All Those Zoom AI Note-Taking Apps Have Gotten Out of Hand and Are Ruining Meetings

At first, the idea that you could have an AI robot transcribe a Zoom meeting you couldn’t attend seemed amazing. You’d go on with whatever it was you had that was more important than attending the meeting and you’d get an email with a transcript later on. What could be better than that? Of course, if you’re in the meeting, the whole thing is kind of weird. I was in a meeting recently with around a dozen or so attendees. Except, four of those attendees were just a blank screen that said something like “Fireflies AI” or “Otter.ai.” Those AI robots were listening to everything we said, recording it, and transcribing it, whether anyone else on the call liked it or not. That means that an entire third of the attendees of that meeting had something more important to do than attend the meeting. I think we can all agree it’s getting out of hand. After all, there’s probably a reason you were invited to the meeting. Presumably, it’s because you have something to offer. Really, there are three ways these AI note-taking robots are ruining meetings: Too Easy to Skip First, and this seems obvious, but it gives people who should be in a meeting too easy of a way out. A thing that seems to be true is that if you avoid a meeting by sending a robot to take notes, you’re more likely to avoid that meeting. I suppose that says something about the fact technology is capable of such a thing, but I think it says a lot more about the way we think about meetings. To be clear, I think it’s fine for a meeting to be recorded and transcribed. I just think it’s weird that people are sending their AI robot to attend on their behalf so they don’t have to sit through the meeting. As a general rule, if you feel like sending an AI note-taking robot to attend a meeting in your place, you’re pretty much suggesting that the meeting isn’t very important to you at all. What you’re really saying is “This meeting isn’t important enough to be on my calendar, but I’ll read the summary.” To be fair, that’s probably true of a lot of meetings. A thing that definitely seems to be true is that Zoom has made it easier for people to schedule meetings, maybe too easy. A lot of Zoom meetings should just be an email or Slack message, but I’m just not sure this is the right solution. I think a much better way to make meetings better is to invite the right people and make sure everyone clearly understands the purpose of the meeting. An Invasion of Privacy Second, having multiple transcription robots on a Zoom call creates a weird dynamic. Not only does it create feelings about the people who skipped the meeting and sent the robots in the first place, but it also creates weird feelings about the meeting itself because you know someone who isn’t there is having it recorded and transcribed. It feels like a gross invasion of privacy. Expectations are Everything Finally, even if everyone is okay with the fact that someone is recording the meeting, there’s an expectation that if you skip a meeting and have it transcribed, you’re going to actually listen or read it. It seems reasonable that everyone else might just assume you’ll be up to speed. The thing is, I’m not sure that’s a good assumption to make. If the meeting wasn’t important enough to show up in the first place, it’s not a given that it’ll be important enough to read about later. The lesson here is pretty simple—just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. That actually applies in a lot of areas of our lives, but especially when it comes to meetings. Just because Zoom makes it easier to have a meeting, doesn’t mean you should. And, just because you can send your AI robot to take notes, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be better for everyone if you show up in person. EXPERT OPINION BY JASON ATEN, TECH COLUMNIST @JASONATEN