AI meeting assistants

Feb 2024

AI assistants are showing up in video meetings now, causing a stir. They don’t always do a great job of getting the meaning of what people say or understanding the tone of the discussions. People are also worried about privacy when an AI takes notes or “participates” in place of a missing member.

What are good practices for using an AI assistant? Which programs are best? These questions will, no doubt, be places of discussion for some time. But if you are ready to try out an AI assistant in your next zoom meeting, Laura Yost has put together a great guide that answers another important question: “How do you even use an AI assistant?” Check out this handy guide. ZOOM: AI Enhancements PLUS AI Companion (Formerly “ZOOM IQ”)

Another question of concern, what about privacy in the classroom if meetings are recorded and transcribed? How do we ensure that classrooms still feel like safe sharing spaces? How do we make sure that we are FERPA-compliant? Otter.ai says that they “de-identify user data before training [their] models”, but that also means that we have to put a lot of trust into the systems and companies to do the right thing. I’m not sure that this is the best way to ensure student or participant safety and privacy in educational (or workplace) settings.