How to Use AI to Take Meeting Notes and Create Action Items

Applies to: Microsoft Teams, Copilot for Microsoft 365
Article Type: How-To
Last Updated: 2026-07-10

Summary

Taking notes while trying to participate in a meeting is exhausting. If your company uses Copilot for Microsoft 365, you can have AI listen to the meeting, write the notes, and generate a list of action items for everyone who attended.

Prerequisites

• A Copilot for Microsoft 365 license
• The meeting must be held in Microsoft Teams
• Transcription must be turned on during the meeting

Instructions

1. Turn on Transcription During the Meeting

Copilot relies entirely on the meeting transcript. If the transcript is off, Copilot is blind and deaf to what happened.

1. Once you join the Teams meeting, click More (the three dots) in the top menu bar.
2. Select Record and transcribe > Start transcription.
3. A notification will appear for all participants stating that transcription has started.
4. Optional: You can also select Start recording if you want the video as well, but recording is not strictly required for Copilot — only transcription is.

INFO

If you don't see the option to start transcription, your IT team may have disabled it for compliance reasons, or you joined as a guest. The meeting organizer can always start it.

2. Use Copilot During the Meeting

You don't have to wait for the meeting to end. You can ask Copilot to catch you up or track tasks live.

1. Click the Copilot icon in the top menu bar of the Teams meeting.
2. The Copilot pane opens on the right side. Only you can see what you type here.
3. Try these prompts while the meeting is happening:
   • Summarize the meeting so far (great if you joined 10 minutes late)
   • What action items have been assigned?
   • List the pros and cons of the marketing strategy we discussed
   • What questions remain unresolved?

3. Generate Official Notes After the Meeting

Once the meeting ends, use Copilot to generate the final notes you can email to the team.

1. Open Teams and go to the Chat tab.
2. Find the chat thread for the meeting you had.
3. Click the Recap tab at the top.
4. Teams automatically provides a summary, but for formal notes, click the Copilot tab next to it.
5. Type this prompt: Write a professional meeting recap. Include a brief executive summary, the main discussion points with bullet points, and a table of action items showing the task and the person assigned.
6. Press Enter.
7. Copilot will generate the notes based on the transcript.
8. Click the Copy icon at the bottom of Copilot's response to paste it into an email or Word document.

4. Fix Mistakes (The Human Review)

Copilot is highly accurate, but it struggles with people talking over each other or thick accents.

1. Always read the notes before sending them.
2. Check that the action items are assigned to the right people. "Someone needs to fix the server" might get assigned to the person who spoke the sentence, rather than the IT person on the call.
3. Check industry acronyms — Copilot might misspell technical terms unique to your company.

Troubleshooting

Symptom / Error	Potential Cause	Solution
"Copilot cannot be used right now"	Transcription is off	Start transcription from the More menu during the meeting
Notes are missing the first 10 minutes	Transcription started late	Copilot only knows what happened after transcription was turned on
Action items are assigned to the wrong people	AI misinterpretation	Manually correct the names before sending the notes
Copilot is grayed out in the meeting	License issue or meeting type	Verify you have a Copilot license; some external meetings restrict AI tools

Related Articles

• How to Use Copilot to Summarize Emails, Documents, and Meetings
• How to Write Effective AI Prompts for Office Work
• Understanding AI-Generated Content at Work — What You Can and Can't Trust

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