Image credit : Zoom
To remain competitive and relevant in the highly competitive business of videoconferencing, Zoom has decided to beef-up and rebrand most of its AI-driven features, including the generative AI assistant earlier known as Zoom IQ. Zoom clarifies that the company is all set to integrate a ChatGPT-type chatbot to its videoconferencing.
The news coincides with the controversy over modifications to Zoom’s terms of service. The change in terms of service simply means that Zoom is now seeking to reserve the right to utilize customers’ videos to train its AI tools and models. Observing customers’ objections Zoom updated its policy to clearly mention that “communications-like” clients’ data won’t be utilized in training AI tools and apps for Zoom or its third party affiliates.
In response to Zoom’s change in privacy policy Software Freedom Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that provides support and legal services for open source software projects, recently urged developers to avoid using Zoom over the recent developments.
“Zoom’s goal is to invest in AI-driven innovation that enhances user experience and productivity while prioritizing trust, safety and privacy,” Zoom wrote in a press release shared with TechCrunch. “In August, Zoom shared that it doesn’t use any customer audio, video, chat, screen-sharing, attachments or other communications-like customer content (such as poll results, whiteboards or reactions) to train Zoom’s or third-party AI models.”
The rebranded Zoom IQ, aka AI Companion, is actually an extension of Zoom IQ, which would previously enable users to summarize chat threads and create automated chat responses to written questions.
Earlier Zoom IQ was limited to Zoom’s in-house generative AI accompanied by AI models from affiliates including Meta, OpenAI and Anthropic. But now it is extending its outreach to other sections of the Zoom ecosystem, including Zoom Whiteboard, Zoom Team Chat and Zoom Mail.
Zoom announced that it will facilitate users chat with AI Companion to accomplish various office work including status of the project, obtaining collated summaries of previous sessions, and searching for particular files or documents.
According to Zoom, users will be able to communicate with the AI Companion during the session or meeting to get the idea on important points, generate and file support tickets or draft answers to questions raised in real-time. In short, Zoom wants its companion to act as a genuine private virtual assistant.
These conversational features may roll out by the Spring next year, as per the company blog post.
Also read : OpenAI Released Enterprise Version Of ChatGPT For Business
“With AI Companion empowering you in Zoom, you can save time, improve the quality of your work, stay more connected with teammates no matter where or when they work, and receive insightful coaching that will help you level up skills like delivering a great presentation,” Zoom Chief Product Officer Smita Hashim said.
