Zoom CEO Eric Yuan wants AI clones in meetings

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Today, I’m talking with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan — and let me tell you, this conversation is nothing like what I expected. It turns out Eric wants Zoom to be much, much more than just a videoconferencing platform. Zoom wants to take on Microsoft and Google and now has a big investment in AI – and Eric’s visions for what that AI will do are pretty wild.

See, Eric really wants you to stop having to attend Zoom meetings yourself. You’ll hear him describe how he thinks one of the big benefits of AI at work will be letting us all create something he calls a “digital twin," essentially a deepfake of yourself that can go attend meetings on your behalf and even make decisions for you. I’ll just warn you: I tried to ask a bunch of the usual Decoder questions during this conversation, but once we got to digital twins going to Zoom meetings for people, well, I had a lot of followup questions.

Links:

• Zoom gets its first major overhaul in 10 years, powered by generative AI | ZDNet
• An interview with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan | Stratechery / Ben Thompson
• Zoom is cutting about 150 jobs, or close to 2% of its workforce | CNBC
• Zoom meetings are about to get weirder thanks to the Vision Pro | The Verge
• Zoom Docs launches in 2024 with built-in AI collaboration features | The Verge
• Zoom rewrites its policies to make clear that your videos aren’t used to train AI tools | The Verge
• Zoom says its new AI tools aren’t stealing ownership of your content | The Verge
• Zoom adds “post-quantum” end-to-end encryption | Zoom

Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23932774

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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