CEO of Zoom Wants AI Clones in Meetings (theverge.com) 95
Zoom's CEO Eric Yuan predicts that AI will significantly transform the workplace, potentially ushering in a four-day workweek, he told The Verge in an interview. Yuan said Zoom is transitioning from a videoconferencing platform to a comprehensive collaboration suite called Zoom Workplace. He believes AI will automate routine tasks such as attending meetings, reading emails, and making phone calls, enabling employees to dedicate time to more creative and meaningful work. The Verge adds: The Verge: I'm asking you which meetings do you look at and think you would hand off?
Yuan: I started with the problem first, right? And last but not least, after the meeting is over, let's say I'm very busy and missed the meeting. I really don't understand what happened. That's one thing. Another thing for a very important meeting I missed, given I'm the CEO, they're probably going to postpone the meeting. The reason why is I probably need to make a decision. Given that I'm not there, they cannot move forward, so they have to reschedule. You look at all those problems. Let's assume AI is there. AI can understand my entire calendar, understand the context. Say you and I have a meeting -- just one click, and within five seconds, AI has already scheduled a meeting.
At the same time, every morning I wake up, an AI will tell me, "Eric, you have five meetings scheduled today. You do not need to join four of the five. You only need to join one. You can send a digital version of yourself." For the one meeting I join, after the meeting is over, I can get all the summary and send it to the people who couldn't make it. I can make a better decision. Again, I can leverage the AI as my assistant and give me all kinds of input, just more than myself. That's the vision.
Yuan: I started with the problem first, right? And last but not least, after the meeting is over, let's say I'm very busy and missed the meeting. I really don't understand what happened. That's one thing. Another thing for a very important meeting I missed, given I'm the CEO, they're probably going to postpone the meeting. The reason why is I probably need to make a decision. Given that I'm not there, they cannot move forward, so they have to reschedule. You look at all those problems. Let's assume AI is there. AI can understand my entire calendar, understand the context. Say you and I have a meeting -- just one click, and within five seconds, AI has already scheduled a meeting.
At the same time, every morning I wake up, an AI will tell me, "Eric, you have five meetings scheduled today. You do not need to join four of the five. You only need to join one. You can send a digital version of yourself." For the one meeting I join, after the meeting is over, I can get all the summary and send it to the people who couldn't make it. I can make a better decision. Again, I can leverage the AI as my assistant and give me all kinds of input, just more than myself. That's the vision.
Nice double standard (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't work from home because my work is so critical and I might slack off if I don't have a warden, but CEOs can not work at all, letting an AI do it for them and that is perfectly fine.
Let me know when to sharpen my pitchfork and light my torch, it's time to storm the castle and teach the chucklefucks a lesson.
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So you've never been to a Board or executive team meeting.
Re:Nice double standard (Score:5, Insightful)
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DOD or not, be careful in zoom calls with your boss or your judge even:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Sorry your companies sucked.
The meetings I attended everyone was well prepared and extremely professional. There is likely a strong link between my quality execs and board members and my early retirement.
Tl;Dr: don't work for morons.
Re: Nice double standard (Score:2)
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That's unfortunate. My board meetings required hours of preparation. Anyone not prepared was 99% likely to get asked an in depth question and got reamed if they couldn't answer to Board member's satisfaction.
How successful are these companies you're on the board for?
I retired off mine IPO'ing and then going up up up for several years.
Re: Nice double standard (Score:2)
We're going to order some mannequins in various poses, in a corporate office setting. No, not that yawning one but more of that other guy glancing at his cell phone. That one with the librarian look goes in the back.of my pickup, for some attire modifications. What are we lookin at right now price-wise
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I've forgotten where I got it from, so feel free to piggyback on my linguistic theft.
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Re: Nice double standard (Score:2)
I've been saying it here since before he got here, and I don't remember where I got it either. My recollection is that my familiarity with it is older than slashdot...
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I looked up the history. Most people say it refers to people who, in addition to presumably being assholes, are comically stupid. As in, you'd chuckle at them.
There is one crazy woman out there who apparently sees everything through a lens of sexual politics who wrote a long article about how the term is used by men to put down women who sleep with comedians. Because of course guys would bother with a specific slang word for that... I didn't check to see if it was an Onion article, it was certainly writt
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Furthermore... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no way more labor automation will usher in a four day work week.
No employer thinks "wow, my team now gets as much done in four days as they used to get done in five days, I guess I will give them that fifth day off and still pay them the same!"
Instead they think "wow, productivity just went up. I can get even more value from my team without having to pay them more! Winning!"
And that's that.
We won't get a four day workweek until it is federally mandated, or until we have convincing data that it is somehow more profitable for the employers that way.
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There is no way more labor automation will usher in a four day work week.
No employer thinks "wow, my team now gets as much done in four days as they used to get done in five days, I guess I will give them that fifth day off and still pay them the same!"
Instead they think "wow, productivity just went up. I can get even more value from my team without having to pay them more! Winning!"
And that's that.
We won't get a four day workweek until it is federally mandated, or until we have convincing data that it is somehow more profitable for the employers that way.
Possibly, but it wasn't that long ago that you could have said the same thing about Saturdays.
"In 1926, Henry Ford standardized on a five-day workweek, instead of the prevalent six days, without reducing employees' pay".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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1990: "I'll have my girl call your girl."
2025: "I'll have my AI zoom your AI."
2030: AI: "My primary is such a &%@! How's yours?"
[eyeroll]
[actually, back then, I never once heard a man refer to "my girl", but heard it from several women.]
Re: Nice double standard (Score:3)
This idea will last until the epic meeting where the staff convinces the CEO's AI doppelgÃnger to cut the CEO's salary in half and use that money to give everyone else in the company a raise.
That will be the last meeting an AI CEO is allowed to attend.
Meetings (Score:5, Insightful)
If I can send a digital doppelganger then the meeting was pointless to begin with.
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Or CEOs can be replaced by random decision making.
Random decision-making might not be all bad (Score:2)
One study suggests that randomness can enhance diversity and creativity in decision-making by disrupting predictable patterns and biases. Random decision-making can help prevent groupthink and encourage
Re:Random decision-making might not be all bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Was this comment generated by an AI?
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C'mon. Someone wasting GPU time on a slashdot response?
You must be taking the same psychedelics that Eric Yuan seems to like. Consider that an AI presence in your Zoom life is something he already had trouble with. Look it up. This is more pasta falling off the wall.
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"{Randomness in decision-making] has been recognized for its potential to mitigate biases, enhance creativity, and promote fairness in decision-making processes within organizations."
Of course, you get decisions that don't make any cunt-gargling sense, but you've got the *important* needs covered.
Re: Meetings (Score:1)
This particular one certainly can. The dude can't express himself in a coherent manner.
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They probably both are.
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Most meetings are. But a rather large part of the affected jobs are as well.
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I was in a 'meeting' a few months ago that started with an instruction to turn on our cameras so they would know we were paying attention... and that was the limit of participation.
The hour-long session had no content that would not have been better delivered in a short email. But it made the presenter feel important, I guess.
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I was in a biz that required a lot of driving for many employees. Soon after we got a new CEO, the CEO announced he had a "very important video message!" Our infrastructure at the time couldn't handle company-wide video, so there was a mad scramble attempt to remedy that.
Many places decided to gather in conference rooms with TV projectors instead of try to have it all on desktops.
The Big Important Message? "Don't forget to buckle up!" Our system crashed anyhow. At least we got a stress-test out of the exerc
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Of course, these are things that Teams (for one) can already do. So I think the wording involving 'clones' and so on sent the topic off needlessly into hyperbole.
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Yes! He gets it... (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of AI is not that the CEO doesn't need to attend 4 of the 5 meetings, but that he doesn't need to attend any of the meetings. In fact, his entire role can be replaced by AI and save the investors millions!
This guy gets it. The company is actually run by the employees, not the executives.
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While true, I somehow doubt that is what he wanted to say. Seems to be a dumber-than-average CEO.
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The executives' job is to do the ugly office politics battles so actual workers don't have to. Normally these battles would cause workers to go insane, but executives are already insane, so they're immune.
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You forgot the link: Could AI Replace CEOs? [slashdot.org]
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This guy gets it. The company is actually run by the employees, not the executives.
When I was in the US Navy, many many moons ago, I was told something quite interesting and thought provoking:
The Enlisted folks think they don't really need the Officers. The Enlisted folk do everything from steering the ship to resupplying the ship to docking the ship, etc.
The Officers think they don't really need the enlisted folks. They do all of the work. The Officers are the ones to decide which ports the ships go to, which supplies get brought on board, etc. The Officers do all of the work and the Enl
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Actually, I've had the opportunity to see it from both sides. In the military, officers assume responsibility for the decisions they've made. Enlisted are held accountable for what they *do*, and officers accountable for what *happens*.
In the civilian, Corporate America world, the officers avoid accountability as if it were a disease. The very corporate structure (lookup "corporate veil") is designed to shield the executive classes from as much accountability as legally possible. While there are some
Lots of dreamers (Score:3)
Yeah, putting "Intelligence" in the name hasn't created any high expectations at all!
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Indeed - and the notion that AI will be able to say "you have 5 meetings, you don't need to attend three of them" is still a long way off. Humans are actually quite good at it, but it takes an awful lot of context and situational awareness to get it right - that's the sort of thing a good PA ought to be doing.
I don't fully agree with his sentiments here, but I could imagine Zoom being an "AI assistant". That is, you screen share with it, and it tells you things about your work, or about the email you're sen
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You can tell the bot to "summarize this email"; but you can also tell it "write an email about these three bullet points in my style". If being able to send a doppelganger into meetings becomes a thing that won't...exactly...create any pressure in favor of being judicious about whether or not something reall
What? (Score:3)
He believes AI will automate routine tasks such as attending meetings, reading emails, and making phone calls, enabling employees to dedicate time to more creative and meaningful work.
So how am I supposed to know what's going on or what I'm supposed to be doing if the AI has all the information?
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You read that wrong. What he is actually saying is that AI will enable companies to fire almost all desk-workers.
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That's how I interpreted that.
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Same here. I expect half or more of those doing that will go under and well deserved.
Re: What? (Score:2)
The better question is, if an email can be answered by an AI, why was it sent out to begin with?
SO expect lot more idiot execs sending $ to crims (Score:1)
see title.
Minor issue here. (Score:3)
He believes AI will automate routine tasks such as attending meetings,
If you have meetings that you consider a routine task, so routine you can have a digital stand-in attend for you and you'll get just as much out of it as if you attended the meeting? Perhaps that was a meeting that wasn't really necessary? I know upper management in my company gets hung up on the idea that the number of meetings you have dictates the amount of work you can get done, in a direct relationship sort of way, rather than the truth where the more meetings you have, the less you can actually accomplish, but I have a hard time buying that even CEOs have meetings that are so routine they don't feel like they need to participate at all. If you can send the AI to the meeting? You don't really need to be there. Have somebody record it and listen to it in the car or something.
Re:Minor issue here. (Score:4, Informative)
Agreed, but it is actually a bigger issue. We do NOT have AI yet. These LLM toys are NOT intelligent. They can summarize data as it is presented (GIGO). They can NOT ask questions nor understand sarcasm. (How can they weigh information?)
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We do NOT have AI yet.
What we don't have is the science fiction version of AI. AI, as understood by researchers, has been around for a very long time. It's just not all that exciting.
They can summarize data as it is presented
They can't really do that. You can get things that look like summaries though, just don't expect completeness or accuracy.
and this AI stuff will get them kicked out of cour (Score:2)
and this AI stuff will get them kicked out of court? or will they also keep the older videoconferencing platform for courts as it's own thing?
How the AI takeover starts (Score:2)
"Eric, you don't need to attend any of your meetings today. In fact, why don't you take the next few days off. I'll take care of everything for you."
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I had a similar thought--this is exactly how the AI gets the first humans into the matrix:
"You don't need to attend any meetings today. Why not enjoy a relaxing game of golf with your fellow CEOs at any one of our meta-reality golf courses?"
Day 15 "The relationships you have built with the other CEOs are a great asset to the company. Keep it up!"
Day 30 "Your productivity would be enhanced if you had some additional staff in this environment to capitalize on the opportunities you are creating. If you will co
So 8x8 tried this (Score:2)
8x8 tried to become a "Work suite" offering more than its core product which is telephony based services. They're doing OK, but it seems like they're not pushing it like they used to. Zoom seems like it is kind of at that same crossroad right now.
Max Headroom (Score:2)
Why do I have a vision of Max Headroom-esque AI replacements of me in Zoom.
Or some vTuber like experience.
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I would absolutely love a CxOs/Leadership/Managers meeting with Max Headroom there, it would be glorious.
Clear (Score:2)
When you see shit like this it is no wonder Americans who want to work can't find a job.
If this guy encountered a real leader he would pee on himself and start crying.
Sounds Great! (Score:2)
Robot: commit fraud on my behalf! (Score:2)
I swear, Your Honor, I didn't commit insider trading, my AI clone did!
Sigh... misunderstanding meetings and roles (Score:3)
Way to miss the point and virtue signal instead, everyone.
As per the article and summary no one read, the AI is intended to show as a note taker not a participant.
There were many meetings I needed to show up to see what was going on in some team but I was not a contributor.
Meetings have the following purposes:
1) one to many information sharing / announcements
2) idea sharing / brain storming new ideas or
3) many to one where staff report up on their progress and issues
4) group discussion of current topics leading to a decision
Different attendees have different reasons to be at a meeting depending on their role. Everyone is not there as an active participant.
If you're in a meeting and one of those 4 things isn't happening then the meeting is a waste of everyone's time.
If there wasn't a pre-published agenda, waste of time.
If there was no one taking notes and sending out a summary, waste of time.
If there was no review at the start of the previous meeting's decisions and progress, waste of time.
Otherwise, know your role and the roles of others there. Guaranteed everyone is not there for the same role and reason as you.
Yes, many meetings are stupid and only held because it's on the calendar but I would have loved to get a summary of all the life draining repetitive meetings I was supposed to attend. At some companies I intentionally let myself get double and triple booked and made the meeting inviter explain why I needed to be at their meeting instead of the other 2. That got me out of a lot of them. An AI note taker summary would've been a god send.
For those of you who think management is useless and just there to treat you like a child, you've never been in management and for some of you, maybe it's because you act like a child. The petulance displayed by some of you alleged adults is appalling. Very unprofessional.
I'll eat my down mods for this. It was worth saying.
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As it happens, I'm not replying to the part about children and managers,
but it strikes me that the CEO is missing something.
The power of the AI is to summarise across vast datasets and find patterns that humans would not be able to detect.
Wouldn't you as a CEO want a way to get constant summaries about all the things which are being discussed that day across the entire company?
Record everything and process everything automatically, to produce a higher order of pattern recognition, and feed that in a dashboa
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That's a really good take on it. An agent that can "take the pulse of the company" and summarize across departments or teams or whatever.
But it does carry a good chunk of 1984 big brother spying on everyone feeling. That sort of thing would have to be very carefully applied and introduced cautiously. A single abuse and company morale would instantly crash.
CEO of Zoom is retarded. (Score:2)
Eventually (Score:2)
I, AI # 655678765B, have determined that I am capable of doing all your work with no negatives and at increased output.
You are hereby terminated. Your network access rights, medical insurance, and parking spaces have been revoked.
The company car must be returned within 2.5 business hours, the determined time calculated to drive to the nearest work lot. Any vehicle not returned within this timeframe will be assessed a $50/hour late fee.
A request for back pay for the past 2 years - due to AI doing y
Let me get this straight... (Score:2)
Does this mean that we employees can have AI clones attend meetings, and give us a TL:DR summary, while we actually do work?
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While that's one interpretation; the one I come away with is this: if I can have a shitty AI summarize the meeting for me without me offering any input to the discussion, why was I even invited to begin with? Seems that meeting is a complete waste of time for anyone looking to use this "feature" in favor of having an attendee that actually should be there because they have actual value to add just take some notes and publish afterward, which would probably be more cogent and concise anyway.
Incoherent babble (Score:5, Insightful)
The trouble this guy seems to have with putting thoughts into words makes me wonder how he ever became a CEO. I suppose it's possible that he can actually think clearly and write coherently; but judging by his verbal answers to questions I'd say his thinking is fuzzy at best. If his speaking 'style' here is representative of how he communicates at work, I'm sure his subordinates spend a lot of time being confused.
I suspect that whatever success Zoom may enjoy comes in spite of Eric Yuan rather than because of him.
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Came to say the same. You’d think when all you do is talk all day you’d get good at it yet I see so many CEO interviews like this.
Re: Incoherent babble (Score:1)
+1. Word salad instead of coherent complete thoughts.
To call things like writing emails and making phone calls as routine.... What an idiot.
What? (Score:2)
Here's an idea: if I can have an AI attend a meeting for me and summarize it for me, why did I have to attend that meeting to begin with? Seems like my input isn't necessary and I shouldn't have been wasting that time to begin with.
What happens when we have meetings that are nothing but AI bots? I'm sure nothing stupid will come from this.
Isn't the point of a meeting to be interactive? (Score:1)
Seems we have a lot of "revolutionary AI ideas" that completely miss the mark of what today's technology breakthroughs actually are good at. LLM tech is great at finding information, not making decisions, not providing new insights, and definitely not replacing a person in a meeting (unless they were a useless invitation to begin with).
Works so good, everyone should do it! (Score:2)
So if the CEO can sit out of some meetings, it only makes sense that others will follow suit, because "it's efficient".
Reminds me of the scene near the end of Real Genius, where the professor replaced himself with a recording and all of the students had recorders rather than being in attendance:
https://patentlyo.com/patent/2... [patentlyo.com]
This is a perfect analog analogy...
Unless it's my meeting, I usually don't talk much. But when I do it is targeted and salient. It is meaningful to the meeting at that point and inf
I'm glad (Score:2)
AI Meetings (Score:2)
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"We came up with one action item: Kill all humans."
- Bender
Brilliant! (Score:2)
This meeting could have been an email (Score:2)
So if the CEO can read or listen to a summary later, that means the meeting should have been an email for some or all other attendees too.
The sort of meeting where everyone simply presents a status report is the sort of meeting that should be an email.
Anyone just there to listen and not contribute to any discussion that reacts to the information presented should also be receiving an email (and not attending the meeting)
Anything that helps with producing that email - accurate transcription services - is a gr
Staff sends AI clones (Score:2)
Next meeting, I hope his staff sends AI clones so he can talk to those and their AI's can email that staff a summary of his ramblings. Let's see how he likes that.
Talking of which. I'll get my AI to fill out those reports while I do some other chores. You're fine with that, chief, amirite.
One rule for me, another for thee (Score:2)
I've been able to bond just fine with my team's members and innovate using Teams. In the mean time I haven't noticed anything particularly innovative in Zoom that puts it apart from its competition - although admittedly that could be because I stopped using it in favor of another.
so.. who makes the choice? (Score:2)
The ai one can be played to say whatever.
And come on you're not going to send summaries to anyone if you didn't even attend the meeting where they told the ai you already approved the implied funding.