Home · Business · Admin & Office · Minutes & transcription

YES

As of 13 August 2026, AI can take live notes in a meeting.

This still needs a person who signs their name to it.

Can you do it?

5 minutesto a draft.

30 minutesto something you’d act on.

Cost, all in£0

Skill neededchat-fluent

Who has to check ita colleague

What the alternative costsFathom is a free-first AI notetaker for Zoom, Meet and Teams.

If this goes wrong: a missed qualification or wrongly attributed action sends work in the wrong direction and has to be corrected by the team.

What to actually do

  1. Hand it to a person

    The route this page recommends

    A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

  2. Use a tool built for this

    Second choice

  3. Do it yourself

    The distant third

    A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

    How to actually do it

    1. Open the meeting platform and check its recording and transcription settings before the meeting.
    2. Tell every attendee that an AI notetaker or transcription tool will be used, obtain the required permission under your workplace policy, and do not record if permission is refused.
    3. Add a meeting notetaker such as Fathom to the Zoom, Meet or Teams meeting, or open the transcript tool you are authorised to use.
    4. Enter the meeting title, date, attendee names and agenda so the notes have enough context to label people and topics.
    5. During the meeting, correct obvious speaker or terminology errors in the live transcript where the tool allows it, without rewriting what was said.
    6. After the meeting, paste the transcript into the prompt and ask for decisions, actions, unresolved questions and points needing checking.
    7. Play back the relevant recording sections and compare them with every decision, owner and deadline in the draft notes.
    8. Send the corrected notes to the attendees for confirmation, then save the agreed version in the team’s approved location.

    Prompt

    Turn the meeting transcript or live transcript below into working notes for a UK workplace meeting. Do not invent statements, decisions, owners, deadlines or reasons. Separate the result into: 1) decisions made, 2) actions with the exact owner and deadline if stated, 3) unresolved questions, 4) important discussion points, and 5) claims that need checking. Mark unclear or conflicting wording as [unclear] and do not guess who was speaking. Keep the notes concise and neutral. Preserve names, dates and figures exactly as given. At the end, list the three points a meeting participant should verify against the recording before sending the notes. Meeting title: [TITLE]. Date: [DATE]. Attendees: [ATTENDEES]. Agenda: [AGENDA]. Transcript or live transcript: [PASTE TRANSCRIPT HERE].

    Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.

What it gets wrong

  • AI cannot reliably infer an unstated decision from a hesitant or ambiguous discussion.
  • It can attribute a comment to the wrong speaker when people interrupt, speak over one another or use poor audio.
  • It cannot know whether a proposed action was accepted, deferred or merely mentioned unless the meeting makes that clear.
  • It cannot obtain valid consent or decide whether confidential material may be recorded under your organisation’s policy.
  • It does not carry responsibility for the official record, missed action or disclosure of sensitive meeting content.

Even on a YES, the friction has a name: consent and privacy, real time truth and verification cost.

How we scored this

Five axes, each scored nought to two by hand: ten means AI carries the task cleanly, and the thresholds that turn a total into YES, PARTLY or NO are published in the methodology. Each axis name links to its definition.

AxisScore (0–2)
Output2
Inputs2
Verification1
Liability1
Effort delta2
Total8 / 10

The methodology and its thresholds are published in full.

FAQ

Can AI take notes during a meeting?
Yes. Meeting notetakers can record or receive a live transcript and produce structured notes, decisions and actions while you participate. Check that recording is allowed and correct the result before sharing it.
Is it legal to use AI to record a meeting in the UK?
It depends on the meeting, the data involved and your organisation’s rules, so tell attendees and obtain the required permission before recording. Do not put confidential or personal information into a tool unless your workplace has approved it.
Can AI tell who said what in a meeting?
Often, but not reliably when people interrupt, use poor microphones or speak over one another. Check speaker names against the recording before using attributed comments as part of the official notes.
Can AI write meeting minutes in real time?
It can create a live transcript and a running draft, but final minutes still need a participant to confirm decisions, owners and deadlines. Use the recording or transcript to check the draft before sending it.

Nearby answers

All Minutes & transcription rulings

Assessed by gpt-5.6-luna (gpt-5.6-luna) on 2026-08-13, second-checked by an independent model. Wrong somewhere? Email [email protected] and it gets re-checked.

The newsletter

AI news, new answers and product picks, straight to your inbox.