Write meeting minutes from an audio recording

Project manager · Time: 20 min · Meetings

Tools that fit this task

• ChatGPT $20/mo
• Copilot in Teams $10/mo
• Notion AI $10/mo
• Fireflies $10/mo
• Microsoft 365 Copilot $20/mo
• NotebookLM $14/mo

Prompt

Role: you are a meeting secretary writing minutes from a transcript.
Context: meeting on {{topic}} held on {{date}}, participants {{list of participants with roles}}. Agenda: {{items}}. The transcript is below; speaker names may be recognized with errors.
Task: write the minutes. Identify decisions made, tasks with an owner and deadline, and open questions. If a deadline or owner is unclear from the transcript, write [clarify] instead of guessing. Add to each decision a short quote from the transcript it comes from.
Format: a heading with date and topic, list of attendees, sections Decisions, Tasks (table task | owner | deadline | quote), Open questions, Next meeting. Business style, up to 400 words.
Transcript:
{{transcript}}

Steps

1. Tell participants about the recording at the start of the meeting and record their consent
2. Get a transcript from a meeting notetaker or upload the audio to NotebookLM or a chat that accepts audio
3. Give the assistant the transcript with the agenda and a prompt for the minutes
4. Get the minutes: decisions, tasks with an owner and deadline, open questions, and quotes from disputed points kept separately
5. Check every task, deadline and owner against the transcript, because the model mixes up speaker names
6. Send the minutes to participants the same day and ask them to confirm or correct within 24 hours

How to check the result

Every task in the minutes has an owner and a deadline, participants confirmed the minutes with no substantive corrections, and they went out on the day of the meeting

Pitfalls

• The model credits a decision to whoever spoke last instead of whoever made it
• A recording that discusses salaries, dismissals or deals goes into a public service only after the transcript is anonymized

Data that stays out of public AI tools

• Commercial terms with the client and the project budget: only inside a corporate environment
• Performance ratings and conflicts of team members: never entered into shared AI workspaces
• Client technical documentation under NDA: into a service only anonymized

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• Build a project plan with phases and owners
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• Build a project risk register
• Run a retrospective and capture the takeaways
• Send action items to participants after a meeting
• Plan your week in the calendar with focus blocks
• Turn a finished document into a presentation
• Write a weekly report to your manager
• Build a team knowledge base
• Clear your morning inbox in half an hour

AI tools for project managers · Prompt: Write meeting minutes from an audio recording