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- 1 Zoom, a video conferencing platform made an announcement to alter the terms of services to maintain customer safety.
- 2 Whispered backfire concerning AI data scraping led a number of users to stop using the platform, affecting the platform repo.
Zoom, a leading video conferencing app made a big announcement on Monday with regards to training AI after the whispered backfire. On Monday, August 7, Zoom announced its new terms of service to quash public fear related to the AI train and the use of personal content. The platform simply allows users to connect via phone, audio, chat, and video, making it easy to meet virtually. To advance the platform, AI-powered features were added including Avatars, virtual background, noise suppression, and gesture recognition. But stealing personal data for AI-powered feature involvement is feared by many Zoom users.
What’s the Reason Behind the Announcement?
In May 2023, Zoom announced that the app involves AI features to become a smart companion empowering collaboration. AI-powered features like gesture recognition, noise suppression, virtual background, avatars, etc. were added to the platform. The action such as automated meeting summaries, and webinar scanning for spam activity detection are some advanced features offered by Zoom with the AI update. The feature influenced the customer’s trust in both a negative and positive way, making it an effective platform to use. Based on the whispers, Zoom is using the personal data and information of users for AI training. Also, Zoom’s TOC involves users granting the right to use the customer content for training and testing purposes.
The backfire simply declined the number of users as well as the activities over the platform which was completely terrifying for Zoom. To maintain the trust of users, Zoom made an announcement on Monday, 7 August. “Zoom is not going to use any video, audio, or personal content to train the AI models without the user’s permission”, announced Smita Hashim, Zoom’s Chief Product Officer. She further states that the users are permitted to decide to enable generative AI features over the platform by saying “Zoom updated its terms of services to confirm that there is no use of Video, Audio, or text to train AI without customer approval”.
Is Zoom Safe to Use with the New Update?
The announcement is expected to rebuild the trust of users towards the platform. The update of the TOC as per the announcement classifies that Zoom is not going to use any data and information for AI training without user consent. The annual revenue of Zoom is around $4.4 Billion with a market cap of $20.43 Billion. Focusing on the future of Zoom, the platform is predicted to generate revenues of $5.7 Billion in 2023. The platform holds around 50% of the market share in the video conferencing landscape, representing a strong position in the marketplace.
Conclusion
Zoom, a leading video conferencing platform made an announcement to sustain users’ trust and faith in the platforms. Zoom added AI-powered features to the platform to offer an outstanding, automated, and advanced user experience. The platform is not using any personal data or content of users for training AI and updating the app features.
With a background in journalism, Ritika Sharma has worked with many reputed media firms focusing on general news such as politics and crime. She joined The Coin Republic as a reporter for crypto, and found a great passion for cryptocurrency, Web3, NFTs and other digital assets. She spends a lot of time researching and delving deeper into these concepts around the clock, and is a strong advocate for women in STEM.
