Zoom CEO wants to create AI digital clones to go to meetings for you

Meetings might soon become a thing of the past.

The CEO of Zoom is hoping to create “digital-twin technology” so workers can have an artificial intelligence version of themselves attend meetings and participate in other time-consuming parts of the workday.

“I can send a digital version of myself to join so I can go to the beach,” Eric Yuan told The Verge.

A “digital twin” is essentially a deepfake version of yourself that would be able to attend your meetings and even make decisions on your behalf.

The 54-year-old CEO and his team at the video conferencing platform are working on leveraging AI to “fully automate” this aspect of work.

“Today we all spend a lot of time either making phone calls, joining meetings, sending emails, deleting some spam emails, and replying to some text messages, still very busy,” Yuan said.

He added, “You do not need to spend so much time [in meetings]. You do not have to have five or six Zoom calls every day. You can leverage the AI to do that.”

Yuan suggested that allowing AI to take over the “boring” parts of work could allow for a big change in work-life balance — and potentially even shorten the work week.

“You and I can have more time to have more in-person interactions, but maybe not for work. Maybe for something else. Why do we need to work five days a week? Down the road, four days or three days,” he said.

“Why not spend more time with your family? Why not focus on some more creative things, giving you back your time, giving back to the community and society to help others, right?”

However, all of this depends on the advancement of AI and how long it takes to get there.

“I think for now, the number one thing is AI is not there yet, and that still will take some time,” Yuan shared. “Let’s assume, fast-forward five or six years, that AI is ready. AI probably can help for maybe 90% of the work, but in terms of real-time interaction, today, you and I are talking online.”

“So, I can send my digital version — you can send your digital version.”

But Yuan noted that the one thing AI can’t take over is face-to-face meetings and connections.

“If I stop by your office, let’s say I give you a hug, you shake my hand, right? I think AI cannot replace that,” he said. “We still need to have in-person interaction. That is very important. Say you and I are sitting together in a local Starbucks, and we are having a very intimate conversation — AI cannot do that, either.”

This wouldn’t be the first instance of a digital twin.

Holistic health advocate Deepak Chopra, 77, is one of several people who have already digitally “cloned” themselves.

Delphi, touted as the world’s first digital cloning platform, uses data from podcasts, videos, PDFs and other content to develop a clone that can mimic the user’s thoughts and speech — and it can take as little as one hour.

Video clones already exist in Japan thanks to a company called Alt.AI that creates clones so realistic that they look impatient when you don’t respond to them via chat.

Another company, Coachvox AI, creates digital clones that offer life coaching and business coaching based on the real person’s thoughts.