This article describes Zoom AI Companion usage at Davidson and provides an overview of the features at a high level. For full information regarding these features, check out Zoom's Knowledge Base articles.
For most Davidson users, you'll primarily use the Zoom AI Companion for meetings. This tool includes several features, which are explored in-depth below.
Note: This information was updated May 2026.
Important Information
AI Companion as a feature is enabled on every Davidson Zoom account, but it does not turn on automatically in your meetings. Unless you've changed your settings, AI Companion features (such as Meeting Summary and AI Companion Questions) remain off in your meetings until you choose to start them. This ensures AI companion is only turned on and listening when you, and everyone else in the meeting has consented to its usage.
Similar to other T&I licensed AI tools such as Gemini, Zoom AI Companion through your Davidson account has full data protections, meaning Davidson-owned data can be used within the AI Companion, and your recordings are not used by Zoom or their partners for AI training.
You can adjust your defaults and access controls — or fully disable AI Companion for your meetings — at davidson.zoom.us. See Configuring Your AI Companion Settings below.
Table of Contents
- Features Overview
- Configuring Your AI Companion Settings
- Using the Features Within a Zoom Meeting
- What to Expect When AI Companion is Enabled
Features Overview
Meeting Summary
Meeting Summary with Zoom AI Companion allows meeting hosts to generate an AI-powered summary of their meetings. The summary includes:
- Main topics discussed
- Key points made
- Next steps agreed upon
- Questions raised by participants
The summary can help meeting attendees review the meeting content, follow up on action items, and share the meeting outcomes with others.
Accessing summaries: Summaries can be accessed through email or through the Zoom web portal. To access them, head to davidson.zoom.us and select the Summaries tab on the left-hand side.
AI Companion Questions
AI Companion Questions (sometimes labeled Ask AI Companion or Catch me up in the Zoom toolbar) allows meeting participants to ask real-time questions about the content of the meeting based on the meeting transcript. The questions can help participants:
- Catch up on key points if they joined late
- Clarify what was just said
- Get insights from the meeting discussion
Questions can be asked using preset options or custom queries. Answers are generated by AI Companion using the live meeting transcript.
Smart Recordings
Smart Recordings is a feature you can enable for meetings recorded and stored as Zoom Cloud recordings. After uploading, the same AI tools used to generate a meeting summary will:
- Review the transcript
- Create an outline with chapters and highlights
- Automatically generate titled sections so viewers can jump to the parts that matter to them
Voice Recorder for In-Person Meetings
Create meeting summaries for in-person meetings with your device or Zoom Room. The voice recorder will identify separate speakers in the meeting, and the transcript is tagged accordingly. The meeting host can manually update the names.
Configuring Your AI Companion Settings
Because AI Companion is enabled on your Davidson account, you don't need to turn the feature on — but you should review your settings to confirm the defaults match your preferences (who can access summaries, whether summaries are emailed automatically, etc.).
- Head to davidson.zoom.us and sign in with your Davidson email address and password.
- In the left-hand panel, select the Settings menu.
- Find the tab labeled AI Companion.
- From this menu, you can review and adjust the defaults for Meeting Summary, AI Companion Questions, and other features.
You may see some settings labeled "locked at the account level." This indicates that T&I has enabled AI Companion for use at Davidson — it does not mean you are forced to use it in a given meeting. You always control whether the features run in your meetings.
Turning Off AI Companion for Your Meetings
If you would prefer that AI Companion not be available in your meetings at all, you can disable the individual features from the same AI Companion settings page at davidson.zoom.us. Toggle off Meeting Summary, AI Companion Questions, or any other feature you do not want to use. Once disabled, the corresponding buttons will no longer appear in your meeting toolbar, and you will not be able to start those features mid-meeting unless you turn them back on in your settings.
Access Control Settings
For each feature, you can control who has access. In the case of meeting summaries, this also affects who receives the meeting summary email after the meeting:
- Only me: You are the only one with access.
- Only myself and meeting invitees in our organization: Only you and anyone who joins from a Davidson account.
- All meeting invitees: Everyone who joins the meeting, even those outside Davidson.
Please note: Zoom allows you to have the Meeting Summary automatically start for all your meetings. T&I recommends not enabling auto-start, so that you can explicitly confirm all meeting invitees are comfortable with the use of these tools before the meeting begins. Keeping AI Companion off until you start it preserves that consent moment.
Using the Features Within a Zoom Meeting
Even though the AI Companion featureset is enabled on Davidson accounts, it will not start automatically when you launch a meeting. You'll see new options in your toolbar: one for the meeting summary and one for AI Companion Questions.
Selecting each will start the meeting summary or enable the AI Companion Questions tool, respectively. Selecting again will stop either of these. (You may choose to temporarily stop these tools if there is a section of the meeting you would not like transcribed, similar to if you were recording the meeting.)
Once the meeting is wrapped up, no action is needed — ending the meeting will automatically stop the AI Companion functionality and begin processing the meeting summary. Once processed, you and anyone else configured to receive the summary will have access to it.
What to Expect When AI Companion is Enabled
What Others See
Before enabling: Selecting either option allows attendees to request that the meeting host turn on the features for this meeting. This is similar to attempting to share your screen and then sending a request that the host enable screen sharing.
When enabled: When joining a meeting in which any AI feature has been turned on, attendees will receive a notice that the feature is active. The Companion and Summary features each notify separately, so users may receive two notices if both are enabled.
Important: Attendees who haven't yet acknowledged the prompt will not have their audio or video included in the AI Companion's transcript until they accept the prompt or leave the meeting.
Because of this, it is recommended that you wait to turn on the features in a meeting until you have confirmed that attendees are comfortable with their usage. This is also why T&I recommends starting AI Companion manually rather than configuring it to auto-start.