How to Use AI to Take Meeting Notes (Zoom, Teams, Meet and In Person)

Before you start: check your plan

Built-in AI notes are not included in every account. According to each company’s help pages at the time of research:

If your plan doesn’t qualify, or your meetings happen across several platforms, a third-party note taker that joins any call is often simpler. We compare the two best-known options in Otter vs. Fireflies and list more in our best AI meeting assistant guide.

How to take AI meeting notes in Zoom

Zoom’s help center describes these steps for the desktop app:

1. Make sure Meeting Summary is enabled for your account. Zoom requires the feature to be turned on in your account settings before it appears in meetings.
2. Start the meeting as host (or co-host). Only hosts and co-hosts can start the summary.
3. Hover over the Zoom AI icon in the top-right corner of the meeting window.
4. Select the Meeting summary checkbox, and optionally Generate transcript.
5. Click Start Zoom AI. Participants see the AI icon change color when AI features are active.

On the mobile app, tap the Zoom AI icon, turn on the Meeting summary toggle and tap Start Zoom AI. In Zoom Rooms, tap More, then Start Summary. If you are a participant and the feature is off, you can open the Zoom AI window and select Ask host to start Zoom AI.

Who gets the notes: Zoom sends the summary by email and, if enabled, posts it to the meeting’s group chat. Participants only receive it automatically if they were signed in to their Zoom account during the meeting; guests who joined through a shared link or ad hoc invitation don’t get it. Zoom writes the summary in the language most participants spoke, so setting the correct caption language helps accuracy.

How to take AI meeting notes in Microsoft Teams

Teams has two related features: intelligent recap, which produces AI notes, suggested tasks, speaker markers and chapters after the meeting, and Copilot, which you can question during and after the meeting. Microsoft’s documentation describes this flow:

1. Choose the Copilot setting when you schedule the meeting. In Meeting options, under Copilot and other AI, pick During and after the meeting, Only during the meeting or Off. Choosing Off also disables recording and transcription.
2. Start transcription (and recording, if allowed). Intelligent recap requires transcription to be turned on; without recording, you get a recap without speakers, topics and chapters. With During and after the meeting, Copilot starts once someone begins transcribing.
3. Open Copilot during the meeting from the meeting controls. Select View prompts for suggestions, or ask your own question, such as where people disagree or what was decided.
4. Find the notes afterward in the Recap tab of the meeting in your Teams calendar or chat. You can also open Copilot from the meeting chat and ask follow-up questions, as long as a transcript exists.

The Only during the meeting option uses temporary speech-to-text data that isn’t saved after the meeting ends, which is useful for sensitive conversations where you want help in the moment but no lasting transcript. Microsoft notes that Copilot doesn’t work in end-to-end encrypted meetings, or in meetings hosted outside the participant’s organization.

How to take AI meeting notes in Google Meet

Google’s “Take notes for me” uses Gemini to write notes into a Google Doc. On a computer:

1. Join the meeting at meet.google.com.
2. Click Take notes for me in the top-right corner.
3. Optionally open Settings to choose who receives the notes, the length, which sections to include, the language and whether to include screenshots.
4. Click Start taking notes. Meet tells every participant that notes are being taken and shows a pencil icon.

You can also switch it on in advance: edit the Calendar event, open the video call options, select Meeting records and check Take notes with Gemini.

Where the notes go: a Doc in the organizer’s Google Drive (in a Google Meet folder), attached to the Calendar event, with a Quick notes tab (summary and action items) and a Full notes tab. The organizer gets an email with a link shortly after the meeting. Google supports English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish, but only one language per meeting, and recommends meetings of 15 minutes to eight hours.

How to take AI notes in an in-person meeting

For a meeting in a real room, you need a device that listens. The simplest option is a phone app.

With Otter (iPhone or Android):

1. Install the Otter app and sign in.
2. Start a recording with one tap in the app, from the home-screen widget or with a Siri shortcut, according to Otter’s App Store listing.
3. Put the phone in the middle of the table. Otter can also take audio from Bluetooth headsets and AirPods.
4. Watch the live transcript as people talk, then stop the recording to get the summary.

Otter’s free plan stops each conversation at 30 minutes, so longer meetings need Pro or a higher plan (Pro allows up to 90 minutes per conversation at the time of research).

With Fireflies (iPhone or Android): according to Fireflies’ help center, tap the purple Record button on the Home Feed, add a title or skip it, pause and resume as needed, then tap Stop. The recording is processed and saved to your Notebook and also appears in the web app.

With Google Meet on a phone: if your Workspace edition or Google AI plan includes it, open the Meet app, tap Take notes, tap Start taking notes and place the device nearby. You don’t need to start a video call. Tap Pause to stop transcription temporarily, and Stop when you’re done; the notes Doc lands in your Drive and your inbox. Google recommends meetings of at least 15 minutes.

For larger rooms or hands-free recording, see our guide to the best AI note taker for in-person meetings.

Consent and etiquette

• Say it out loud. Announce at the start that an AI tool is recording and summarizing, and why. Built-in tools show indicators, but a phone on the table does not.
• Know that the rules vary. Federal US law allows recording with the consent of one party, but according to the Digital Media Law Project, several states, including California, require the consent of everyone in the conversation. When participants are in different places, the safest course is to get everyone’s agreement. This is not legal advice; check your organization’s policy.
• Offer an off switch. Let people ask for the recording to stop for a sensitive item. In Teams, the Only during the meeting option avoids keeping a transcript.
• Share deliberately. Zoom, Teams and Meet let you control who receives the summary. Don’t forward AI notes to people who weren’t in the room without checking with attendees.

Tips for better AI summaries

• Set the right language. Zoom uses the caption language and the majority language spoken; Google Meet supports one language per meeting; Teams asks you to pick the spoken language when Copilot starts.
• Reduce crosstalk. AI notes are only as good as the audio. Ask people to speak one at a time and use a headset or a phone placed near the speakers.
• Say names and decisions explicitly. “So the decision is…, Maria owns the follow-up by Friday” is far easier for a summary to capture correctly than an implied agreement.
• Avoid very short meetings. Google says summaries may be incomplete for meetings shorter than recommended, and Microsoft notes some recaps need longer transcripts.
• Review before you send. AI summaries can miss nuance or assign tasks to the wrong person. Read the action items before you share them, and correct speaker names where the tool allows it.