Zoom AI Companion Meeting Summary: The Sneaky Summarizer
Privacy and Accuracy Perils for Mediators
By Evelyn K. Pentikis, Esq.
As virtual mediation continues to grow in popularity, tools like Zoom's AI Companion Meeting Summary (“Zoom AI CMS”) are becoming tempting additions to our toolkit. For mediators in New Jersey understanding this feature is crucial, especially if you're new to its privacy implications. This article breaks it down in clear terms: what it is, the pros, the cons, safeguards to minimize risks, and New Jersey-specific legal considerations.
Mediation summaries have a useful purpose. For the mediator, their personal notes can serve as a confidential document that includes their own impressions of the parties involved and their unique issues. This information will come in handy for the mediator in future sessions to refresh his/her memories of the nuances of personality or unique interests of each party. Zoom AI CMS is factual and generic. The mediator’s perceptions and opinions are missing. This can be remedied by the mediator jotting down his/her own notes while Zoom AI CMS captures the conversation. The problem is that when you use this feature in confidential mediations, you are entering into a treacherous sea of privacy concerns and accuracy issues. Zoom AI CMS may be useful on its face, but underneath it really is a sneaky and possibly dangerous summarizing tool.
What is the Zoom AICMS Feature?
Zoom AI Companion, launched in mid-2024 and updated through 2025, includes a Meeting Summary tool that uses artificial intelligence to automatically generate concise overviews of your sessions. It processes real-time inputs like spoken dialogue (via “temporary” transcripts), in-meeting chat messages, and text from screen-shared. The result? A post-meeting report highlighting key points, action items, and highlights, delivered to the host or shared participants.
To use it (*see YouTube video link at end of article), you enable the feature in your Zoom account settings. The summary does not have to be shared with the parties. But they will know it exists because a pop-up stating “AI Companion is on” will notify the participants. The host can edit, share, download or delete the summary.
Where does the data go?
No third-party AI models train on your data, according to Zoom's 2025 privacy whitepaper, and processing stays on U.S. servers. However, without custom settings, inputs like transcripts can linger for up to 30 days for debugging. Zoom provides the following important note in its AI Companion Security and Privacy whitepaper:
Zoom offers a Zero Data Retention option with respect to Zoom’s retention of the temporary transcript, screen shared content via OCR (Optical Character Recognition), and in-meeting chat messages used to provide a Meeting Summary. When enabled, these inputs will be deleted by Zoom immediately after the summary is created. If a summary fails to be created these inputs will be retained for up to 24 hours to allow for retries. To enable this feature please reach out to your account team or log a support ticket. (Italics and bold added for emphasis).
Basically, Zoom leaves the door open to hold the meeting data for up to 24 hours even when you sign up for the zero data retention option—which you have to log a support ticket to do. Sounds sneaky to me. There are many privacy and protection issues raised by this language. For this reason, use of this feature is super risky.
Here’s another sneaky detail. On Zoom, when cloud recording is enabled for a meeting, participants must acknowledge the disclaimer or leave the call. But, when the meeting summary is enabled for a call, the pop-up appears at the top of the meeting to raise awareness that the feature is enabled, but that is it. Do your clients understand this summary feature and the risks to their data in authorizing use of it? Are you prepared to explain that Zoom may keep the transcript of the meeting on their servers for 24 hours or longer under certain circumstances? And what about Zoom protections in the case of breach or if they go out of business? Is the data really protected?
Pros and Cons of using the Zoom AI CMS Feature
For busy mediators, Zoom AI summaries offer real efficiency gains. Imagine wrapping up a session and instantly having a neutral recap of agreements, unresolved issues, or next steps without manual notetaking. This could cut post-session admin time significantly and save you money on office supplies. But determining the accuracy of the summary is suspect. AI “hallucinations” are when an AI system generates incorrect, nonsensical, or completely fabricated information that is presented as if it were factual. A quick google search reveals that Zoom AI CMS hallucinations have happened, from names of participants that didn’t attend to mistakes with understandings of things.
Hallucinations are problematic enough, but the bigger issues relate to privacy concerns, especially in confidential mediations where trust is paramount. Zoom's past issues such as a 2020 Federal Trade Commission settlement over misleading encryption claims, highlight ongoing scrutiny. A 2025 lawsuit against similar tool Otter.ai alleged the transcription tool secretly records conversations without consent.
New Jersey Law: An Overview for Mediators
In New Jersey, using Zoom AI CMS in mediation likely falls under the Uniform Mediation Act which protects “mediation communications” as privileged and confidential. But mediators and participants shouldn’t assume that all information shared during a mediation is de facto confidential. There are exceptions and while narrow, use of Zoom AI summary transcribers could undermine privilege.
Mediators can seek guidance from guidelines set for attorneys regarding confidentiality and AI. Attorneys must follow RPC 1.6 (confidentiality), requiring safeguards against inadvertent disclosure. Under these Rules, Lawyers are responsible to ensure the security of an AI system before entering any non-public client information. How does this happen using Zoom AI CMS? The NJ Supreme Court’s 2024 Preliminary AI Guidelines emphasize competence and consent, treating AI like any tool that handles client data. Mediation’s voluntary nature demands all-party buy-in to the use of AI tools to preserve privilege.
Mediators should also be aware of the New Jersey Data Privacy Act that went into effect in January, 2025, and was enacted to give NJ residents greater control over their personal data.
Safeguards to Limit Exposure
You’re a modern mediator. You’ve read the laws and guidelines and you’ve used AI to assess your risks and have decided to go for it. Now what? Strategic settings can mitigate risks. Consider taking the following measures:
1. Enable Zero Data Retention (ZDR) via a support ticket: This deletes inputs immediately after summary creation (or after 24 hours if failed), overriding the 30-day default. Disable cloud recording to avoid full transcripts or audio storage (up to 180 days otherwise).
2. Host Controls: Limit summaries to “host-only” sharing; use anonymous display names to minimize metadata logs (retained 6 months).
3. Obtain Consent: Get written all-party agreement before sessions, disclosing AI use and deletion policies. Good idea in all cases to specify approach to use of AI.
Mediation Agreement Language
In the alternative, you are a modern mediator, informed on AI privacy issues and have decided against using Zoom AI CMS and any other AI. Consider including language in your mediation agreement along the lines of this:
No video or audio recording shall be made of any mediation sessions whether in person, virtual (i.e. Zoom, Facetime, Microsoft Teams, Bluejeans, etc.), or by telephone. Photographs and/or screen shots shall not be taken by any party or participant. AI shall not be used in any form, including for summarization of the mediation session.**
Bottom Line
Zoom AI CMS can streamline mediations but use of the feature demands vigilance on privacy and accuracy. As AI evolves, NJAPM members should prioritize ethics—perhaps advocating for association guidelines. For now, weigh the pros against risks, and when in doubt, opt for manual methods or alternatives. Also, investigate the technology behind the sneaky summarizer and don’t fall for the so-called ease of Zoom AI Companion generated meeting summaries.
*How to Use Zoom AI Companion Meeting Summary YouTube Video:
**Thank you to Linda Spiegel, Esq. for this language.
***Article published in the Fall Newsletter for the New Jersey Association of Professional Mediators.
