The founder and CEO of Zoom has predicted that people will soon be able to feel their hands and smell coffee during the video meeting in the virtual space.

Eric Yuan says during the Web Summit tech conference that, he believes artificial intelligence will provide the physical aspect to the virtual meetings. And he did not think the people will return to working full time after the pandemic.

“The world will become a hybrid [workplace], and I think that’s a world we have to embrace.”

He also highlighted the growth of Zoom in 2020 and told that the organization by the end of this year will host around three trillion minutes of meetings. It is something he had never anticipated.

It also brought immediate attention as concerns such as privacy and protection were pushed under the spotlight as individuals began to encounter so-called zoombombing – people gatecrashing calls.

“We had to evolve as quickly as possible,” he added.

The company initiated as the software provider until becoming flooded with users during the pandemic.

Mr. Yuan acknowledged that when he launched his start-up in 2011, it had been hard to attract financial support.

“I don’t remember how many rejections there were – too many,” he said.

“If I was a VC [venture capitalist] I’m not sure I would have funded this either.”

However, Mr. Yuan told that in April 2019, when the Zoom was introduced at the stock market of New York it was a lifelong ambition to ring the iconic bell – it was priced at $9.2bn (£6.8bn).

He further concluded by saying, “I look at myself, my family, the way I work or play and I don’t think anything has changed. Zoom is still Zoom, I am still myself – I work more hours but I enjoy that.”

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