Set up Zoom AI meeting summaries and tell attendees what happens
You turn on the meeting summary because you're tired of typing while listening. Twenty minutes later a supplier says something candid, and you remember the summary is going to arrive in four inboxes this evening.
What you'll make
Zoom meeting summaries that start when you decide, go to the people you chose, and match a short notice you give attendees in the invitation and out loud.
What you'll need
a licensed user on a paid Zoom Workplace plan (such as Pro, Business or Enterprise) with meeting summary enabled, a current Zoom app, your organisation’s agreement to use AI summaries for this kind of meeting, and about twenty minutes. An admin is needed for locked settings and the in-app notice.
Example result.
Meeting summary with AI: on · Auto-start: off · Reminder: on
Automatically share summary with: Only me (meeting host)
Spoken notice: "Before we begin, I'd like to use Zoom's AI summary for our notes. It turns what we say into text to write a summary. It comes to me first, and I'll check it before sharing it with the project team. Does anyone have a concern before I turn it on?"A naming note: most people call this AI Companion, but Zoom’s settings and buttons say Zoom AI. If you can’t find a tab called AI Companion, that’s why.
1. Choose the settings before the meeting
In the Zoom web portal, click your profile picture or initials, then Settings, then Zoom AI. Under Meeting, turn on Meeting summary with AI and click Save. A greyed-out toggle means your admin has locked it.
Then set the options underneath:
- Auto-start when meeting starts: leave it off. It starts as soon as anyone starts the meeting, even before you join.
- Remind me to turn on AI when I’m hosting a meeting: turn it on, so off-by-default doesn’t mean forgotten.
- Use screen share content with OCR and Use meeting chat messages: leave them off unless your notice will say they’re included.
- Automatically share summary with: choose one of Only me (meeting host); Only meeting host, co-hosts, and alternative hosts; Only meeting host and meeting invitees in our organization; or All meeting invitees including those outside of our organization.
Only me (meeting host) lets you read the summary before anyone else gets it. It applies to newly created meetings, so check existing and recurring meetings separately. “Only me” also isn’t exclusive: the account owner can access meeting summaries.
Why this works: setting it up before the meeting means the choices are deliberate, not inherited, and you know where the controls are when you need them.
What you should see: summary on, auto-start off, and a sharing option you’d be happy to describe to attendees.
2. Write a notice that matches the settings
Say what’s processed, who gets the summary first, who it’ll be shared with, how long it’s kept and how to object. Put it in the invitation. Meeting summary uses speech-to-text, so never say “nothing is transcribed” just because you’ve chosen not to keep a transcript.
We'd like to use Zoom's AI meeting summary for [purpose]. It turns what is said into text to write a summary. [Say whether chat, shared screens or a transcript are included.]
The summary goes to [who receives it first] and may be accessible to our Zoom account administrators. [Role] will check it before sharing it with [audience]. It is kept according to [retention rule].
If you have a concern, tell [contact] before the meeting or tell the host before the summary starts, and we'll take ordinary notes instead.Replace every bracket. Then say a short version at the start of the meeting, as in the example result.
Why this works: a notice people can act on says what happens and what they can do about it. The spoken version is the one they actually hear.
What you should see: a notice where every statement matches a setting from step 1.
3. Start it deliberately and know how to stop
In the meeting, hover over the Zoom AI icon at the top right of the window. Tick Meeting summary (tick Generate transcript only if your notice says you’ll keep one) and click Start Zoom AI. The diamond icon changes colour while AI features are running. Only the host and co-hosts can start or stop it.
To stop, untick Meeting summary, or click Stop Zoom AI to stop all AI features, then confirm. Stopping isn’t deleting: the summary of the time it was running remains. The confirmation window has a Delete meeting assets checkbox, which deletes the summaries and transcripts (except participants’ own My Notes transcripts). Whether to tick it is a retention decision, so agree in advance who makes it, rather than deleting automatically.
Why this works: when someone asks to go off the record, you can stop in seconds and tell them accurately what stopping does and doesn’t do.
What you should see: the diamond changing colour when you start and stop.
4. Check the summary before it goes further
Read the summary before sharing it. Check decisions, names, dates and conditions against your own notes; AI summaries can be wrong. Then choose recipients deliberately. To receive it automatically, people must be signed in to Zoom during the meeting, and “invitees” means the original invitation: someone who joined from a forwarded link won’t receive it, even though they’re in it.
Why this works: an invitation list isn’t a sharing decision, and a summary isn’t a record of what was said.
What you should see: a checked summary sent only to the people your notice named.
Check the result
- Every statement in your notice matches a setting: sharing, chat, screen share, transcript.
- Existing and recurring meetings have the sharing setting you described.
- You know how to stop, and what stopping doesn’t remove.
- The summary was checked before anyone beyond the first recipient saw it.
The usual failure: the notice says one thing and the settings do another. Most often, a recurring meeting created months ago still shares automatically with all invitees, while your notice promises “it comes to me first”. Open the meeting’s own settings, not just your account settings, and compare them line by line with the notice.
Compare this attendee notice with these Zoom settings. List every statement in the notice that the settings don't support, and anything the settings do that the notice doesn't mention. Don't rewrite the notice yet.
Notice:
[notice]
Settings:
[settings][notice] is your written notice; [settings] is the list of Zoom AI settings for that meeting, copied from the portal.
Worked example: a supplier review with someone on the phone
Fictional example. A monthly supplier review: three internal colleagues and a supplier contact on the desktop app, and the supplier’s finance manager joining by phone. The host changed the account to Only me (meeting host) last week.
The comparison prompt flagged one line:
Notice: “The summary comes to me first.” Settings for this recurring meeting: All meeting invitees including those outside of our organization.
- The failure. The recurring meeting was created in the spring, so the account change didn’t reach it. The supplier would have received an unchecked summary automatically.
- The repair. The host set this meeting to Only me (meeting host), reran the comparison, and got no mismatches.
- In the meeting. The host said the spoken notice, started the summary, and the admin’s in-app notice asked the phone joiner to press 1 to consent. Forty minutes in, the supplier asked to take a commercial point off the record. The host clicked Stop Zoom AI, checked the diamond, and said the first forty minutes’ summary would be kept under the agreed retention rule, not deleted on the spot.
Task kit for this job: Download (ZIP) · Reusable instructions
Go deeper
Optional training: Ask an admin for the in-app notice
Admins can show a notice when AI starts: Admin Center › Settings › Zoom AI › Meeting, turn on Show a custom message when turning on AI in a meeting, then Manage message. Under Display for, choose Internal participants, External participants and/or Hosts, Co-Hosts and Alternative Hosts. With Require users to agree to recording and transcription? set to Yes, non-host participants join with camera and microphone off; the notice shows for 90 seconds with options to accept or leave, and anyone who doesn’t respond can’t unmute until they accept. For phone joiners, Require phone-only users to press 1 to consent to AI adds a spoken prompt. It needs desktop and Zoom Rooms 7.0.5 or later, and mobile 7.1.0 or later. Test it with willing colleagues before a real meeting.
Optional training: Admin settings that change what attendees get
At account or group level, admins can lock these so hosts can’t change them. Restrict users from sharing summaries blocks sharing with external users. Auto-delete meeting summaries moves summaries to the Trash after a set number of days. Send an email notification when sharing with participants can send a link that needs sign-in rather than the full summary text, which is safer for anything that might be forwarded. Ask your admin which of these are set before you write the retention line in your notice.
Optional training: Training, processing and retention are different questions
Zoom says it doesn’t use your audio, video, chat, screen sharing or attachments to train its own or third-party AI models. The feature still processes meeting data, can send it to third-party model providers (which Zoom says don’t retain it, apart from limited trust and safety exceptions), and creates a summary that’s stored and shared according to your settings. “Not used for training” doesn’t mean “never stored or shared”. Have your privacy or IT owner review Zoom’s documentation against your organisation’s rules, and record the agreed purpose, recipients and retention so future hosts don’t have to work it out again.