The Issue:

Video meetings can be long and boring, and it’s easy for a participant to drift off while a presenter rambles.

Unfortunately, the disengaged participant might be suddenly asked a question: they will then need to either reveal that they were spacing out or to provide a feeble excuse to have the question repeated.

Proposal:

This issue can be solved using the most popular solution of the mid-2020s: intrusively-monitoring A.I.!

A separate device can simply eavesdrop on your meeting at all times and show a live transcript of the meeting discussion (Figure 1). This device can highlight relevant keywords (like meeting participants’ names), and can show a transcript of the last 60 seconds of transcribed audio.

This should allow a person who is caught off-guard by an unexpected question to “rescue” themselves by quickly “rewinding” through the transcript and to find relevant information.

Conclusion:

Using current open-source software, this could definitely be implemented very quickly as a proof-of-concept. (In fact, come to think of it, it probably already exists somewhere as a personal project in someone’s “make me look hire-able” code portfolio).

PROS: Zero privacy risks if the voice transcription program runs locally on a device with no WiFi.

CONS: May encourage even deeper levels of daydreaming, which could have negative career consequences.

Originally published 2026-04-13.