AI Meeting Assistants Are Changing Communication

What you’ll learn: Discover some of the advantages of AI meeting assistants and how these powerful tools can help you. We’ll outline some of the top tools available and what they offer. 

AI meeting assistants aren’t just nice to have in today’s business environment. They’re powerful, beneficial tools that can give workplaces a strategic advantage. They can help transform tasks, projects, and collaboration. They’re improving communication among co-workers and decreasing some of the cognitive load workers bear. 

Remote and hybrid work is becoming more common post-COVID. AI technology is advancing at a quickening pace. Accordingly, many teams are now adopting AI meeting assistants to transcribe their discussions, improve their productivity, and stay aligned despite geographical limitations. 

According to research from Market.us, the AI meeting market is expected to balloon to $24.6 billion by 2034, a nearly $22 billion increase from 2024’s market size of $2.68 billion. 

AI meeting assistants are becoming a core staple in remote work environments, but not all applications are created equal. In this article, we’ll discuss the ins and outs of AI meeting assistants. We’ll review some of the top products on the market and offer recommendations based on the type of tasks you work on. Let’s get to it. 

Are you just starting your remote work career? Grab our free remote work e-book to find out how to work from anywhere without sacrificing efficiency. 

What Is an AI Meeting Assistant and Why Does It Matter?

AI meeting assistants are tools that use artificial intelligence to complete administrative tasks. These tasks include:

• Real-time transcription
• Note-taking
• Meeting summaries
• To-do list creation from meeting notes
• Post-meeting follow-up preparation assistance
• Scheduling online meetings for multiple parties

These applications can integrate with a number of other video meeting platforms, making them easy to use and implement. 

Gone are the days when two staff members need to compare notes and sort through their memories to collaborate correctly. With AI meeting assistants, team members can collaborate faster and come to decisions quicker. They can increase their overall productivity by reducing the communication barriers surrounding physical note-taking. 

How Does an AI Note-Taker Enhance Productivity During Virtual Meetings?

Because an AI meeting assistant takes notes automatically, participants can easily focus on discussing key ideas rather than keeping up with the conversation. These assistants can also create meeting summaries. The summaries can be useful in a variety of ways and may reduce the need for additional meetings with other stakeholders. Stakeholders can simply go over the summary instead. 

Other assistants are equipped to create action items based off of meetings and send them to each applicable team member so no tasks are missed.

Depending on the type of assistant you use, you can also seamlessly share these notes, summaries, or action items with colleagues at the click of a button. 

Here’s a personal anecdote to drive this point home: As a remote freelance writer, I interview experts regularly to get quotes for pieces. If I took notes by hand, I would be mentally divided between actively listening to my source and taking accurate notes. Using an AI meeting assistant allows me to focus on asking the best questions to my source to get information that is unique and what my editor and readers are looking for. 

Thinking of working remotely but not sure where to start? Check out our free remote work e-book for advice on the best remote gear, training and more so you can successfully work from anywhere. 

Common AI Meeting Companions in the Marketplace

Three of the most common meeting platforms on the market are Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom. Each of these platforms has its own built-in AI meeting companion. Below is a brief explanation of each. 

Zoom AI Companion

Zoom’s AI Companion handles a myriad of administrative tasks for the remote working professional. Users can: 

• Ask the companion to catch them up on a meeting if they arrived late
• Have the companion record video and audio meetings and create transcripts 
• Ask Zoom’s AI Companion questions about the recording and receive tailored responses
• Schedule meetings easily using the AI Companion
• Receive a summary and next steps task list from the AI Companion based on the meeting
• Summarize text chats between team members that occurred during a video call

Keep in mind that Zoom’s AI Companion is included for all users that pay for Zoom-specific services, such as a paid Zoom meetings account. Free Zoom users do not have access to AI features. 

Copilot for Teams Meetings

Microsoft has its own built-in AI assistant for its Microsoft Teams video/audio calling platform: Copilot. Microsoft users that communicate with team members using Teams can use Copilot to:

• Easily transcribe meetings
• Determine key points in the meeting by asking Copilot specific prompts (e.g., “What time is our next appointment?”)
• Catch up on meetings if they arrive late
• Summarize Teams meeting chats 
• Take AI-powered notes during the meeting
• Source summaries, recaps, action items and other key information by asking Copilot detailed questions

Copilot for Teams offers very similar functionality to other AI companions, but from my review, it requires a bit more prompting. Where some AI assistants automatically create to-do lists or summaries, Copilot needs to be prompted to do so. 

Note that intelligent recap functionalities are limited to Teams Premium users or those who have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. 

Gemini AI Note-Taker for Google Meet

Google has its own note-taker built into Google Meet for eligible Google Workspace subscribers through Gemini AI. 

As with other AI assistants, Gemini is able to:

• Take notes on meetings
• Transcribe meetings in full 
• Catch team members up if they arrive late, using the proper prompt
• Provide a summary to the meeting organizer
• Attach post-meeting information to the Google Calendar link for all participants
• Suggest next steps following the conclusion of a meeting
• Provide key insights about a meeting, both during and following a conversation

Though Gemini is similar to Zoom and Teams AI companions, it does offer an interesting workflow with Google Calendar and Google Docs. Rather than take notes in the Google Meet chat, Gemini creates a Google Doc with the meeting summary, notes, takeaways, etc., inside. This same document is also attached to the Google Calendar link for each participant, making it easily accessible.

Comparing the Best AI Note-Taking Apps on the Market Today

As the market for AI meeting assistants grows, the amount of options at your disposal also expands. Here are some of our top picks for AI note-taking apps available today. Depending on your needs, you may use a resource as a general tool or as an AI note-taker for Teams, Google Meet, Zoom, or other platforms. 

How to Choose the Right AI Assistant 

Selecting the right tech stack isn’t just about reviews and ratings. It’s more importantly about what technology accomplishes your goals the best. For a smaller business just starting up, “best” might mean most inexpensive but usable. For a more mature business, “best” might mean the most comprehensive option, regardless of price. Here are some general guidelines to help you find the right AI meeting assistant: 

• It should be easy to use. For tech to make a difference in a company, it has to be used by as many team members as possible. With that in mind, any meeting assistant you pick should be as intuitive as possible, or at least be in step with the technological abilities of your team members. 
• It should easily integrate with current applications. Any AI assistant you choose needs to be able to integrate with your current tech stack, whether that’s a specific video-calling program or a CRM application. Otherwise, you could end up making more work for you and your team. 
• It should solve real problems. When it comes to purchasing new tools, the desire to purchase shiny new technology simply because everyone else is can eclipse a more important question: Does my business actually need this? Don’t purchase an AI tool just because the technology is interesting. Buy it only if it reduces your staff’s workload and removes real business roadblocks. 

Worried about losing your productive edge working from home? Don’t be! Download our free remote work e-book and learn 10 critical remote work tips to help you stay on top of your career. 

How to Use AI Meeting Summaries to Drive Post-Meeting Action

AI meeting companions that generate meeting summaries can give all meeting participants a major edge after the discussion: a bias toward action. Rather than ending a meeting trying to remember what you were asked to do, an AI-summary can give you step-by-step instructions on what each meeting participant’s next steps are. Here’s how.

Following a meeting, use your AI of choice to create a summary. You can typically ask the AI to build a summary, or it may complete it automatically. Then, ask the AI companion to pull out any action items for each meeting participant and place them into an email or shared document. Depending on the type of AI you use and the tech stack you’re working with, you might be able to automate this entire process. 

For example, if you’re using Gemini in Google Meet, the AI would have created a separate Google Doc with the summary and attached it to the Google Calendar event for all team members to see. If you’re using a program that has limited features, you simply send an email of the action items. You could alternatively put them into a shared online planner for everyone to access. 

Regardless of how you share the meeting summary and action items, it’s critical you communicate them clearly. Ensure everyone is aware of their expectations. Then watch your team improve follow-up skills, increase their accountability and rely on each other for project management. 

Try Using an AI Assistant in Your Next Meeting

AI meeting assistants aren’t just about reducing administrative tasks and compiling information, they’re creating a culture of clear communication, project accountability and continuing productivity. From meeting summaries, accurate transcriptions and even conversation analysis functions, AI meeting tools are powerful. They have the potential to completely change how modern teams collaborate together. 

Not sure if an AI meeting assistant is the right choice for you and your team? Try one of the free options we listed above. There’s no risk to trying a new tool, so long as it accomplishes your team’s goals and aligns with your current workflows.

Photo by Ground Picture/Shutterstock.com.