Read the AI clause in your software terms
Zoom’s terms caused an uproar about AI training. Every SaaS vendor is adding AI now. Check what yours says.
This month people noticed wording in Zoom’s terms of service that seemed to let it use customer content to train AI. After a lot of anger, Zoom rewrote the terms to say it doesn’t use your audio, video or chat content to train its AI models.
Whatever Zoom meant, the episode is useful. Almost every software vendor is adding AI features this year, and their terms are changing quietly to match.
For the tools that hold your company’s data, ask:
- Is our content used to train models? Theirs or a partner’s?
- Can we opt out, and is the default on or off?
- Which AI provider processes our data, and where?
- Can admins turn the AI features off for the whole company?
Start with the systems holding the most sensitive data: email, meetings, documents, CRM and support tickets. Put a reminder to re-check every year, because terms change.
Nobody reads terms of service. For the five tools that hold your data, someone should.