enables. So we just had a really fun time of Finding this moment of… of collective rebellion. being able to write this love letter to the people that… that love our product, and… and bring some of the funniest people to the table to help us make this happen. And so Zoom Ahead, can be found on our website, you can see it on my LinkedIn. We posted it today. So, go check it out, let me know what you think. It is, it’s… It is our biggest campaign in a very long time, and I think it really sets Zoom Into a different category than of a lot of our competitors, and we do it in a way that is very authentic to our brand.
Angela Winegar:
I love it. Well, I’m very excited to check it out now.
Kimberly Storin:
And watch the lap.
Angela Winegar:
It’s fun hearing you talk about it, and we’ve been… so many of these themes you’ve talked about today, especially that connectedness of, you know, I think you’re spot on. Humor is such an underrated trait of, you know, what are these things.
Kimberly Storin:
Gotta get it right. It’s hard.
Angela Winegar:
You’ve got to get it right, it’s the land right. And it is still so human, right? Like, there’s some things that AI can’t do, and so, you know, using AI where it’s powerful and maintaining the human connectedness, humorous pieces that we can throughout, I love that. So, I think Julia will be back on. We do have… if we have one more minute, Julia’s not on, so I’m just gonna keep going. I would love to hear… so actually, this is a question from the audience, but curious what you’re most excited for about 2026 as it relates to Zoom, and what you’re most nervous about?
Kimberly Storin:
Well, I think, you know, I’m most excited about where we’re going to take the Zoom Ahead campaign. So, it’s, it is intended to be, you know, a 12-18 month campaign, and it has a lot of different legs. And it’s also the same thing I’m nervous about, right? Because this is the biggest campaign we’ve done to date, this is my first campaign as Zoom CMO, and so there’s a lot… there’s a lot riding on the success of this campaign. And so it is… it’s the most exciting thing. I’m excited to bring this to life, and… and to share this story about the evolution of the brand and the product portfolio. But I’m also nervous, because I’ve put a lot of myself out there into this campaign, and… you know, you take some calculated risk, so it’s, it’s a very exciting, but also humbling moment of doing something that is really unique and authentic and different for the brand.
Angela Winegar:
Awesome. Well, I’m rooting for you, I hope you get the metrics you’re looking for with it, but very excited to go check it out.
Kimberly Storin:
Amazing. Thank you, Angela.
Angela Winegar:
Thank you, Kimberly.
Julia Nimchinski:
Thank you so much for the phenomenal fireside chat. Thank you, Eric, Kimberly, Angela. And our next panel is hosted by Michelle Buckley, VP of AI and GTM at Gartner. Welcome to the show, Michelle. What a treat!