Zoom, the popular video conferencing platform, is set to introduce an AI Companion chatbot to its services in the near future. This comes despite previous criticism and backlash over its handling of AI training.
The AI Companion, which is actually a rebrand and expansion of ZoomIQ, is expected to provide assistance with various office tasks and act as a private virtual assistant. Users will be able to interact with the chatbot through both videoconferences and chats.
According to reports, the conversational features of the AI Companion are set to be available to Zoom users in the spring of 2024. The company hopes that these new features will boost user productivity and make meetings and collaboration easier and more efficient.
To make this possible, Zoom has combined its own language model with technologies from Meta’s Llama 2, OpenAI, and Anthropic. This combination allows for the quick incorporation of advancements from multiple models, resulting in a more effective and powerful AI Companion.
Among the various AI features that Zoom aims to introduce, the ability to catch up on meeting highlights, generate email responses, and summarize missed chats stands out. These features will undoubtedly save time and help users stay organized and up-to-date.
Interestingly, Zoom has made it clear that the AI Companion will not use audio, video, chat, screen sharing, or any other customer content to train its system. However, it remains somewhat unclear what kind of data will be used to train and improve the chatbot.
It’s worth noting that Zoom has faced controversy in the past over its use of customer data for AI training. The company has since clarified its position and, in promising transparency, aims to regain the trust of its users. Unfortunately, despite several requests for further information, Zoom did not respond to the inquiries.
As technology continues to advance, integrating AI into our everyday tasks is becoming more common. With the introduction of the AI Companion, Zoom hopes to stay ahead of the curve and provide its users with a valuable tool to simplify and enhance their videoconferencing experience.
“Zombie enthusiast. Subtly charming travel practitioner. Webaholic. Internet expert.”