Zoom is introducing its Artificial Intelligence (AI) personal assistant tool, the “Zoom AI Companion,” to paid accounts without any additional charges.
This feature leverages advanced language models, including those from OpenAI, to assist users in summarizing video meetings and composing chat messages.
Previously, the Zoom AI Companion was available as a free trial for businesses using the video conferencing platform. However, it is now included in standard Zoom subscriptions.
Users can take advantage of the AI Companion’s capabilities, which include composing Zoom Chat messages and providing meeting summaries.
Zoom had faced criticism for its terms of service, which initially suggested the use of video calls and user data for training its models.
In response to this backlash, Zoom clarified its policy, emphasizing that it does not utilize audio, video, or chat content without customer consent for AI training purposes.
This policy also applies to the AI Companion tool, which is disabled by default.
Account owners and administrators have the option to enable this feature, and users will be aware when these features are in use.
When AI Companion is activated during Zoom Meetings, attendees can use it to catch up on missed content through private side-panel conversations with the AI.
After a meeting concludes, administrators can generate and share meeting summaries with attendees, including those who were invited but unable to attend.
In Zoom Team Chat, users can enlist AI Companion to summarize messages and create drafts of replies and new messages, similar to Slack’s AI tool.
Message drafting is already available, and summarization will be introduced in the coming weeks.
With Zoom’s assurance that it does not eavesdrop on your video calls, the use of Zoom is now a less contentious choice.
Moreover, the introduction of AI Companion provides transparency and control to users who opt for this feature.