Zoom says it won't use customer data for AI without consent after backlash

Last week, it was reported that updates to Zoom's terms of service in March gave the company broad rights to use customer data such as audio, video, and chat transcripts to train AI models without explicit consent. However, Zoom is clarifying its artificial intelligence (AI) data practices following backlash over recent changes to its terms of service.

In an updated blog post today, Zoom chief product officer, Smita Hashim, said the company does not use customer content for AI without consent. She stated that the intention was to make clear that "customers own their content," while Zoom needs licensing rights to provide value-added services like meeting recordings and spam detection.

We wanted to be transparent that we consider this to be our data so that we can use service generated data to make the user experience better for everyone on our platform. For example, it is helpful to know generally what time of day in a particular region we have heavy usage so we can better balance loads in our data centers and provide better video quality for all of our users.

Hashim wrote that for new opt-in AI features like meeting summaries, Zoom will provide a transparent consent process and only use data to improve the services. She said data will not be used to train third-party AI models.

Our intention was to make sure that if we provided value-added services (such as a meeting recording), we would have the ability to do so without questions of usage rights. The meeting recording is still owned by the customer, and we have a license to that content in order to deliver the service of recording.

The clarification comes as AI data practices gain scrutiny amid the rise of generative AI. Companies like Instagram, X and Google have faced criticism over broad licenses to use customer data for AI in their terms of service.

Zoom is among many companies rushing to market new AI-powered features. Recently, Microsoft announced Edge will let you rewrite text using Bing AI. You can select a portion of text in an input field and rewrite it using the Alt + I shortcut.