a tool soon capable of participating in meetings and generating ideas

“Meeting assistants” will soon arrive. They will be able to take notes automatically or recall information drawn from a company-specific database.

These “meeting assistants” are developed by start-ups like Limitless or Meetslay. You have to imagine a sort of digital Cyrano de Bergerac, who will listen attentively to the meeting and suggest, right at the right time, the most relevant intervention. For example: “C“is a subject already covered in 2015 and settled in this or that way.” All this, obviously, very discreetly, via an application on the phone or on the computer. This information will have been retrieved from previous meetings or from the documents used to prepare today’s meeting.

These tools can also take notes automatically and even summarize the meeting detailing key points, progress, tasks to be accomplished, etc.

A smart “ear” clipped onto clothing

The assistant looks like a brooch stuffed with microphones, which you clip onto clothing. She will record everything that is said, transcribe it and analyze it using artificial intelligence. These are very ambitious tools, which will not be limited to meetings. At Limitless, we are really trying to make it an assistant for real life, which would give us an extraordinary memory.

As he records constantly, all day long, we could ask him: which restaurant was recommended to me yesterday at noon? Or to summarize what a speaker says. The idea being to create a sort of Google of his days, since everything that was said will have been recorded. To counter the privacy problem, the start-up ensures that the data will be encrypted and that there will be a “consent” mode. It will only record people who were asked and answered yes.

The Problem of Behavior Modification

But the fact remains that we are often very uncomfortable with the idea of ​​being recorded. Sometimes we even change our behavior, so we are less bothered when someone is taking notes. For doctors, for example, it would be a great tool. It would allow you to stay focused on the patient rather than on taking notes. But would you be as comfortable if everything you say was recorded by artificial intelligence? This is the paradox, as soon as we switch to a digital tool.