Summarising a Meeting with AI: How to Do It Safely
Here is how to have AI summarise a meeting, with minutes and action points in minutes. With tips on checking, permission and privacy.
It is five o’clock, the meeting has just finished, and nobody wrote down who would do what. With AI, you can summarise a meeting in a few minutes, action points included. It saves work, but you need to go about it in a smart and safe way.
In this article, you will read how it works, which steps to follow and what to watch out for.
How can you summarise a meeting with AI?
You have the meeting converted into text and ask an AI tool to make a summary of it. You can do this in your meeting software itself or with a separate chatbot.
There are roughly two routes. With the first, your meeting software does everything. With the second, you make a transcript (a written-out version of what was said) yourself and paste it into a chatbot.
- In your meeting software: programs such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Google Meet offer summary features. These often create a transcription, notes and follow-up tasks. Whether you can use this depends on the subscription your employer has and on the admin settings.
- With a chatbot: you paste in a transcript and give an instruction. This works with many tools, but be careful with privacy.
Check the help page of your meeting software to see which features your version has. This differs by provider and by subscription.
Which steps do you follow for good minutes and action points?
Follow five fixed steps: ask for permission, transcribe, give a clear instruction, check and share. This keeps the quality high.
- At the start, say that you are having a transcript made and ask whether everyone agrees.
- Start the transcription in your meeting software.
- Afterwards, give the AI a clear instruction, with the format you want.
- Read through the summary and compare names, amounts and deadlines with your own notes.
- Share the minutes with the participants and ask for corrections.
A handy tip: say the most important decisions out loud at the end. For example: So Sanne will send the quote on Friday. AI can usually pick up clear sentences like these better than scattered remarks halfway through.
The instruction matters a lot too. The more specific you are, the better the result. Say which format you want, who the minutes are for and what the AI must not do, such as making things up. If something is unclear, tell the AI to use the word unknown, and you will see straight away where you need to fill in something yourself.
Working with a long meeting? Then split the transcript into parts and have each part summarised separately. After that, ask for a short final summary of the separate parts. This way, less text gets left out.
A real-life example: a team of six people spends forty minutes discussing a campaign. The AI produces a list of seven action points. Two of them have no name. You fill those in before you send the minutes. That takes you two minutes instead of twenty minutes of typing.
What are the risks of AI minutes?
The biggest risks are mistakes in the summary and accidentally sharing personal data. You remain responsible for what is in the minutes.
AI can mix up a name, note down an amount wrongly or take a joke seriously. It also sometimes goes wrong with dialects, interruptions and technical jargon. So always read it through, especially for agreements involving money or legal consequences.
Privacy is the second point. In August 2024, the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, AP) warned that employees who put personal data of, for example, customers or patients into a chatbot can cause a data breach. Read the Computable article about this warning (in Dutch). You can find more explanation of privacy rules on the website of the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens.
In practice, this means: use your employer’s approved tool rather than a private account. Remove names or replace them with letters if you do use an ordinary chatbot. If in doubt, ask your data protection officer or manager.
When is summarising a meeting with AI a sensible choice?
Use a built-in tool for internal meetings and be careful with sensitive conversations. That is the safest basic rule.
| Situation | Advice |
|---|---|
| Weekly team meeting | Built-in summary of the meeting software |
| Client conversation with personal data | Only with permission and a tool your organisation has approved |
| Staff conversation or HR matter | Preferably no AI, write the minutes yourself |
| Brainstorm without sensitive information | A transcript in a chatbot is usually fine |
Want to go one step further? You can have your own assistant work with fixed instructions, as described in making your own AI assistant without programming. Or read how an AI agent such as OpenAI Dots can take over tasks.
Frequently asked questions
Can you just record or transcribe a meeting?
Always say so beforehand and ask the participants for their agreement. Especially when personal data is being discussed, the GDPR rules apply. This is not legal advice, so if in doubt, ask your data protection officer.
Is an AI summary of a meeting always correct?
No. AI can get names, figures and deadlines wrong. So always check the summary against your own notes.
Does this also work in other languages?
Often it does, but the quality differs by tool and by language or accent. Check the provider’s help page to see whether your language is supported.
What does it cost to have a meeting summarised?
That depends on your subscription and the provider. Look on the provider’s website for current terms, or ask your IT department.
Your next step: try the instruction above at your next internal meeting and check the result. Curious about more smart uses in the office? Then read how Copilot in SharePoint and OneDrive organises your files.
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