Zoom Video Communications Inc. posted fiscal first-quarter profit, earnings and sales that came in just ahead of Wall Street’s expectations, assisted by the rollout of artificial intelligence across more of its products, but the company’s near-term forecast came up light, sending its stock slightly lower in extended trading today.

The company reported net income for the first quarter of $216.3 million, up from a profit of just $15.4 million in the same period one year earlier. Earnings before certain costs such as stock compensation came to $1.35 per share, while revenue rose 3% from a year earlier, to $1.14 billion. The results were better than expected, with analysts looking for earnings of just $1.13 per share on sales of $1.13 billion.

Zoom, which grew rapidly during the coronavirus pandemic as remote work hit its zenith, said it anticipates second-quarter sales of between $1.145 billion and $1.15 billion, the midpoint of which is just below Wall Street’s forecast of $1.15 billion. In terms of earnings, the company said it’s looking at an adjusted profit of $1.20 to $1.21 per share, below the analysts’ consensus estimate of $1.24 per share.

The lower forecast appeared to disappoint investors, as Zoom’s stock, which had made slight gains in the wake of the report going live, quickly dipped and was down just over 1% later.

Zoom did paint a more positive long-term picture, saying it’s looking at revenue of between $4.61 billion and $4.62 billion in fiscal 2025, with earnings expected to land between $4.99 and $5.02 per share, up from the numbers it had forecast three months ago.

Demand for Zoom’s video calling services exploded during the pandemic when millions of people across the globe were forced to work from home, but in the years that have followed, many of those have returned to working in offices. To compensate for the return to the office, Zoom has launched an array of new products aimed at increasing worker productivity, including its own word processing application and a generative AI assistant that takes notes during user’s calls.

Zoom’s most recent innovation saw it launch a new compliance management platform in March, which came alongside the debut of an AI-powered workspace collaboration platform called Zoom Workplace.

Chief Executive Eric Yuan (pictured) said these new offerings, along with the strong performance of Zoom Contact Center, are already having an impact on the company’s performance. “These innovations, combined with our execution and focused investment, enabled us to outperform our guidance and drive operating cash flow growth of 40.6% and free cash flow growth of 43.6% year over year,” he said in a statement.

One encouraging sign for Zoom’s investors was the company’s strong customer growth. Officials said the company ended the quarter with 3,883 customers who delivered at least $100,000 in annual revenue, up 8.5% from the same period one year earlier. It also counted 191,000 enterprise customers in total.

The company said it managed to transition about 26,800 of those enterprises with lower monthly recurring revenue away from working with direct sales teams. They’re now considered to be “Online” customers, the company said, though their transition did not have a material impact on the percentage of revenue derived from enterprise or online customers.

All told, Zoom’s enterprise revenue came to $655.7 million, up 5.3% from a year earlier. That segment represented the company’s growth, as online revenue stayed flat at $475.5 million.

Constellation Research Inc. analyst Holger Mueller said the main concern for investors is that Zoom is more or less at a standstill in terms of revenue growth, even as its new AI services are getting some traction. The adoption of these new services has been offset by a decline in its traditional business, but the analyst said the company has done well to increase its profitability despite these challenges.

“Eric Yuan and his team have done what all good executive teams must do during harder times, reigning in costs to make the company more profitable despite the lack of growth,” Mueller said. “When a company produces only slightly more revenue but reduces its operating costs by more than $170 million, that results in larger profits. That’s what Zoom has done, and it’s a good sign that the company is able to manage to profitability even when faced with major challenges.”

Zoom’s stock has underperformed in recent months and today’s results suggest that’s not likely to change anytime soon. Prior to today, the company’s share price was down 10% over the last 12 months.

Shelly Kramer, managing director and principal analyst at SiliconANGLE Media’s sister organization theCUBE Research, discussed Zoom’s recent product announcements during a recent episode of theCUBE’s AnalystANGLE series:

Photo: CNBC/YouTube