Do You Still Need to Take Notes in Meetings?
Weekly Wheaties #2617
In this newsletter:
📝 Post: Do You Still Need to Take Notes in Meetings?
🗞️ In Case You Missed It: AI Reshaping the Future
🗞️ In Case You Missed It: Ecosystem Shift and the Future Headlines
😎 Pick of the Week: Unique Travel Picks
📦 Featured Product: Plaud Note
📝 Do You Still Need to Take Notes in Meetings?
Last week I talked about organizing your life (including your notes). But what if you don’t like to (or can’t) take notes in every meeting or for every conversation you have? Surely there’s an app or AI bot that can do this for me, right? Put simply - yes! There are plenty! Many of them have time limits or a subscription fee associated with them, but they all do similar things with unique features.
Before we talk about specifics, ask yourself a few questions. Do you never look at your notes after a meeting? Do you forget what you just agreed to? Do you not know what the action items are for the group? Do you still want to take notes? Will you have your computer with you, or just a phone? What if there were an app that allowed you to never have to take notes again?
There are plenty of apps that do this and a lot more. A few things they can do include: record conversations, transcription, summarize key points with action items and follow-ups, and potentially make everything searchable. Many can do this within your calling app of choice (Teams, Zoom, Meet, etc) by joining as a silent participant, or simply by uploading an audio file. Not all are equal though, and some even have other unique features.
This is not an exhaustive list but does include many of the major players in this space. They include:
When using these apps, it’s important to understand that there should be a potential shift in the way you now attend meetings. Meaning… if there is an AI bot (software in this case) to help capture all the notes, that means you can now stay present in the conversation. Rather than putting your cognitive workload towards capturing everything, your focus and attention can be on the other people in the meeting. You are now able to think and respond in real time, rather than be delayed due to capturing notes.
There are, however, a few potential downsides. For example, rather than spending time responding and being actively engages, some may accidently wonder off. This passive consumption may also lead to less retention of important information since writing reinforces memory. As these tools are used more and more, our reliance on them may bring a fals sense of understanding. Lastly, AI can’t “read the room” as far as human behavior is concerned and may miss something everyone else sees.
So where’s the sweet spot here? Wel, potentially you should still take notes, but only the absolute necessary action items or things that should not be missed. It would also be beneficial to immediately review any AI summary and compare what is/isn’t listed. As you edit and make notes, this may help with any lost retention.
Other tradeoffs here may be based on the tool of choice. For example, some of these tools have an “AI bot” that joins your meeting and may cause others on the call to feel awkward. People may also not say something simply because there’s a note taking bot on the call and they may want something off the record or just simply not captured. These tools are also a bit overkill for quick notes and may be less useful outside of scheduled meetings.
While the technology and ability of these tools allows us to be more present while also capturing things we may have originally missed, the difference between recording information and building knowledge still exists. On the other hand, if you’re taking notes and not acting on them or making them part of your larger knowledge data base, what good are they?
What note taking tools are you using?
🗞️ ICYMI: AI Reshaping the Future
OpenAI is still moving forward as they announced GPT-5.5, its latest artificial intelligence model and introduced ChatGPT for Clinicians, a free version of ChatGPT designed for clinical work. However, there is caution or concerns with the escalated updates in this space. The White House accused China of ‘industrial-scale’ theft of AI technology.
As the LLMs are improving, we’re also beginning to see how this affects the professional landscape. Microsoft Offers Its First Ever Buyouts to Shape Workforce Around AI Push. They’re not the only company looking to go lean, either. Meta is planning to cut 8,000 jobs as it charges into AI. In what seems to be the dystopian future coming into play, they also Put Keystroke Loggers on Employee Computers. Meta claims this is to help train their AI models, but with the announcement to minimize the workforce, employees are pushing back.
🗞️ ICYMI: Ecosystem Shift and the Future Headlines
Apple chooses Amazon satellites for iPhone, years after rejecting Starlink offer
Instagram ‘Instants’ app launches, and it’s basically Snapchat
Who Is John Ternus? Meet the Incoming Apple CEO Set to Succeed Tim Cook
😎 POTW: Unique Travel Picks
How about some unique travel picks from the city of New York to the National Parks across the US and famous places across the globe.
📦 Featured Product
If you don’t like to take physical notes or don’t want to use your phone or computer as a recording device, perhaps a separate physical device designed just to do that would help? Two devices that use the same ecosystem and apps include the Plaud Note Pro and the Plaud NotePin. The Note Pro is more of a credit card sized device meant to be used intentionally and records better in larger rooms and meeting spaces. It has a longer battery life and more microphones to capture more audio. The Plaud NotePin is more of a wearable meant to be easily accessible at all times. Both devices transcribe meetings or conversations and generate summaries that you can interact with through an LLM-style chat interface.
