Zoom Earnings Prediction Market Preview: Why Is ZM Down 3% Today?

Prediction market bettors are bearish on Zoom Communications Inc (NASDAQ:ZM) heading into tonight’s fourth-quarter report.

A Polymarket contract tracking whether Zoom tops the Street’s $1.49 non-GAAP EPS consensus is pricing just a 34% chance of a beat, with $45,000 in volume.

That conviction looks strange on paper.

Zoom has beaten EPS estimates in eight consecutive quarters. Last quarter the company posted adjusted earnings of $1.52 per share, beating the $1.44 estimate, with revenue of $1.23 billion topping the $1.21 billion consensus.

Benchmark’s Matthew Harrigan maintained a Buy rating ahead of earnings, but cut the target from $115 to $110.

The Bull Case

Zoom has been aggressively embedding AI tools like meeting summaries, transcription and customer service agents across its platform to upsell existing customers and win new enterprise deals.

It’s basically the only growth story the company has left, and analysts have called the pivot a “validation” of Zoom’s shift to an AI-first platform.

Rather than building its own AI model, Zoom pulls from OpenAI, Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Anthropic simultaneously — a “federated AI” approach that Benchmark says has outperformed Google’s Gemini 3 Pro on at least one major benchmark.

In addition to this, the company’s $51 million Anthropic investment from 2023 may now be worth north of $2 billion following Anthropic’s February fundraise.

But The Numbers Tell A Different Story

Zoom is pitching itself as an AI company, but it’s competing for enterprise AI spend against Microsoft (NYSE:MSFT) with Copilot baked into Office 365, Google with Gemini across Workspace, and standalone players like Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) embedding agents into every workflow.

The federated approach may be clever engineering, but the market may be questioning whether a video conferencing company can credibly win AI dollars against those names.

Insider selling hasn’t helped the optics. COO Aparna Bawa dumped 86% of her position in January. CEO Eric Yuan sold over 73,000 shares in December.

Underneath the AI narrative, the core business metrics are stalling.

The net dollar expansion rate for enterprise customers sits at 98%, which means existing customers are actually spending less than they were a year ago.

What Actually Matters Tonight

Citizens JMP Securities analyst Patrick Walravens flagged fiscal 2027 guidance as the real event. The quarterly beat-or-miss may matter less than whether Zoom can show a credible path to reaccelerating growth.

The broader software sector has been hammered this month, with iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (BATS:IGV) down roughly 22% in four weeks on fears that AI may disrupt the very companies once seen as its biggest beneficiaries.

But even as the sector has started to recover, Zoom has not participated. When a stock can’t catch a bid while its peers rally, it usually means something specific is wrong.

The company reports after the close, with the conference call scheduled for 5:00 p.m. ET

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