How to Use Zoom’s AI Companion

At a Glance

Zoom AI Companion can be a virtual teaching assistant for professors during remote office hours and recitations. Students can use these features to supercharge meetings for class projects. This AI tool enhances virtual learning by supporting group work and clear communication. Only the Zoom Scheduling Host can access summaries unless shared.

Key Features:

• Summarizes group discussions and tracks participation
• Creates collaborative notes and action items
• Provides real-time transcription for accessibility
• Has the potential to automate answers to questions from students in a meeting

Teaching Best Practices:

• Clearly explain AI tool usage expectations
• Creatively think of ways that group work might be augmented by AI
• Share features with TAs and project leaders when needed

Access to Zoom AI Companion

1. Login to https://mit.zoom.us.
2. Navigate to Settings in the left navigation menu
   
3. Adjust settings to your preferences:
   • Allow users to ask AI Companion questions about the meeting. Enable “Ask Meeting Questions” by default for all meetings (or choose to enable it later on an individual meeting basis). Choose who gets access to the feature.
     
   • Meeting Summary with AI Companion. Enable Meeting Summaries by default for all meetings (or choose to enable them later on an individual meeting basis). Choose whether or not to include the meeting summary in the text of an email when you share the summary. Choose who gets the meeting summary automatically.
     

• • Use screen share content with OCR will allow AI Companion to read the slides.
    
  • Use meeting chat messages will feed public messages from the chat to Zoom AI Companion for questions and summaries.
    
  • Smart recording with AI Companion will enable new insights into your meeting.
    
  • Whiteboard content generation with AI Companion helps kick-start brainstorming sessions by supplying stickies, mind maps, etc… based on a prompt.
    

Automatically Start Meeting Summaries and Ask Meeting Questions in a Meeting

1. When creating or editing a meeting, scroll down to the meeting Options and click Show.
   
   
2. Enable Automatically start meeting summary and/or Automatically start meeting questions accordingly.
   
3. Click Save.
   

Using AI Features in Meetings

Ask Meeting Questions

Asking in-meeting questions with the AI Companion. Use this feature to clarify doubts in real time, allowing everyone to stay engaged without interruptions.

Whiteboard Content Generation

Using Whiteboard Content Generation with AI Companion. Generate brainstorming topics and visual aids on the whiteboard based on prompts.

AI Features After a Meeting

Meeting Summaries

Using Meeting Summary with AI Companion. Automatic summaries to capture key points and action items.

Smart Recordings

Using Smart Recording with AI Companion, you can automatically capture and summarize key moments from your meetings, providing an organized recap that includes highlights, action items, and essential topics. This feature helps you quickly review and catch up on discussions without needing to replay the entire meeting, making follow-up and task management more accessible and efficient.

Best Practices

Clear Audio

Position your microphone close and minimize background noise. Speak clearly to ensure accurate captions and transcriptions.

Privacy Considerations

Check Zoom’s Privacy Policy to understand how your data is managed. Adjust settings to ensure only authorized participants can access AI-generated summaries and recordings. Share summaries and recordings cautiously, adhering to guidelines set by your group.

Summary and Questions Accuracy

AI-generated summaries might require review for accuracy. Adjust summary settings to private initially, then enable broader access as you build trust in the tool. Make sure everyone feels empowered to ask questions and raise concerns about the answers they receive in the Ask Meeting Questions feature.