- Zoom CEO Eric Yuan envisions a future where AI clones handle mundane work tasks.
- He believes this could lead to shorter workweeks and more time for personal pursuits.
- However, Yuan emphasizes that in-person interactions will still be essential.
Adios, boring meetings! hello, beach says!
Zoom’s CEO Eric Yuan is ready to embrace a world where your AI clone takes care of your mundane tasks, allowing you to enjoy a more relaxing life.
In an interview with The Verge, Yuan expressed his disdain for his calendar, reading emails every morning, and finding a five-day workweek filled with meetings “boring.”
He believes that people should have their own personal AI “digital twin” to attend meetings and write emails for them, freeing up time to “go to the beach” instead.
In Yuan’s vision, your AI twin could handle a wide range of everyday tasks across Zoom Workplace, including messaging, phone calls, emails, coding, creative tasks, manager tasks, and project management.
By delegating this work to your AI clone, you would have more time for in-person interactions, both in and outside of work.
Yuan believes that this could lead to a shorter workweek of three or four days, giving people the opportunity to spend more time with their families and focus on creative pursuits.
Digital twins: from voice to virtual doppelgangers
Zoom has already started investing in generative AI and has introduced some AI features for its workplace platform, such as AI Companion, which provides meeting summaries.
Yuan expects that digital twin technology will likely start as a voice assistant but could eventually become more immersive, creating virtual versions of yourself in virtual environments like those found in the Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3.
The ultimate goal is to create a 3D version of yourself that can mimic you to the point where it’s indistinguishable from a real person.
AI taking over human touch?
While AI twins may handle a significant portion of work, Yuan emphasizes that in-person interactions will still be essential.
He believes that AI could help with 90% of work but won’t replace the need for intimate conversations and real-life connections.
Yuan suggests that new employees may want to start in the office for some in-person interactions, but overall, he doesn’t see people wanting to get together more often in real life once those connections are made, stating that getting together once or twice a year is “good enough.”
