Zoom AI Companion: Guidance for Instructors

This guidance was developed by Teaching Support, a collaborative network of support connecting those who teach to resources across the UofM system.

What is Zoom AI Companion?

Zoom AI Companion is an opt-in, University-vetted AI tool that enables meeting hosts (i.e., instructors) to generate class session summaries and “smart” recordings. The tool can also be set to enable students to ask AI Companion questions about what has been said earlier in the class session. Instructors who wish to explore how Zoom AI Companion might enhance their courses will find guidance about its affordances and limitations in this resource. 

On this page:

What are the technical things you need to know?

  • Zoom AI Companion is set to off by default; you will need to change your Zoom settings to opt in. 
    • Members of Zoom's Healthcare Component will have the AI Companion enabled by default with sub settings locked as of January 9, 2025 to ensure security standards are met.
    • Sub settings that will be impacted are: 
      • Disabling the ability to automatically start Meeting Summary for all meetings
      • Disabling the transcript from appearing in Meeting Summary notification emails
  • Zoom AI Companion works best if you are logged into your zoom.umn.edu account; it does poorly if you are not logged in, especially with accuracy of names and pronouns. 
  • Zoom AI Companion can be turned on and off during the Zoom meeting by the meeting host, and participants can request for the companion to be turned on or off during the meeting. 
  • In this statement, Zoom explains how it handles data: “Zoom does not use any of your audio, video, chat, screen sharing, attachments or other communications-like customer content (such as poll results, whiteboard and reactions) to train Zoom’s or its third-party artificial intelligence models.”

How might you use Zoom AI Companion in your teaching? 

Meeting summary 

Zoom AI Companion will generate meeting summaries and send them to the meeting host for review. Follow the directions for enabling Meeting Summary.

Instructors can use Zoom AI Companion to generate meeting summaries based on your lectures. These summaries could benefit students who may have missed class, and it may also help students focus on the main points that were discussed in the class. 

  • We recommend instructors review & edit the summaries as needed before sharing with students. 
  • When reviewing the summaries, instructors can also add in comments to highlight important information or link out to resources in ways that support or extend student learning. 
  • Consider: Should I provide summaries for only the lecture part of the class or should I include the class discussion as well? How might Zoom AI Companion affect student engagement and question asking in lectures? Do I have time to review and edit the summaries generated by Zoom AI Companion?
  • Limitations to consider:
    • Zoom AI Companion summaries may not always be accurate or may poorly communicate context, so reviewing the content before sharing is necessary.
    • The Zoom AI Companion summaries are considered a supplement, not a replacement, for note taking. Students may realize this themselves, but consider mentioning this. AI Companion’s purpose is not to provide in-depth details.
    • Zoom AI Companion summaries should not be used as a replacement for students who have specific note-taking accommodations.

Smart Recording

Smart Recording automatically divides cloud recordings into smart chapters for easy review, to highlight important information, to create next steps for attendees to take action, and even to provide the host with analytics data.

Follow the directions for enabling Smart Recording

  • Note: Smart Recordings will be retained for 180 days; 30 days if you are a member of the HCC (Health Care Component)

Instructors can choose to record your class session or share a pre-recorded lecture with students, and Zoom AI Companion will automatically create chapters from your recording. 

  • Smart Chapters are editable before sharing.
  • The Smart Recording will automatically generate a list of “Next Steps,” action items that were discussed during the class or meeting. This function may be more relevant to meetings versus classes,unless an instructor talks about upcoming assignments, due dates, homework, etc. We recommend reviewing for accuracy.
  • Limitations to consider:
    • If you want to re-use a lecture video from year to year, be sure to move it from Zoom to Kaltura, then review and edit the auto-generated transcript for accuracy
    • When AI Companion is enabled, it collects “Meeting Coach” data by default (i.e., talk speed, talk-listen ratio, longest monologue, filler word usage, and patience). This feature can be turned off in your Zoom settings. Consider if this provides benefit to you as an instructor/communicator or if it might make students less likely to contribute in class.

Ask In-Meeting Questions

This functionality allows meeting participants to ask AI Companion to answer questions about the content of the meeting.

  • Follow the directions for asking In-Meeting Questions
  • How instructors might use it:
    • The intended purpose of this tool is to help people catch up when they arrive late to meetings. Those who arrive late can ask AI Companion to answer prompts such as: “Catch me up” or “What are the action items?”. 
  • Limitations to consider:
    • Consider the content of your course and whether this would benefit students who arrive late to class, or would it potentially encourage late arrivals.

Instructional considerations for all three Zoom AI Companion features 

Depending on your own teaching and learning context, it may be necessary to:

  • experiment with Zoom AI Companion with peers or students to get a better sense of its capabilities and how it may enhance your class sessions.
  • reflect on how this tool may advance or detract from student learning, student engagement, and course learning objectives.
  • take into account how using this tool may impact your instructional workload.
  • examine how Zoom AI Companion may or may not enhance accessibility in your course or what adjustments would you need to make to ensure the tools are accessible for your students.
  • invite/encourage feedback from your students about the use of Zoom AI Companion in your course; address any questions or concerns they may have (including How Zoom AI Companion handles your data). 
  • You might ask them how they are benefiting from using Zoom AI Companion and invite them to share their ideas with the rest of the class. If they are not comfortable with aspects of Zoom AI Companion, consider turning it off.
  • ask your colleagues about how they are using Zoom AI Companion and what they are learning. 

Appropriate use

  • Let students know in the syllabus or course introduction if you are going to use Zoom AI Companion. You might share the Zoom statement on how it handles data: “Zoom does not use any of your audio, video, chat, screen sharing, attachments or other communications-like customer content (such as poll results, whiteboard and reactions) to train Zoom’s or its third-party artificial intelligence models.”
  • Be explicit about whether you will be using, analyzing, or assessing student participation collected by AI Companion in any way. 
  • Emphasize that anything shared through Zoom AI Companion is to be used only by the students and instructors in your specific class.
  • Comply with applicable University policies around sensitive, private and confidential information (e.g. HIPAA and FERPA) when using Zoom AI Companion.
  • Remove private or confidential information from summaries, and don’t share private or confidential information in class sessions that could eventually get in the summaries.
  • Read and incorporate the appropriate use of generative AI tools resource (OIT) as applicable.