rethink your priors
Should we use AI to summarize every meeting?
The short answer
Maybe, but first ask what decision the meeting exists to make. AI meeting notes are cheap now, so it's tempting to record and summarize everything. That produces a lot of tidy text that nobody reads. The best meeting summary is no meeting. If a meeting exists to share status, a written update can replace it. If it exists to make a decision, write down the decision, the owner and the date, and skip the transcript. Keep the meetings where people actually need to think together, and capture what was decided rather than everything that was said. Automating a meeting that shouldn't happen just makes a pointless meeting more efficient. Start from the outcome of the meeting, then decide whether it needs a summary, a document or a cancellation. The calendar invite is not the outcome.
Outcome first
- Ask what decision the meeting is for.
- Then maybe delete it.
Want this applied to your actual workflow? That part isn't a cartoon. Work with Eduardo. Longer writing: The Compounding Founder.