Using AI to summarise meetings properly

Automatic meeting notes usually produce a wall of text nobody opens — a transcript with the fat trimmed, not a summary. Useful notes answer three questions: what was decided, who does what next, and what's still open.

Ask for the right shape

Don't ask for a summary. Ask for: decisions, actions with owners and dates, open questions, and one line of context for anyone who missed it. Naming the sections gets you a document people can act on rather than one they file.

Consent comes first

• Say at the start that you're recording or transcribing.
• Get agreement, and note it.
• Say where the notes will be stored and for how long.
• Never record a one-to-one about performance or pay without explicit consent.

This isn't only a legal point. People speak differently when a recording appears without warning, and you lose the honest half of the conversation.

Fix names and numbers by hand

Transcription reliably mangles unusual names, product codes and figures. Those are exactly the parts people rely on, so read every number and every name before circulating. Two minutes of checking prevents a fortnight of a wrong figure travelling as fact.

Send it the same day

Notes lose most of their value overnight because nobody can correct what they can't remember. Same-day circulation, with a line inviting corrections, turns the summary into a shared record instead of one person's interpretation.

Keep them short enough to read

Half a page for an hour-long meeting. If your summary needs scrolling, either the meeting should have been an email or the summary is still a transcript.

What not to feed it

Salary discussions, health information, unpublished legal advice and anything covered by a client confidentiality clause. When in doubt, take those notes yourself; the time saved isn't worth the disclosure.