Zoom Will Use Users' Data to Train Its AI Models

The latest update to the video platform’s terms of service, effective as of July 27, on its print, seems to establish Zoom’s right to utilize some aspects of customer data for training and tuning its AI, or machine-learning models. It does not provide an opt-out option.

These new terms reveal Zoom’s own AI strategy, according to experts.

Zoom’s terms literally state: “You consent to Zoom’s access, use, collection, creation, modification, distribution, processing, sharing, maintenance, and storage of Service Generated Data for any purpose, to the extent and in the manner permitted under applicable Law, including for the purpose of … machine learning or artificial intelligence (including for the purposes of training and tuning of algorithms and models).”

“Your content is used solely to improve the performance and accuracy of these AI services,” Zoom wrote in a blog post.

The update comes amid growing public debate on the extent to which AI services should be trained on individuals’ data. Chatbots such as ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and Microsoft’s Bing, along with image-generation tools like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, are trained on swaths of internet text or images.

Across the generative AI sector, lawsuits have popped up in recent months from authors or artists who say they see their own work reflected in AI tools’ outputs.

In June, Zoom introduced two new generative AI features, such as a meeting summary tool and a tool for composing chat messages, on a free trial basis for customers. When a user does enable these features and therefore gives his content, Zoom has them sign a consent form allowing Zoom to train its AI models.
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