AI meeting summary sent to entire team includes two coworkers trash-talking an employee before the meeting began: 'No action items for me, I guess!'

_{Two female coworkers speak in an office environment with an open laptop in between them, as depicted by two models.}

How AI is changing workplace communication

A formal discussion about how AI is transforming the workplace is too comprehensive to distill into one piece, so let's instead focus our attention on how some of these new features are not advanced enough to be implemented in the workplace just yet. 

Sure, an AI-generated summary of a meeting can be incredibly useful. You might not have to take your own notes during the call, so that you can instead be present and focus on conducting yourself, listening, and responding appropriately to the actual content of the meeting. However, even on that level, taking one's own notes can be a great way to digest and retain information.

_{Two female models dressed in professional garb face one another and collaborate in an office as other coworkers work in the background.} 

Trusting that AI will do the work for you could, conversely, encourage being less present in said meetings. In fact, it might encourage not attending those meetings at all, which seems to be exactly what this team leader did when she received a summary of the call she missed. Here's what u/likerosesxvx had to say, in her own words, about the experience of reading that email:

Apparently, my closest work friend decided I’m an “ineffective leader” and “really disappointing,” and was desperate to share this information with just about everyone but myself and our leadership

_{A female employee reads an email from her laptop at her desk in a workplace environment. The employee is represented by a model.}

Clearly, Gemini does not yet know the difference between a private conversation between two coworkers and the official start time of a meeting. Sure, one could argue that the coworkers are to blame here for having the conversation in the first place. However, if we're all honest with ourselves, we know that employees are bound to talk about one another's working styles behind each other's backs at some point. That's an inevitable by-product of working on a team.

But AI does not know that yet, and these employees had not prepared for the possibility that it's listening at all times. Is this a temporary symptom of a note-taking feature that is not yet advanced enough to know when something needs to be shared with everyone and when it doesn't? Or is this just the start of a growing issue? Because as AI continues to enter the workplace, its lack of interpersonal skills will continue to have an effect on overall office dynamics. 

The Redditor continued her side of the story by sharing her reaction to said email. While we do not yet know how the consequences of this AI misstep shook out, it's safe to say that the Redditor will probably have a strained relationship with her so-called work “bestie” moving forward. Thanks a lot, Gemini!

_{A professional woman, depicted by a model, speaks over the phone at her desk with an open laptop as another employee works in the background.} 

The way I SCREAMED when the notes showed up in my inbox, despite being invited to the call after the s**t-talking session concluded. No action items for me, I guess!

The question that remains is how we continue to cope with the implementation of AI while ensuring that it doesn't destroy working relationships. The truth is that office gossip is inevitable, so the answer cannot be to never trash-talk your coworkers. I guess we'll have to train AI to stop listening when we're gossiping, though!