When you set up a Teams meeting, do you amend the settings to prevent AI note-taking bots from joining your meetings? We advise that you do this to protect the security of your meetings and any confidential information you may discuss or show on screen.
If you have a Microsoft Copilot or Teams Premium licence, it is fine to use it to take notes of your meeting. This is because the information stays within the University's Microsoft tenancy and so security and confidentiality is respected.
What is a note-taking bot?
A note-taking bot is a service that can record virtual meetings and provide summaries in the form of text transcripts and screenshots. When a user signs up to these services, any meeting invitations that they receive will be forwarded to a note-taking bot. The bot will then appear as a separate member in the meetings that they join.
How to prevent AI bots from joining a Teams meeting
If you are the meeting organiser:
- In your Teams or Outlook calendar, select the meeting.
- Select "Meeting options". This option appears at the top of the meeting details window in Teams or in the footer of the meeting details in Outlook. This will open the meeting options window in a browser.
- Under "Meeting access", make sure that "Who can bypass the lobby?" is set to:
- "People in my org" if you would like any University member to join the meeting without being held in the lobby for admission
- "Only organizers and co-organizers" if you would like to manually admit all attendees from the lobby.
- Make sure "People dialling in can bypass the lobby" is switched off.
- Check the "Who can present" settings under "Roles". If it is set to "Everyone", you will need to make sure that "Who can admit from the lobby" under "Meeting access" is set to "Organizers and co-organizers". If you do not do this, the person who uses the AI note-taking bot will be able to admit the bot from the lobby.
- Select "Save" at the bottom of the screen.
If you are not the meeting organiser, contact them and ask them to follow the above steps.
Making alternative arrangements
If you need to organise meetings without a lobby or you need less restrictive settings than we have recommended above, please contact the Service Desk. We can set up your account so that anonymous participants will need to complete a CAPTCHA to join meetings you organise.
Getting help and support
If you need support, contact the Service Desk.