Zoom Confirms Not Using Customer Data To Train Its AI Model

JAKARTA - The Zoom video conferencing application insists it will not use customer data without their consent to train its Artificial Intelligence (AI) model.

The customer data Zoom refers to includes audio, video and customer chat content. Zoom's Chief Product Officer, Smita Hashim said customers will continue to own and control their own content.

"As part of our commitment to user transparency and control, we provide clarity on our approach to two important aspects of our services, Zoom AI features and customer content sharing for product improvement purposes," Hashim said in an official company announcement, quoted Tuesday, August 8.

Hashim explained that the permits given by customers to use their content are in order to provide added-valued services.

However, customers will still have and control their content. For example, customers may have a webinar asking Zoom to stream live on YouTube.

Zoom will use subscriber video and audio content for live streaming, but subscribers still have the underlying content.

"So we can balance the burden better at our data center and provide better video quality for all of our users," said Hashim.

Likewise with meeting records that are still owned by customers, and Zoom has a license to the content to provide recording services.

"For example, machine learning services that require licensing and usage rights are automatic scanning of our invite or webinar reminders to ensure that we are accidentally used to spam or deceive participants," said Hashim.

Furthermore, Hashim explained that customers are in control of the webinar invitations they created, and Zoom holds licenses to provide services on top of the content. In the context of artificial intelligence (AI), Zoom does not use content in the form of audio, videos, or conversations to train AI models without obtaining permission from customers first.

Hashim also emphasized that Zoom is committed not to using customer-protected educational records or health information.

For information, Zoom recently introduced two generative AI features, such as Zoom IQ Meeting Summary and Zoom IQ Team Chat Writing based on free trials.

These features offer automatic meeting summary and AI-backed chat composition. Zoom account owners and administrators can control whether to enable this AI feature for their account or not.

"When a customer chooses to enable the Zoom IQ Meeting Summary or Write Zoom Team IQ Chat, you will also be given a transparent approval process to train our AI model using your subscriber content," said Hashim.

He added that the content he owned was only used to improve the performance and accuracy of this AI service. Furthermore, even though the user chooses to share data, the data will not be used to train models by third parties.