Zoom Named a Visionary Leader in the 2026 Frost Radar – What It Means for Your Business

Zoom has been named a Visionary Leader in the 2026 Frost Radar™ for Integrated Cloud Communications Platforms, placing highest among all evaluated providers on both the Growth Index and Innovation Index. For us at Connect NZ, this is independent validation of the direction we’ve been backing for our customers across Zoom’s unified communications platform: meetings, phone, messaging, contact centre, and collaboration, all in one place.

The recognition matters because it puts Zoom firmly back on the radar as a credible, forward-moving platform choice, not just for organisations building their communications stack from scratch, but for those already invested in Microsoft 365 and wondering where else they should be looking.

What the recognition is built on

Frost & Sullivan’s evaluation points to Zoom’s continued investment across the full breadth of its platform, from meetings and telephony to contact centre and productivity tools,  alongside embedding AI throughout the platform to help turn conversations into completed work, not just recorded ones. It’s this combination of platform breadth and product innovation that placed Zoom at the top of both growth and innovation measures this year.

Two developments in particular back up why this recognition rings true for us:

ZoomMate extends AI beyond the meeting

At Connect NZ, we’re seeing growing interest in how AI can complement the Microsoft 365 environments organisations already rely on. ZoomMate uses the context created through meetings and conversations to surface information, generate content, coordinate follow-up actions and support workflows across connected business applications, such as Microsoft 365. This allows organisations to extend the value of Zoom beyond meetings into communications, collaboration and business workflows without moving away from their existing Microsoft investment.

Interoperability makes it practical to adopt

Zoom’s interoperability with Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and other Microsoft services, via Direct Routing and calendar integrations,  Zoom’s meetings, phone, contact centre and AI capabilities slot into existing Microsoft 365 workflows rather than disrupting them. That makes Zoom and Microsoft coexistence straightforward to plan, deploy, and support, which is exactly the kind of low-friction adoption path a Visionary Leader platform should offer.

Complementing rather than replacing

Together, these point to a simple shift already underway for a lot of our customers: it’s no longer about replacing Microsoft; it’s about complementing it with best-of-breed tools that do specific jobs better.

• Zoom for communications, customer engagement, and AI-powered collaboration.
• Microsoft 365 retained for its existing productivity, identity, and document ecosystem.

At Connect NZ, we think this reflects a broader, healthier trend: organisations evaluating technology based on business outcomes rather than vendor lock-in. Rather than asking “which single vendor should own everything?”, the better question is “which tool best serves this specific outcome, and how well does it play with what we already have?”

Why this is a timely moment to look again at Zoom

Zoom’s Visionary Leader status is a strong signal that the platform is built for exactly this kind of coexistence and a good prompt to revisit Zoom as a serious option across meetings, phone, contact centre, and collaboration, even if Microsoft 365 already sits at the centre of your stack.

Want to see how Zoom can complement your existing Microsoft 365 environment? Explore our Zoom unified communications services or get in touch with our team.