The AI notes are done. The work isn't. With any tool.

Four items that get notes read

1. Attendees and absentees. Who was and wasn't there decides who needs the update.
2. Agenda. Order items by what needed deciding, not by when they came up, so they're easier to find later.
3. Decisions. Separate what was decided from what was proposed but not settled. Mix them up and you'll have the same debate next week.
4. Next steps. Always add an owner and a deadline. When a meeting doesn't spell out what happens next, all the follow-up work comes back to you.

Sample prompt for pasting a transcript into a chat AI

"Create meeting notes from the transcript below. Sections, in order: attendees, agenda, decisions, open items, next steps (owner and deadline). Keep decisions and open items separate. Use speaker names as they appear in the transcript. Write in English, as bullet points."

Separating decisions from open items (example)

• Decision: "The support team will handle first-line inquiries." It has a subject and a verb, and no one objected.
• Open item: "Proposal to extend testing by one week." Proposed, but the release date and announcement plan are unsettled and waiting on someone's decision.
• Next step: "Revise the test plan: dev lead, by this Friday." It only becomes a next step once it has both an owner and a deadline.

That gets your summaries into shape. But you still type the prompt, paste the notes where they need to go, and tell owners about their to-dos, every time. SIMY learns how you finished notes once and prepares the same format from the next meeting on, without being asked.

Copilot in Microsoft Teams

With Teams meeting transcription (or recording) on, you can ask Copilot questions during the meeting and use recaps and decision summaries afterward. It requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, and your organization's admin can enable or disable transcription and Copilot by policy. If it isn't available, check the settings with your admin first.

Gemini in Google Meet (Take notes)

Turn on "Take notes with Gemini" during a meeting, and afterward a summary is created as a Google Doc and emailed to the organizer. It requires a Google Workspace plan that includes Gemini. Because it's built into the meeting tool, there's no bot and no recording device.

Notion AI Meeting Notes

Start recording on a Notion page and the transcript and summary are saved to that page from your device's audio. No bot joins the meeting. It works online and in person, and notes build up in your Notion database. Notion AI is included in higher plans.

Notta and tl;dv

Both send a recording bot that joins Zoom, Teams or Google Meet as a participant. Connect your calendar and the bot joins scheduled meetings automatically; you review transcripts and summaries in the web app. Free plans have a monthly cap on transcription time. For meetings with outside guests, let them know about the bot in advance.

Saving notes to Notion automatically (tl;dv or Notta + Zapier)

1. When the meeting ends, the recording tool produces a summary.
2. Zapier creates a page in your Notion database with that summary.
3. Slack gets a "Meeting notes are ready" notification.

The copying becomes automatic. But the update message, owners and to-dos, next-meeting prep and your decision are still left. SIMY moves that part forward.

A free setup: phone voice memos + Google AI Studio

Record with your phone's voice memo app and give the audio file to Google AI Studio for a transcript and summary. It costs nothing extra, but transferring the recording, typing the prompt and copying the result are manual every time.

Voice memo apps on iPhone and Android now include built-in transcription (depending on the device and OS version). Try the built-in feature first, and use Google AI Studio when all you have is an audio file.

Free gets you as far as a transcript. Sharing, to-dos and decisions are still left.

PLAUD

Card-style and pin-style devices record in person and on calls, and the app transcribes and summarizes. SIMY has a built-in integration: just click "Connect" and SIMY handles what comes after the summary. Usage and plans are covered in the PLAUD guide.

At a glance

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Features and plans are from official pages checked on October 1, 2026. Prices change often and vary by region, so they aren't listed here; check each vendor's official pricing page.

1. Say the agenda and attendees out loud at the start. With the agenda and names at the top of the transcript, summary headings and speaker labels line up more reliably.
2. Restate decisions the moment they're made. A quick "OK, testing is extended by one week, confirmed" keeps decisions and open items from blurring.
3. Say the owner and deadline on the spot. "Sam updates the FAQ by the day before release" gives the to-do an owner and a deadline.
4. Check your mic and language settings. Use a headset for online meetings and put the recorder in the middle of the table in person. If the language setting is wrong, the summary will be in the wrong language too.
5. Register speaker names. With "Speaker 1" and "Speaker 2," you can't track who took on what. Use your tool's speaker naming feature.

These five also help when SIMY does the follow-up. The clearer the decisions and owners, the better the update messages and to-dos, and the fewer decisions come back to you.

1. Everyone re-summarizes in their own AI

Even with Copilot in Teams available, some people copy the transcript into their own chat AI, because they want it in their own format. The tool's templates fall short, and they end up typing a prompt every time. SIMY learns the format you finished once and prepares the same shape from the next meeting on.

2. Summaries arrive, but nobody reads them

When summaries pile up automatically in meeting chat or Notion, people feel safe not reading them. Unread, the decisions and next steps slip away. What's needed isn't getting people to read summaries; it's pulling out just the work meant for each person and delivering it. SIMY delivers the update message, to-dos by owner, and one decision for you.

3. Going around asking "where are we on that?"

Even when to-dos are written in the notes, someone still has to go check whether they moved. Whoever asked keeps wondering, "what happened with that?" In SIMY, in progress, done and waiting on you are listed in My Actions, so there's no need to chase.

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How to choose: for a one-off meeting, the AI summary is enough. If the same meeting happens every week and the work after it is the same every time, that's where SIMY comes in. For chat AI itself, see the ChatGPT guide.

Even with AI notes everywhere, some people say notes are better written by hand. The reason isn't accuracy. Writing makes it clear what was decided and what you should do next. Judging the granularity of a decision is a craft, and summary tools don't take that on.

SIMY cares about the same thing. It moves update messages and to-do lists forward, but always hands back the calls on what was decided and whether to move a deadline. SIMY keeps the clarity about your next move that hand-writers get, without the writing time.

If you want to keep writing by hand, a practical split is to write only decisions and next steps yourself and leave the rest to AI notes. SIMY reads those handwritten decisions too and carries on from there.

• Recording consent: before recording or transcribing, tell every participant and get their consent. With bot-based tools the bot appears in the participant list, but letting people know in advance is good manners. SIMY's Terms of Service also make obtaining recording consent the customer's responsibility.
• Confidential meetings: for HR, M&A, unreleased results and similar meetings, use only tools approved by your IT department. If your company runs on Microsoft or Google, the meeting tool's own features (Teams Copilot, Gemini in Meet) run within your admin's settings, which is the safer side.
• AI training settings: each tool has a policy or setting on whether your data is used for AI training. It may be on by default on personal plans, so for work, use a business plan or check the setting to turn training off. In ChatGPT, you can turn off "Improve the model for everyone" under Data Controls in Settings.
• Connecting to SIMY: Plaud, Notion and Google are connected by signing in to your account on each service's own sign-in page and granting access. Claude Code and Codex conversation history is read by the simy app on your computer, which creates only task candidates and does not store the content on our servers. How SIMY handles data is published on our Security and Privacy Policy pages.
• Sending and writing need approval: update messages SIMY prepares stop at Gmail drafts. Posting to Slack and writing to Notion happen only after your approval. Nothing is sent without you.