Pronouns in Zoom AI Companion Meeting Summary

[sandrineg]

The Zoom AI Companion is using incorrect pronouns in the meeting summary. Please update the logic used for determining pronouns to either use the pronouns provided by the user within their Zoom account and/or always use gender neutral pronouns.

[Bort]

Hi @sandrineg 

Thanks for the feedback! We are working on many different aspects of the AI Companion Meeting Summary feature and appropriate pronoun usage is one thing we're working on improving. 

[nateharris4]

It would make so much more sense to predict he/she based on the name. Using “they” is so confusing in the summary and often makes no grammatical sense. If 99.9% of people can easily be identified by the male/female name, why not use that as the baseline and if someone wants a non binary pronoun they can select it. Assuming gender neutrality with “they” just makes the summary difficult to understand, especially because it can mean one person or multiple people, and that matters. 

[UKRefugee]

Maybe...

Our CEO is Rayandra, but she goes by Ray, and the AI misgenders HER all the time, even though it clearly says She/Her in her profile.  My name is Kim, from the UK living in the US, and in the UK Kim is a often a male name, although I am female... I leave the pronoun field in the profile blank.

[UKRefugee]

Fine, unless your name is:

• Alex
• Andy
• Casey
• Jamie
• Jordan
• Taylor
• Morgan
• Avery
• Riley
• Cameron
• Quinn
• Sam
• Peyton
• Skyler
• Kendall
• Charlie
• Emerson
• Frankie
• Dakota
• Bailey
• Robin
• Parker
• Corey
• Drew
• Hayden
• Adrian
• Logan
• Rowan
• Spencer
• Pat
• Lee
• Jesse
• Chris
• Terry
• Sydney
• Shawn
• Kelly
• Jody
• Leslie
• Blair
• Reese

++++

[js310]

That's true. The robot wouldn't be able to guess those names. But the vast majority of names do have conventional genders. I'm pretty sure the braintrust at Zoom can program a default that identifies the vast majority of people's genders correctly and that easily allows people to assign their own genders. That's better than a default that misgenders the vast majority of people and that ignores people's self-identification. 

[hillyboy]

My name is Hilary (a good old English name for males and females). I'm a man. I included my pronouns in my profile but checked the option to not display them on screen. However, the Zoom AI Summary tool keeps calling me "she." How do you train the Summary tool to provide the right pronouns?

[hillyboy]

FYI "they" is grammatically incorrect, at least as I am concerned. I'm a writer and have taught grammar. "They" is not the right pronoun for a singular antecent. I am not a "they."

[george_glass]

It is also grammatically incorrect to say someone is a "he" or "she" so your final argument does not track as this is not how pronouns function. You don't apply articles to pronouns.

Language historians have traced the usage of the singular "they" pronoun back to medieval times and note that forms exists in speech often well before they are written. For reference: the singular "you" was a plural pronoun that had become singular. Regardless of historical context, language changes.

[george_glass]

Grammatically, the singular “they” does make sense. While it may seem confusing to read, fixing the misgendering of users by assuming this pronoun, if not stated otherwise, is far more important than the inability to comprehend a grammatically correct singular pronoun that has *always* been used. Gendering by name is unacceptable. Names are not gendered and this helps literally no one.

[SusanLundy_SCOR]

"Names are not gendered"   Well, George, some of our clients  may prefer to be gender-specific, and if so, they deserve that respect.  I agree we need to be sensitive to the nuances of language.  Since the 1970's I never use "he" as "representing both "he" and "she" the way we were all taught prior to the awakening of inadvertent sexism.  But in being inclusive, we should not forget to respect those who prefer their sex be acknowledge.  Susan.    (she/her)!

[george_glass]

Hi Susan,

I completely agree that everyone should be respected and have their correct (correct=identified by the user) pronouns used. Not sure how that relates to my comment about names not being gendered. I think we can all agree that Zoom has not yet come up with an appropriate fix for this, but assuming someone's gender by their name is 100% not the answer. Assuming pronouns is never the answer, and defaulting to a choice, like 'they/them,' can be tricky without confirmation from the individual. The best solution is to allow users to self-identify their pronouns, ensuring respect and accuracy for everyone. When that is not possible (user pronouns have not been selected in their profile), the option should not be to "guess" a gender, attach what pronouns AI deems to be gender appropriate and call it good. Neutral pronouns are just that - neutral and no assumptions.

Sincerely,

Casey (they/them)

[GidonAriel]

I would prefer the AI to guess if the speaker is a male or female. My Zoom meeting have never had someone who is not binary and clearly identifiable, and if that ever will happen I will deal with it. But to replace "they" with he or she every time is quite bothersome

[Bort · Accepted solution]

Hi @sandrineg 

Just wanted to follow up on this and let you know we recently updated our AI models and Meeting Summaries will either use the participant's pronouns they specified in their Zoom Profile, or, if not specified or not signed-in, the gender-neutral "they" will be used instead. 

This should affect Meeting Summaries generated after Dec 5th. 

Let me know if that's working better for you!

[KeithFu001]

Hey Bort -- 

So the direct feedback from two -- now three -- users is that this is not a good solution. As the other two stated, none of my clients are nonbinary (and how many of the Zoom users are??). You're putting the burden on the vast majority to "protect" a noisy and tiny minority around pronouns. 

It's a pain to have to export the doc, Search and Replace gender-neutral pronouns and change them to gendered before I send this off to my clients. Why not simply have the default be GENDERED, because those who care about this kind of thing can change their pronouns in their Zoom profile to be NONGENDERED? Doesn't it make sense to put the burden on those who don't want to be misgendered? 

The "them/they" stuff is a grammatical nightmare and makes the meeting summary hard to get. 

[js310]

This is an enormous pain. 

If you're going to use this approach, you should at least alert uses of this at the beginning of a meeting so they know to update their gender in case they've inadvertently left it blank. 

And why default to gender-neutral? The vast majority of people and names are not gender-neutral, so this creates an unnecessarily large burden. A "default" should attempt to minimize aggregate burdens. 

[UKRefugee]

Not working for us.  Our CEO goes by Ray (Rayandra) and has clearly stipulated her pronouns in her profile but AI Summary 100% of the time misgenders her.

Is there a specific format the the AI recognizes?  She/Her/Herself or Her/She/Herself...?  etc. etc...

Coz, whatever it's doing, it just ain't right

[js310]

Why default to "they" when the vast majority of the population identifies with conventional pronouns? 

If you're not willing to do that, why not allow users to identify genders before the AI generates the summary? 

[JasVN]

I use pronouns she/her/hers, and my name is Jasmine but the AI Companion still uses he all the time in the Summary or Highlights. It's so annoying because I can't share the summary without spending lots of time to change that. I don't know what to do?!

[RADavis]

I noted that this response was provided 12/2023 but I continue to be mispronouned in the Meeting Summaries eventhough I have specified my pronoun in my Zoom Profile. Is this something y'all are still working out or is there a way I can ensure this does not continue to occur?

[SusanLundy_SCOR]

Well, a year later and you are still using "they" without a "find and replace" option as suggested several times.  So I have to cut and paste into word or Google Doc to replace "their" with either the client's name or gender...because with over 100 clients...not one prefers "their"...even the the tran fsitioning ones.  You "solved" a problem for the minority without recognizing the angst you cause to those of us who actually know grammar and tense.

[BLi1226]

I need to have a zoom meetings with Franklin Ve on October 24th 2024

[js310]

Since the summary is generated by AI in the first place, how hard would it be to default to conventional genders by name and then allow meeting hosts to update genders -- whatever they may be -- when editing the report and have AI adjust accordingly? Manually changing every pronoun is an enormous pain. (You can't search-and-replace because noun cases may differ from "they" to "he/she".)

[cleedy]

Still isn't working, so not really sure why this article says it's "solved".  I added my pronouns today, marked it to always share (because an article said if you don't share the AI won't use it).  I did a test meeting about 5 mins later.  The summary is still showing "He/His" for me despite my pronouns being in as "She/Her".  WTF?