Safer UMN Zoom meetings: why AI bots are being blocked

It was only a few months ago that I wrote about how to watch for, and remove, unwanted AI bots from your Zoom meetings. Starting February 26, the University of Minnesota will take an additional step to block most unlicensed third-party AI applications from:

• joining UMN meetings; and 
• integrating with UMN Google Drives and Calendar
• applications that only leverage your Google account for authentication will not be affected

This update is really about keeping meetings private and reducing the chance that something is being recorded or saved without everyone realizing it. AI bots like Fireflies.ai, Read.ai, and Otter.ai might seem helpful, but they join meetings as participants and can capture content in ways that aren’t always obvious to everyone in the room. 

Instead, use the Zoom AI Companion for secure transcription and meeting summaries. Zoom AI Companion includes:

• Meeting Summary automatically generates, organizes, and shares post-meeting summaries, action items, and key takeaways. How to enable or disable meeting summary with AI Companion
• In-Meeting Questions is a feature that allows participants to ask questions about a live meeting, such as "catch me up," "was I mentioned?", or questions about topics discussed. Asking in-meeting questions with the AI Companion

Article by Karen Matthes, Extension Learning Technologies, klm@umn.edu