Meeting-to-Memo

What this is for

The meeting ended an hour ago, three people already have different memories of what was decided, and nobody wrote anything down. This turns a transcript or recording into a memo that settles the record before it gets rewritten by whoever emails first.

Before you start

• Get the transcript. If you don't already have one recorded, see the tool list below before your next meeting.
• Two lines of ground rules that outrank everything else here. Consent: recording laws vary; several US states require all parties to consent, and a note-taker bot joining a client call without warning is a consent and trust problem even where it's legal. Announce recording, every time. Confidentiality: a transcript is the densest work product you'll ever paste anywhere: names, numbers, candor. If your company licenses an AI tool, use that one for transcripts; if you're pasting into a personal account, strip client names and sensitive figures first, per the same rules as the One-Page AI Policy.

Where transcripts come from

• Otter.ai: Connect your Google or Microsoft calendar once, then turn auto-join on in your meeting settings; Otter Notetaker joins the call and transcribes it. Export from the conversation page through the three-dot menu. Check your plan first: the free tier exports plain text only, and DOCX, PDF and SRT need a paid one.
• Granola: Runs locally during the call, no bot joins the meeting. After the call, open the note in Granola and copy the transcript.
• Microsoft Teams: Organizer turns on "Record and transcribe" before starting. Afterward, open the meeting chat, go to the Recap tab, then Transcript, and download it as .docx or .vtt. Worth knowing before you rely on it: only the organizer and co-organizers can download by default, so if you ran the meeting but did not schedule it, ask whoever did.
• Zoom: In your web account Settings, on the Recording tab, open Advanced cloud recording settings and turn on "Create audio transcript" before the call. This is a separate toggle from the AI Companion meeting summary, which is a summary rather than a transcript. After, the transcript sits with the recording in the Zoom web portal.

If your meetings are consistently one platform, turn on auto-transcription by default rather than remembering each time.

One sizing note, because it's the silent failure mode: a 60-minute meeting is roughly 7,000-10,000 words of transcript, and a 90-minute one can push 15,000. Mainstream chat tools swallow that without complaint, but if you paste a marathon session plus attachments and the memo's decisions all come from the first hour, suspect truncation: the tool quietly dropped the tail, which is where the real decisions usually happen. Whichever tool you use, if the meeting ran long, check that the last agenda item made it into the memo before you send it.

The memo prompt

Either model; Claude if the transcript is long.

ROLE: You are an executive assistant turning a meeting transcript into
a one-page decision memo.
CONTEXT: Below is the raw transcript from a meeting about [TOPIC, e.g.
Q3 hiring plan]. Attendees: [NAMES OR ROLES, e.g. me, VP Sales, VP
Eng, Finance lead].
TRANSCRIPT:
[PASTE FULL TRANSCRIPT]
CONSTRAINTS:
- Only record a decision if the transcript shows actual agreement, not
  just discussion. If people talked about something but didn't decide,
  put it in Open Questions, not Decisions.
- For every decision, name an owner. If the transcript doesn't state
  one clearly, write "owner unclear, needs confirmation" rather than
  guessing who it was.
- Include a section for what was implied but never said outright. For
  example, if two people hesitated on a date or a budget number
  without objecting out loud, that's worth surfacing, not smoothing
  over.
- Do not editorialize on whether decisions were good ones.
OUTPUT FORMAT: One page with four sections: Decisions Made (with owner
and date for each), Open Questions, Implied But Not Said, and Next
Meeting or Deadline (if mentioned).

What the output should look like

A trimmed real-shape example, so you know what "good" is before you run it:

Q3 Hiring Plan: Decision Memo (June 12)

Decisions Made

1. Backfill the senior AE role before opening the new SDR seats. Owner: VP Sales. Offer out by July 3.
2. Engineering's two open reqs shift from staff level to senior level to fit the revised budget. Owner: VP Eng. Reqs updated this week.
3. Q3 contractor budget frozen except the data migration project. Owner: unclear, needs confirmation (Finance raised it; no one accepted it).

Open Questions

• Whether the SDR seats open in September or wait for Q4 planning. Discussed 20 minutes, no agreement.

Implied But Not Said

• When the July 3 offer date came up, VP Sales said "we can try" twice and moved on. Nobody committed to the date out loud.
• Finance mentioned the revised budget "assumes no churn surprises" and no one engaged with the assumption.

Next Meeting: June 26, same group, SDR timing on the agenda.

That third section is why this memo gets forwarded. Anyone can list decisions; the hedge on the offer date and the unowned budget assumption are what someone with 25 years in rooms like that actually hears, and the prompt makes the AI surface the raw material for it. Cut anything in that section your own judgment says was really nothing; that's your call, not the transcript's.

The follow-up prompt: drafting the send-out email

Either model, using the memo output from above.

ROLE: You are drafting the email that sends this decision memo to
attendees.
CONTEXT: Here is the memo: [PASTE MEMO FROM ABOVE]. Recipients:
[LIST, e.g. same attendees plus my manager, who wasn't on the call].
Tone should be neutral and factual. This is a record, not a pitch.
CONSTRAINTS: Open with the single most important decision, not a
recap of the whole meeting. Keep the email itself short; the memo is
the attachment or the body below the fold, not the opening paragraph.
If anyone who wasn't on the call is receiving this, add one sentence
of context they'd need that attendees wouldn't.
OUTPUT FORMAT: A subject line and an email body under 150 words, with
the full memo pasted below a line break for reference.

When someone disputes the memo

It'll happen, and it's the memo working: the disagreement surfaced in day one instead of week three. The reply prompt:

ROLE: You are helping me respond to a colleague who disputes one item
in a decision memo I sent.
CONTEXT: The disputed item: [PASTE IT]. What they claim: [THEIR
VERSION]. What the transcript shows: [PASTE THE RELEVANT TRANSCRIPT
LINES].
CONSTRAINTS: The goal is an accurate record, not winning. If the
transcript supports them, the reply concedes and corrects the memo.
If it supports the memo, the reply quotes the exact lines neutrally
and offers to put the item on the next agenda if they think the
decision itself should be reopened. No sarcasm, no "as you can see."
OUTPUT FORMAT: A 3-5 sentence reply, plus the corrected memo line if
a correction is warranted.

Getting it right

• Check that each "decision" was really decided. The AI can record the loudest opinion in the room as a decision; transcripts don't capture who actually had authority to decide. Read the Decisions section against your own memory before sending; cut anything that wasn't really settled.
• Assign every owner before it goes out. A missing owner goes unnoticed until the deadline passes. If the prompt flags "owner unclear," don't leave it that way in the final memo. Ping the room or decide yourself.
• Send it to who's affected, not just who attended. The people who need the decision most are often the ones who weren't in the room.
• Announce the recording every time. The one time a client learns mid-quarter that their calls were being transcribed is the last transcript you'll get from them.

The 2-minute version

Announce the recording, export the transcript, paste it into the memo prompt. Check decisions and owners against your own memory, and keep the Implied But Not Said section honest. Run the follow-up prompt and send same day.

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More where this came from. The resource library has 24 free guides like this one, written for people with real careers rather than developers.

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