How do I use AI to summarize meeting notes
Record or transcribe the meeting, then paste the transcript into an AI assistant like ChatGPT or Claude with a prompt specifying the format you want — decisions, action items, and owners. Tools like Otter.ai, Fireflies, and Fathom do this automatically by joining the call, transcribing it live, and emailing a structured summary within minutes of the meeting ending.
The quality of your summary depends almost entirely on the quality of the transcript. If you're working from a recording, use a dedicated transcription tool rather than relying on your own notes — AI can't summarize what it never received. Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams all have native transcription that you can enable in settings, and the transcript exports as a text file you can drop into any AI chat. The prompt matters more than the tool. Instead of asking for "a summary," ask for exactly what you need: "List the decisions made, the action items with owners and deadlines, and any open questions that weren't resolved." That structure forces the model to extract specifics rather than producing a vague paragraph of what the meeting was generally about. If your team has a recurring meeting format, save the prompt and reuse it every time for consistent output. For recurring meetings, the automated tools earn their subscription cost fast. Fireflies and Fathom join the call as a participant, transcribe in real time, and push the summary straight into Slack, Notion, or your CRM without anyone touching it. Otter.ai does the same and includes a searchable archive of every meeting, which becomes surprisingly useful three months later when someone asks what was decided about a project nobody remembers. One caution worth taking seriously: check your company's recording policy and get consent from participants before you put a bot in the room. Several states require all-party consent for recording, and clients in particular tend to have opinions about it. A quick mention at the top of the call — "I've got a notetaker running" — usually covers it and takes three seconds.