After Backlash, Zoom Now Says It Won’t Use Any Customer Content to Train AI Systems

Zoom changed its terms of service to say that it won’t use any customer content — at all — in training generative artificial intelligence models.

The update, which the videoconference company announced Friday, comes after observers raised the alarm about a recent change in Zoom’s TOS that appeared to grant the company royalty-free rights in perpetuity for customer video calls and presentations for the purposes of training AI models.

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In its initial response on Aug. 7, Zoom said it doesn’t use any customer audio, video or chat content for training AI “without consent.” Now it says it will not use such content in any way related to generative AI development.

In a statement Friday appended its its earlier blog post, Zoom said, “Following feedback received regarding Zoom’s recently updated terms of service, particularly related to our new generative artificial intelligence features, Zoom has updated our terms of service and the below blog post to make it clear that Zoom does not use any of your audio, video, chat, screen-sharing, attachments or other communications like customer content (such as poll results, whiteboard, and reactions) to train Zoom’s or third-party artificial intelligence models.”

Zoom said it also updated in-product notices to reflect the change.

According to Zoom’s revised terms of service, the company still owns all rights to what it calls “service-generated data.” That comprises telemetry data, product-usage data, diagnostic data and similar data “that Zoom collects or generates in connection with your or your End Users’ use of the Services or Software,” the terms of service say.

Zoom recently rolled out two generative AI features: Zoom IQ Meeting Summary and Zoom IQ Team Chat Compose, which offer automated meeting summaries and “AI-powered chat composition.” Zoom account owners and administrators control whether to enable these AI features for their accounts.

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