On December 20, Zoom AI Companion will be unlocked for students, faculty and staff at Illinois. Although unlocking Zoom AI Companion will enable all users to access the feature, AI Companion will be toggled off, giving users the ability to turn it on.
Capabilities of Zoom’s AI Companion have Freedom of Information Act implications that all users should know before engaging with the tool.
Key Zoom AI Companion features
New settings will be available, but will remain off by default within your profile, found at Illinois.zoom.us/profile/setting. Three of these settings, when enabled, will activate new features utilizing AI Companion. Meeting hosts will be able to turn each feature on and off at will, with more customization options within each feature. These new features are listed below. For more information on enabling or disabling features, see Zoom, AI Companion.
- Meeting summary creation — When this option is enabled, AI Companion will automatically send designated meeting participants (exact customization options are in Zoom settings) a written meeting summary after it’s generated at the end of a meeting. By default, only the meeting host will be selected to receive the meeting summary.
- In-meeting questions — This feature allows participants to ask AI Companion questions about previous meeting details such as a summary of what’s been discussed or whether somebody has mentioned your name.
- Smart Recording – Enabling smart recording allows meeting hosts to generate associated recording highlights, smart chapters, transcription, next steps and meeting coach content.
Understanding the Freedom of Information Act
The Illinois Freedom of Information Act states that all public records are open to the public for inspection and copying upon request unless an exemption applies. As a state institution, all faculty, staff and students working as part-time staff (during their working time) at the University of Illinois System are subject to the Illinois FOIA.
There are exceptions to what is subject under the act, such as unrecorded phone calls, face-to-face conversations, documents that no longer exist, documents protected under FERPA, HIPAA, personal information and more. Every FOIA request should be sent to the Illinois FOIA office. If there is ambiguity, the FOIA office will make the final determination on whether the requested material is subject to FOIA. More information about Illinois FOIA, exceptions and FOIA request processes can be found on the Illinois Freedom of Information Act System webpage.
The Illinois Freedom of Information Act and Zoom AI Companion—Why it matters
All transcripts and summaries of calls and chats are FOIA-able, and every interaction with generated transcriptions and meeting summaries are also FOIA-able. Other materials generated by AI Companion may also be subject to FOIA.
To facilitate a culture of sensitivity surrounding the potential for generated content being subject to FOIA, Zoom users should be aware of certain best practices surrounding AI Companion:
- Before choosing to transcribe a meeting or generate a summary, be aware of the implications of the meeting content being subject to FOIA.
- Inform participants before or at the start of the call before initiating a smart recording, transcription or summary.
- During a meeting, if somebody turns on smart recording without informing or requesting permission, it is okay to leave the meeting.
Learn more
- To learn more about the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, visit the Illinois System FOIA webpage or the Illinois General Assembly FOIA webpage.
- To learn more about Zoom AI Companion, visit Zoom’s AI Companion webpage or the Zoom, AI Companion KnowledgeBase article.