UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Several new AI features to support productivity are now available in the Zoom Workplace platform at no additional cost to anyone with a Penn State Zoom account. The features, collectively known as the AI Companion, include:

• Smart Recording: Organizes your recordings into sections, identifies key takeaways, and lists action items. 
• Meeting Summary: Generates a summary of a meeting with the option for the host to share the summary with all participants. 
• Thread Summary: Summarizes discussions in Zoom Team Chat threads. 

All AI features are off by default and must be enabled by the meeting host before attendees can use them. The host also can turn them on or off at any time, including during a meeting. If the AI Companion is active during a meeting, attendees will see a glowing sparkle icon in the top-left corner of their window. They will also receive a notification describing the AI capabilities that are active for that meeting. 

“As part of our commitment to providing our University community with cutting-edge tools that enhance learning and collaboration, we’re pleased to introduce optional AI-powered features in Zoom,” said David Horton, vice president for Information Technology and chief information officer. “Meeting hosts can choose to turn on capabilities — including meeting summaries, action items and key takeaways — when appropriate to add value in our classroom and meeting settings.”

Several ways to take advantage of the new features include:

• Review the next steps from a meeting. 
• Use meeting time to focus on the content being discussed instead of taking notes. 
• Ask a colleague to turn on and share the meeting summary if you can’t attend a meeting. 

The AI Companion went through a thorough University review process that included security, privacy, accessibility and functionality evaluations. More information about using AI at Penn State and how Zoom will handle data can be found in the Penn State AI Guidelines and the article How Zoom AI Companion features handle your data.  

Smart Recordings are accessible in users' cloud recordings on the Zoom Web Portal and Meeting Summaries are available via email or the Meeting Summary page on the Zoom website. Retention of recordings is now set to 120 days.

For more information, visit Getting Started with Zoom AI on the Knowledge Base.

For questions regarding the AI Companion, contact the IT Service Desk via chat, submit a Get Help ticket, call 814-865-4357 or email ITservicedesk@psu.edu.