Skip to main content

Zoom adds ChatGPT to help you catch up on missed calls

The Zoom video-calling app has just added its own “AI Companion” assistant that integrates artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs) from ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Facebook owner Meta. The tool is designed to help you catch up on meetings you missed and devise quick responses to chat messages.

Zoom’s developer says the AI Companion “empowers individuals by helping them be more productive, connect and collaborate with teammates, and improve their skills.”

A person conducting a Zoom call on a laptop while sat at a desk.
Zoom

For example, Zoom’s blog post explains that if you are late to a meeting, its AI Companion can summarize what happened while you were absent. It can also suggest action points and highlight topics of discussion after a meeting, as well as divide cloud recordings into more digestible chapters.

Recommended Videos

A few extra features are in the works. Later in September, the AI Companion will be able to help you write emails and summarize chat messages, while Zoom says it will suggest responses to text chats later in the fall.

Further into the future, the AI Companion will assist you in finding documents, filing support tickets, and preparing for upcoming meetings, all based on live calls or those that have happened in the past.

Privacy concerns

A user on a Zoom call with four other participants.
Zoom

That all sounds interesting, but Zoom is no stranger to controversy, having been called out for its misleading end-to-end encryption claims and creepy emotion-detecting technology. For many people, the idea of integrating a generative AI tool into your sensitive calls could start ringing privacy alarm bells.

Zoom has tried to allay these concerns by saying that its AI Companion will respect your privacy. In its blog post, the company claimed that “Zoom does not use any of your audio, video, chat, screen sharing, attachments, or other communications-like customer content (such as poll results, whiteboard, and reactions) to train Zoom’s or third-party artificial intelligence models.”

However, the company faced a backlash in August 2023 following claims that the app’s terms allowed it to harvest user data and feed it into AI tools. Zoom later clarified the terms to say it didn’t use communications data to train its AI, but it still appears that the app can scoop up “service-generated data,” such as user telemetry and product usage data. Whether any of this goes towards training AI models is unclear.

The AI Companion requires a paid Zoom account and is available to premium users for no added cost. Zoom says additional features will be announced “in the coming weeks.”

Alex Blake
Alex Blake has been working with Digital Trends since 2019, where he spends most of his time writing about Mac computers…
The original AI model behind ChatGPT will live on in your favorite apps
OpenAI press image

OpenAI has released its GPT‑3.5 Turbo API to developers as of Monday, bringing back to life the base model that powered the ChatGPT chatbot that took the world by storm in 2022. It will now be available for use in several well-known apps and services. The AI brand has indicated that the model comes with several optimizations and will be cheaper for developers to build upon, making the model a more efficient option for features on popular applications, including Snapchat and Instacart. 

Apps supporting GPT‑3.5 Turbo API

Read more
Your politeness toward ChatGPT is increasing OpenAI’s energy costs 
ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode on a smartphone.

Everyone’s heard the expression, “Politeness costs nothing,” but with the advent of AI chatbots, it may have to be revised.

Just recently, someone on X wondered how much OpenAI spends on electricity at its data centers to process polite terms like “please” and “thank you” when people engage with its ChatGPT chatbot.

Read more
Why writing with ChatGPT actually makes my life harder
ChatGPT prompt bar.

I remember when ChatGPT first appeared, and the first thing everyone started saying was "Writers are done for." People started speculating about news sites, blogs, and pretty much all written internet content becoming AI-generated -- and while those predictions seemed extreme to me, I was also pretty impressed by the text GPT could produce.

Naturally, I had to try out the fancy new tool for myself but I quickly discovered that the results weren't quite as impressive as they seemed. Fast forward more than two years, and as far as my experience and my use cases go, nothing has changed: whenever I use ChatGPT to help with my writing, all it does is slow me down and leave me frustrated.

Read more