Use Zoom’s AI Companion to Take Notes and Summarize Meetings

Click on-clack, click-clack. That’s the sound of somebody typing assembly notes throughout a Zoom name, and it’s tremendous annoying. Like caffeinated chipmunks, folks generally don’t notice they’re clattering away on a keyboard. But, somebody has to jot down motion objects and reminders.

That “someone” doesn’t must be a human, although. Launched final fall, Zoom’s new AI Companion feature—included with all paid Zoom subscriptions—is like having an admin assistant on each name. The bot can summarize a gathering, create motion objects, and even inform you who talked essentially the most.

AI Companion makes use of giant language fashions from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta however has additionally skilled itself by listening in on hundreds of conferences between Zoom workers, based on Smita Hashim, a chief product officer at Zoom. (“For confidentiality, we don’t use any actual conversations from our clients for any coaching functions,” she says.)

Whereas AI Companion is highly effective, it’s not all the time apparent what you are able to do throughout a name or how the bot saves you time. I made a decision to carry a number of conferences and put Zoom’s AI helper by a sequence of exams. I’ll clarify how one can obtain these identical outcomes, offering one of the best prompts to get you began. And, I’ll cowl what the AI Companion can’t fairly do—but.

Summarize a Assembly

Throughout a gathering, you possibly can entry AI Companion by clicking the icon beneath the principle video window. (It seems like a magic wand with sparkles.) Zoom supplies a couple of built-in prompts that can assist you get began resembling “Summarize the assembly,” which lists in depth bullet factors based mostly on what has been mentioned up to now. The AI Companion works like a human admin throughout conferences; you possibly can have the bot create a whiteboard of concepts based mostly on the real-time dialog as a option to visualize the dialogue.

In my exams, it turned apparent the function works greatest when persons are clear and intentional throughout the Zoom name. In case you keep on with a gathering plan, protecting crucial matters in a succinct approach, the abstract is basically helpful. On one name speaking a couple of new web site design, the abstract talked about doing the design work, constructing a prototype, and testing. Nevertheless, AI Companion didn’t all the time seize the speaking factors completely. In a gathering to plan out an abroad journey with relations, the dialog was too random, and the AI-generated abstract I bought afterward didn’t actually make sense. Bots are instructing us how one can dwell of their world, proper? AI Companion works greatest when your assembly follows a well-defined construction.

As a substitute of a abstract, you can too ask the AI Companion to “Catch me up” or ask “Does anybody have any motion objects?” The bot won’t summarize every part within the assembly however will point out a couple of high-level matters and takeaways. Within the name a couple of trip, the bot informed me my daughter Rachel had simply talked about flights. When your thoughts wanders throughout a gathering, asking for a catch-up is amazingly useful. Not that any of us ever try this in Zoom conferences, in fact.