Will Holland is a Principal Software Engineer at ThreeWill, where he champions our core value of “Better Together” with his focus on helping employees thrive by building meaningful connections in the workplace. Outside of work, Will can usually be found at the nearest soccer pitch, enjoying watching his children play or rooting for Atlanta United FC.
Meetings can be the bane of productivity, especially when they feel like a waste of time. We’ve all been in those meetings where silence is only broken by the frantic typing of someone trying to capture every word. If you’ve found yourself in this scenario more than once, you’re not alone. As someone who has hosted more than a few lackluster meetings, I discovered a game-changing way to stay engaged and productive. I’ve shared this tip with coworkers and clients, and now I’m sharing it with you. But with the right tools, like Microsoft Teams, you can improve meetings and make them more effective.
Improve Meetings with Microsoft Teams by Recording Everything
Every meeting hosted in Microsoft Teams can be recorded—a feature available since Teams launched in 2017. Earlier this year, Microsoft made it even easier by adding the “Automatically Record” option when scheduling meetings. Yet, most meetings I attend still go unrecorded.
Why? Many people assume they’ll need to re-watch the entire meeting to extract notes. Thankfully, that’s not true. Microsoft Teams automatically transcribes every recorded meeting, turning spoken words into text that you can view, download, or copy into your preferred note-taking app.
So, our first step to improve meetings with Microsoft Teams, is to start recording every meeting.
You can find these transcripts in the new “Meet” app or the “Meeting Recap” feature in Microsoft Teams, shown in the image above (and which I reviewed in an earlier blog). The transcript is also available in Microsoft Stream.
Use AI to Summarize Microsoft Teams Meeting Transcripts
While the transcript is a valuable resource, it can be lengthy. If you’re like me, your conversations are filled with colorful words that make them fun but aren’t necessarily important. Plus, there’s always a lot of “ums” and “uhs.”
To streamline the process, simply copy the entire transcript (including images, names, timestamps, and text) and paste it into your preferred Generative AI solution and ask it to “summarize the meeting transcript and list any action items assigned” and, within second, you’ll have a concise summary and a list of action items.
So that you can see the fidelity of the results you can expect, I’ll share the response from my alliance meeting below. However, I can also confirm that they’re incredibly accurate.
Generative AI Solutions
Before closing this blog out, I want to be sure that you have access to the best tools available. I’ll start with the free options and then discuss the premium solutions available in Microsoft 365.
Free AI Options
- ChatGPT: A popular, free AI tool accessible to anyone with an email address. Even earlier versions of ChatGPT provide effective results.
- Bing Chat with CoPilot: Available for free if you’re signed in with your Microsoft 365 email. It offers limited access to your files and meetings, but I’ve found copy-pasting the transcript yields the best results.
Premium AI Options
- Microsoft 365 CoPilot: A premium AI assistant powered by the same OpenAI technology as ChatGPT. It understands your Microsoft 365 content, including recorded meeting transcripts. CoPilot can summarize meetings in real-time, even while you’re still in the meeting.
- Teams Premium AI Notetaker: This feature automatically generates a summary and action items post-meeting, eliminating the need for manual copy-pasting. It integrates seamlessly with the Meeting Recap feature in Teams.
Ready to Improve Your Meetings?
I love it when a meeting goes well. Unfortunately, there are plenty of ways they can go wrong, leaving everyone feeling like they’ve wasted time. While recording your meetings and leveraging AI won’t solve every issue, it can certainly reduce the amount of dead air and eliminate those momentum-killing pauses.
Who doesn’t love that?
If you’re tired of unproductive meetings, we’ve got more tips to share, so contact us today!
