Zooming in...and zoning out: Can AI help with video call fatigue?

It’s been four years since the world stalled without warning, and some things have never been the same. In a study titled Virtual Meeting Fatigue published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology in October, researchers at Finland’s Aalto University and the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health tracked precisely how the human mind and body react, by monitoring heart rate during virtual meetings and during in-person meetings, by attaching monitors to 44 knowledge workers across 400 meetings. “Studies suggest that fatigue may result from increased cognitive demands, when individuals are required to pay constant attention to the screen, and be constantly presentable,” Niina Nurmi, assistant professor of organizational design and leadership at Aalto University, states in the study. The solution to the problem of “Zoom fatigue” is to encourage employees to meet in person, and limit the number of meetings they attend, the paper states. Zoom’s AI Companion, rolled out late last year, summarises meetings in multiple languages, offers highlights for those who were napping, multitasking or simply had that experience of brain-freeze that seems universal at such events.