Asking in-webinar questions with the AI Companion

The AI Companion feature uses AI technology, which may include third-party models, to allow webinar hosts and panelists to ask questions about the content of the webinar thus far. Preset questions are provided, such as “Catch me up” and “Was my name mentioned?”, which can be useful for catching up when you join late or return after stepping away from the webinar. More specific custom questions are also possible, like “Who is currently speaking?” and “What topics have been discussed?”. Webinars, as well as questions and responses, are supported in more than 30 languages.

Learn more about other Zoom AI Companion features and how Zoom AI Companion features handle your data.

Requirements for using AI Companion

Notes:

Limitations of AI Companion

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How to start AI Companion during a webinar

Start AI Companion as the host

When the webinar starts, the host will need to manually start AI Companion so that it is available to in-webinar participants.

  1. Start a webinar as the host with the Zoom desktop app.
  2. In the webinar control toolbar, click AI Companion .
    The AI Companion panel will open in the webinar.
  3. Under Who can ask questions to AI Companion?, select which group of webinar participants can interact with AI Companion:
  4. Click Start to begin having the webinar conversations analyzed.
    A transcript of the webinar will begin to be generated for AI Companion to reference, and participants will see a notification informing them that AI Companion is active.
  5. Click Got it to confirm.
    The webinar discussions will begin to be analyzed, and participants will see a notification informing them that AI Companion is active.

Stop AI Companion as the host

If the host wants to discuss topics informally without AI Companion running for in-webinar queries, they can disable AI Companion, so those topics will not be available for analysis and questions.

  1. In the webinar control toolbar, click AI Companion .
    The AI Companion panel will open on the right side of the webinar window.
  2. In the top-center, click Stop AI Companion.
    You will be prompted to confirm disabling AI Companion in the current webinar.
  3. Click Stop to confirm.

How to ask questions about the webinar with AI Companion

With AI Companion active for the webinar, all hosts and panelists will be able to ask questions about the webinar discussions thus far. Its important to ensure that your caption language is set correctly, as this ensures AI Companion is transcribing your speaking language correctly, which improves the quality of the generated transcript for AI Companion questions. If no caption language has been set, English is used by default.

  1. In the webinar control toolbar, click AI Companion .
    The AI Companion panel will open on the right side of the webinar window.
    Note: If this is the first time opening AI Companion in the current webinar, some typical preset questions are provided. Any subsequent views of the panel for the current webinar will have your questions and responses thus far shown instead.
  2. Click a provided question, or click the text compose box at the bottom of the panel to enter a custom question.
    Zoom’s AI Companion will provide a generated response based on what it has heard and properly analyzed thus far in the webinar.
  3. (Optional) Click either thumbs up or thumbs down to rate the generated response.
  4. Enter another custom question, or click the ellipsis to view additional preset questions.

Supported languages for AI Companion questions

AI Companion Questions supports webinars, as well as questions and responses, in the languages below, with most languages being provided in public preview and requiring version 5.16.6 or higher. The quality of supported languages varies by language, audio quality, and other factors, but Zoom is working to improve quality.

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For conversations in languages other than English, ensuring that your caption language is set correctly helps AI Companion in accurately transcribing your speech, which in turn improves the quality of the generated transcript for AI Companion questions. If captions are disabled or were not previously used, English is chosen by default, but if you have previously chosen a speaking language, that will be used instead. If a mismatch is detected between your chosen spoken language and the language you are actually speaking, AI Companion will detect and adapt to the speaking language detected.