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Week 3 · Guide 2 of 6

Prompting

Turn Your Meeting Transcripts Into Something Useful

Field Guide

  • 20–30 minGuided walkthrough

A transcript gives your agent the whole meeting, not only the lines you managed to write down. In this guide you'll turn one of your meetings, from its transcript or from your notes if you can't record, into what you need from it: the decisions, the action items, a summary or a follow-up email.

You’ll leave with

The decisions and action items from a real meeting, each checked against what was said, a summary or follow-up email ready to send, and prompts to run after your next meeting.

What You Need for This Guide

  • A recent meeting you were in, and its transcript, your notes or what you remember of it.
  • For a transcript, permission: everyone in the meeting knew it was being recorded, and your organization's rules allow you to use it with your AI tool.
  • Your approved AI tool, and your Safety & Security Rules if you've saved them.

Build Your Safety & Security Rules

Choose the tool you’re allowed to use

Your approved tool

The tool your company approved.

Pick your approved tool above to see the steps and screenshots for it.

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Standard Data rules for AI at work

Data Rules

Data rules for AI at work

Check with your IT Team before you paste any work data into an AI tool. Avoid names, account numbers, customer data, or anything sensitive without explicit permission from IT. If you aren't sure, redact anything sensitive and replace it with generic information. AI makes mistakes, make sure to fact check your agents outputs even if they sound right.

Before you start

  • Check with your IT teamAsk what your company allows before you put anything from work into an AI tool. Your company policy is the one that counts, and it is the one this library cannot see.
  • Use the tool your company approvedChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and Gemini are all covered here. Use the one your company approved, not the one you like best.
  • Sign in with your work accountA work account keeps your chats inside the agreement your company signed. A personal account in the same product sits outside it.
  • Connected appsAn email or file connection your IT team approved can read the names and addresses in what it opens. Everything else under “Never put this into an AI tool” still applies.
  • No approved account yetFollow the steps with made-up example text, or on paper, until IT gives you one.

Never put this into an AI tool

  • Customer or personal detailsNo names, email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses or account numbers. That covers colleagues as well as customers.
  • Regulated recordsHealth, financial, HR and legal records stay in the systems built to hold them, unless IT has told you in writing that this tool may see them.
  • Passwords, keys and access codesNo credentials of any kind, yours or anyone else’s, and nothing that grants access to a system.
  • Anything under an NDA or not yet publicUnreleased plans, contracts, pricing and source code need clearance before they go near a chat window.
  • Anything your company policy prohibitsYour company’s rules win over anything in this library. If policy keeps something out of AI tools, it stays out, whatever a guide suggests.

Do this instead

  • Swap real details for placeholdersWrite “Customer A”, “[client name]”, “$X”. You get the same quality of answer, and you put the real details back yourself.
  • Describe the situation rather than pasting the documentMost of what an agent needs is the shape of the problem, not the file it arrived in.
  • Trim a file before you upload or paste itTake out the identifying columns and pages first, or work from a short extract.

Check the answer before you use it

  • Read it as if a colleague had drafted itAn agent states wrong things with complete confidence. Your name goes on the work, so the check is yours.
  • Say where the agent helpedFollow your company rule on disclosing AI assistance, especially in client-facing or formal work.

When you are not sure

  • Ask before you paste or upload, not afterA question to your IT team takes a minute. Cleaning up after a data incident takes a great deal longer.
  • When in doubt, leave it outIf you would not put it in an email to someone outside the company, keep it out of the chat.

On this guide

  • Recording a meetingRecord and transcribe a meeting only where your organization's rules allow it, and tell everyone at the start that it's being recorded.
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Step

Get the transcript, or your notes

If you don't already transcribe your meetings, start where you're allowed to. A transcript holds everything that was said, so your agent can find the decisions and commitments your notes missed.

  1. Choose a recent meeting where something was decided or someone agreed to do something, such as:

    • A weekly team meeting or project check-in
    • A call with a customer, a supplier or another team
    • A planning session that ended with next steps
    • Outside work, a school, club or volunteer committee meeting

  2. Use its transcript only if everyone in the meeting knew it was being recorded and your organization's rules allow you to use it with your AI tool. If you're not sure, ask your manager or IT team, and work from your notes for now.

  3. Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Slack and most other meeting apps can record or transcribe a meeting, where your organization has turned that on. Get the transcript from your meeting app as a file, or copy its text. If you can't find it, ask whoever ran the meeting.

  4. No transcript? Use your notes from the meeting, or a summary your meeting app wrote. It works, but not as well, because your agent can only see what was written down. If you have neither, write down now what you remember: what was decided, who agreed to do what and by when, and what's still open.

Step

Ask your agent for the decisions and action items

  1. A transcript, like your notes, is work information full of other people's words, so check the data rules and your Safety & Security Rules before your agent sees it, and follow every one of them.

    Make a copy first, as a Word document or a plain text file. In the copy, use Find and Replace to change each person's name to their role, such as Project lead or Speaker 2, including first names and names said in passing. Take out any part the rules keep out. You can skip this step if your organization allows the use of names inside your AI tool.

    A connector reads the whole transcript, names included. Use one only if your IT team approved it for this, and only for a meeting where nothing the data rules keep out was discussed. Otherwise, prepare a copy this way.

  2. Open a new chat in your agent's Project or Notebook, or a new chat with your Safety & Security Rules attached if you've saved them. Copy the prompt below and fill in its Meeting line. On its last line, paste your prepared copy or your notes, or attach the copy and write attached. Then send it.

    Find the decisions and action items in my meeting
    Download
    Read the transcript or notes from my meeting below. Use only what they say. Do not use other files, earlier conversations or outside information, and do not fill gaps with guesses.

Meeting: [what the meeting was and when, such as: weekly project check-in, October 19]

Give me three lists, numbering the items in one sequence through all three so I can refer to any item by its number:

DECISIONS: each decision the meeting made, in one sentence.

ACTION ITEMS: each task someone agreed to do, with its owner and its due date as it was said. Where the transcript doesn't name an owner or a date, write "Owner not named" or "No date set".

OPEN QUESTIONS: anything discussed but not settled, left for later, or suggested without anyone agreeing to it.

Under each item, quote word for word the line that shows it was decided or agreed, with the speaker and time if the transcript shows them. For an open question, quote the line where it came up. If you aren't sure whether something was agreed or only suggested, put it under OPEN QUESTIONS and say why.

If I asked you to find the transcript through a connector, first tell me which meeting and date you opened, and stop if it doesn't match my Meeting line. If you can't see a transcript or notes, or they look cut off, tell me and stop.

Transcript or notes:
[paste the transcript or your notes here, or write: attached, or: find it through my connector]

  3. The reply should give you three lists, decisions, action items with an owner and a due date, and open questions, numbered in one sequence, each item with the line it comes from. Keep this chat open for steps 3 and 4.

Step

Check each item against what was said

A transcript records every idea, including the ones nobody agreed to, and an agent can read a suggestion as a decision. Check the list before you use it.

  1. For each decision and action item, search the transcript or your notes for a few words of its quoted line, and check that the line says what the item says. If your agent found the transcript through a connector, open it in your meeting app to search it. A line such as “we could try Friday” is a suggestion until someone agrees to it, and “I'll look into it” is a promise to look.

  2. Check each owner and due date. Where the transcript doesn't name one, the item should say Owner not named or No date set. Transcription can mishear names, numbers and dates, so check any that look wrong against what you remember, or ask someone who was there.

  3. Tell the agent in the same chat about anything that doesn't hold up, by its number, such as “Move item 4 to open questions, because nobody agreed to it.” Then check its corrected list the same way.

Step

Turn it into what you need

In the same chat, ask for what you need next.

  1. For someone who missed the meeting, or for your own records, fill in who the summary is for and send it.

    Summarize my meeting
    Using my meeting's transcript or notes and the checked list in this chat, write a short summary of the meeting for [who it's for, such as: my manager, who missed it].

Start with the decisions, then the action items with their owners and due dates, then the open questions. Keep it under 150 words. Use only what the transcript and the list say, and add nothing new. Where they differ, follow the checked list. Where something is unconfirmed, write [CHECK: what's missing] instead of guessing.

  2. To follow up with everyone who attended, send the email prompt instead, or as well.

    Draft a follow-up email from my meeting
    Download
    Using my meeting's transcript or notes and the checked list in this chat, draft a follow-up email from me to everyone who attended. If my Communication Style Guide is in this chat, write it in my voice.

Open with one line of thanks, then list the decisions, each action item with its owner and due date, and the open questions. Keep it short. Use only what the transcript and the list say, and add nothing new. Where they differ, follow the checked list. Where something is unconfirmed, write [CHECK: what's missing] instead of guessing.

Do not send the email or save it anywhere. I'll check it and send it myself.

  3. Check the draft against your checked list. Every decision, owner and date should match it, and each [CHECK] needs your answer or comes out. Copy it into your email or message app, put the real names back, and send it yourself.

Need something else from the meeting, such as the risks people raised or questions for next time? Ask in the same chat, and say who it's for.

Step

Make it a habit after every meeting

  1. Download the decisions and action items prompt from step 2 and the follow-up email prompt from step 4 into My Agent Files, or another folder you can find again. Edit your copies to fit your meetings, such as your team's usual format, and replace the meeting details each time you use them.

  2. Set up a system for your regular meetings: turn on transcription where your organization allows it, say at the start that the meeting is being recorded, and know where your meeting app keeps the transcripts. Your agent can help you far more when it knows everything that went on in a meeting, instead of your rough notes.

  3. After your next meeting, prepare its transcript as in step 2, run the step 2 prompt in a new chat the same day, check the list, and send the follow-up while everyone still remembers what they agreed.

Turn Your Meeting Transcripts Into Something Useful

Confirm your result

Confirm the outcomes below to finish this guide.

Final checks

You have the decisions and action items from one of your meetings, with an owner and due date for each action item or a note that none was set, and you've checked every item against the line it came from.

You have a summary or follow-up email from that meeting, checked against your list, and you've sent it yourself or saved it where you'll use it.

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