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LMA

Virtual Participant

Virtual Participant

Section titled “Virtual Participant”

Table of Contents

Section titled “Table of Contents”

Overview

Section titled “Overview”

The Virtual Participant (VP) is a headless Chrome browser running on ECS (Fargate or EC2) that joins meetings as a separate participant via Puppeteer. It captures audio and metadata, sending them to the LMA Kinesis Data Stream for transcription and processing.

Advantages over Stream Audio

Section titled “Advantages over Stream Audio”
  • Use native desktop apps: You are free to use native desktop applications (Zoom, Teams, etc.) instead of being limited to the browser.
  • Independent attendance: The VP can join before you arrive, stay after you leave, or attend meetings you do not join at all.
  • Voice assistant and avatar integration: Supports optional voice assistant and avatar features for interactive meeting participation.

Supported Platforms

Section titled “Supported Platforms”
  • Zoom
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Amazon Chime
  • Google Meet
  • WebEx

Joining a Meeting

Section titled “Joining a Meeting”
  1. Navigate to Virtual Participant in the LMA UI.
  2. Enter meeting details: URL, platform, meeting ID/password, and meeting name.
  3. Click Join Now.
  4. The VP starts in approximately 30-60 seconds (EC2) or 1-2 minutes (Fargate).
  5. Once joined, the VP posts an introduction message in the meeting chat.
  6. View VP status in the UI as it progresses through its lifecycle:
    • INITIALIZING — ECS task is starting and the browser is launching
    • JOINING — VP is navigating to the meeting and attempting to join
    • JOINED — VP has successfully joined the meeting and is capturing audio
    • ENDED — The meeting has ended or the VP has been disconnected

Meeting Scheduling

Section titled “Meeting Scheduling”

Enter a future meeting time to schedule the VP to join a meeting later. The scheduling interface supports:

  • Setting a specific date and time for the VP to join
  • Starting a scheduled meeting immediately
  • Stopping an in-progress scheduled meeting
  • Deleting a scheduled meeting before it starts

Meeting Invitation Parsing

Section titled “Meeting Invitation Parsing”

Paste a full meeting invitation into the input field and Bedrock AI automatically parses it to extract and auto-fill:

  • Meeting platform
  • Meeting URL
  • Meeting ID
  • Meeting password

This eliminates the need to manually copy individual fields from calendar invitations.

VNC Preview

Section titled “VNC Preview”

The VNC preview provides real-time browser viewing and remote control of the VP’s Chrome window at 1920x1120 resolution. This feature is available on the meeting detail page and allows you to:

  • See exactly what the VP sees in the meeting
  • Interact with the VP’s browser session remotely
  • Troubleshoot joining issues in real time

Launch Types

Section titled “Launch Types”
Section titled “EC2 (Default, Recommended)”

EC2 launch type uses warm instances with cached Docker images. This provides 85-90% faster startup compared to cold Fargate launches, with the VP ready in approximately 30-60 seconds. The estimated cost is approximately $33/month for always-on instances.

EC2 is the recommended launch type for most deployments due to its significantly faster startup time.

Fargate

Section titled “Fargate”

Fargate launch type is serverless and uses SOCI (Seekable OCI) for faster container image pulls, providing 40-60% faster startup than standard Fargate. The base cost is approximately $2/month, making it more economical for infrequent use. However, startup time is longer at 1-2 minutes.

EC2 Instance Types

Section titled “EC2 Instance Types”

Choose an instance type based on your workload requirements:

General Purpose:

  • t3.medium (default) — Suitable for basic transcription without voice assistant
  • t3.large — Additional headroom for busier meetings
  • t3.xlarge — High-throughput scenarios

Compute-Optimized (recommended for voice + avatar):

  • c5.large — Good balance for voice assistant workloads
  • c5.xlarge — Recommended for voice assistant with avatar
  • c5.2xlarge — Heavy voice and avatar processing

Memory-Optimized (recommended for voice + avatar):

  • m5.large — Voice assistant workloads with higher memory needs
  • m5.xlarge — Recommended for voice assistant with avatar and large meeting context

Auto-Scaling

Section titled “Auto-Scaling”

Configure auto-scaling for EC2 launch type:

  • Minimum instances: 0 to 10 (set to 0 to scale down completely when idle)
  • Maximum instances: 1 to 100 (set based on expected concurrent meeting load)

The auto-scaler adjusts the number of warm EC2 instances based on demand, ensuring fast VP startup while controlling costs.

Chat Introduction Message

Section titled “Chat Introduction Message”

The VP posts a customizable introduction message in the meeting chat when it joins. This message informs meeting participants that the VP is present and recording. You can configure the message content to suit your organization’s requirements and compliance policies.

Troubleshooting

Section titled “Troubleshooting”
  • Scheduling issues: Check the Step Functions execution logs in the AWS console for errors related to meeting scheduling and trigger timing.
  • Joining or streaming issues: Check ECS Fargate or EC2 task logs in CloudWatch for errors during the browser launch, meeting join, or audio streaming phases.
  • VP stuck “in progress”: This may indicate that the ECS task crashed unexpectedly. This issue was identified and fixed in v0.3.0. Ensure you are running the latest version.

Developer Testing

Section titled “Developer Testing”

Manual Step Function Execution

Section titled “Manual Step Function Execution”

You can manually invoke the VP Step Function with a JSON payload for testing. The payload supports the following methods:

  • POST — Start a new VP session with specified meeting details
  • GET — Retrieve the status of an existing VP session
  • DELETE — Stop and clean up a running VP session

Local Docker Testing

Section titled “Local Docker Testing”

For local development and debugging, you can run the VP Docker container locally with the appropriate environment variables configured for your AWS account and meeting parameters.

See Also

Section titled “See Also”