UW-Madison Zoom Workplace - Getting Started with Zoom AI Companion
Zoom’s AI companion is a collection of AI Models that provide a series of auto-generated reports such as meeting summaries, cloud recording highlights, and more to increase meeting productivity and efficiency. By default, this feature is not enabled for UW-Madison Zoom accounts and needs to be manually enabled in the account's settings.
Topics
- What can Zoom AI Companion do?
- How do you enable Zoom AI Companion?
- How can I use Zoom AI Companion?
- How do I tell if a meeting has AI Companion?
- AI Companion - Privacy
- Campus guidance
- Learn More
What can Zoom AI Companion do?
AI Companion can answer questions from participants about meeting content without interrupting the meeting. It can summarize what has happened so far, if the participant’s name was mentioned, or if there are any action items they missed. Hosts can also use AI Companion to smart record, capture key meeting takeaways, and identify action items. UW-Madison Zoom accounts have access to AI Companion features for meetings and recordings only.
Things to keep in mind:
- The host is the default recipient for meeting summaries and controls who receives a copy.
- 1:1 conversations with the AI Companion are not visible by the meeting host or participants and is not included in the meeting summary.
- 1:1 conversations cannot be saved.
- 1:1 conversations with AI Companion are not available in breakout rooms.
- AI Companion is not available for webinars at this time.
How do you enable/disable Zoom AI Companion?
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Check the Zoom desktop application version
Before using Zoom AI Companion, please make sure you are using the latest version of the Zoom desktop application and update the client if needed.
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Enable/disable Zoom AI Companion for your UW-Madison Zoom account
This step controls which Zoom AI Companion features are available in the Zoom desktop client during a meeting. These settings need to be enabled before a meeting starts to use AI Companion. Changes made to the account settings during a meeting will not appear immediately. A new meeting will need to be started to see account setting changes.
- Log in to https://uwmadison.zoom.us
- Enter your NetID credentials
- Select settings in the left menu
- Select the AI Companion tab on the top menu
- Enable/disable settings as needed*
- Access AI Companion using the Zoom desktop client
*The following settings cannot be modified:
- AI Companion panel in Zoom Workplace
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- **This setting represents Zoom AI Companion 2.0, which differs from the in-meeting AI Companion features that are currently available. Zoom AI Companion 2.0 is currently unavailable. You can continue to use in-meeting Zoom AI Companion features by adjusting your account settings.
- Meeting Summaries
- Automatically start Meeting Summary for all meetings I host
- Auto-delete meeting summaries time range
- Ask-in meeting questions - Automatically start AI Companion questions for all meetings I host
- Smart recordings
- Delete cloud recordings and transcripts after a specified number of days
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Enable/disable Zoom AI Companion features in the Zoom desktop client (host only)
This step assumes AI companion features have been enabled for the account before the meeting begins (see above). The following settings can be adjusted during the meeting in the desktop client.
How can I use Zoom AI Companion during meetings?
Zoom AI Companion generates a temporary transcript during a meeting when the host enables at least one of the following settings in the Zoom web and desktop application:
Meeting Summary
Meeting summary provides the host a summary of what was discussed during their meeting. The summary may include topics such as action items, discussion highlights, decisions made, and more.
A summary is generated after the meeting ends. Access to the summary may not be immediately available for review while it is being generated. The summary can be modified, shared, and deleted by the host.
Note: The default retention time frame for meeting summaries is 150 days. When a meeting summary is deleted, is it not recoverable. Zoom admins do not have the ability to recover deleted meeting summaries. Meeting summaries can be manually deleted before 150 days, if needed.
Ask Meeting Questions
Ask Meeting Questions allows participants to interact with Zoom AI Companion in a chat bot format. Zoom AI Companion can answer questions such as, “was my name mentioned?”, “catch me up”, provide a summary of the meeting up to the current point, and more.
Note: Your 1:1 conversation with the AI Companion is not viewable by the host, meeting participants, or included in the meeting summary. The conversation cannot be saved. It is gone and irrecoverable when the meeting ends.
Smart Recording with AI Companion
Smart Recording with AI Companion can be used to generate a mix of information depending on the host’s settings. It can create a set of meeting highlights, chapters, and next steps. Smart recording can even provide "coaching" through the use of host/participant metrics.
Note: The default retention time frame for recordings is 150 days. Smart recordings can be manually deleted before 150 days, if needed.
The meeting transcript generated by the AI Companion is not accessible to the host or participants. It is used as a temporary reference to generate a meeting summary, answer questions when asked, and organize/analyze a cloud recording for productivity purposes.
If the host does not enable at least one of the settings above, Zoom AI Companion will not create a transcript during the meeting.
How can I tell if a meeting has Zoom AI Companion enabled?
There are a few ways to tell if a meeting has Zoom AI Companion enabled:
- Participants only - A disclaimer may pop up when joining the meeting.
- Host only - If you see an option to stop AI Companion features in the desktop client toolbar, then AI Companion is enabled.
- Host and participants - When AI Companion is enabled, there is a sparkle indicator(✨) in the upper-right corner of the meeting. If you click on the indicator, it will tell you what AI Companion features are enabled.
AI Companion - Privacy
According to Zoom, data from interactions with AI Companion, "may be accessed, processed, and used by Zoom to provide and maintain the services, troubleshoot issues, and provide support." But, "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 its third-party artificial intelligence models." Since Zoom uses multiple AI models, some may collect and process data while others may not.
Campus guidance
The following resources are general guidance on AI tool usage:
Note: Please consult your IT department if you have additional questions on AI usage. Your department may have specific guidelines for your use case.