Summarize Meeting Notes with AI

You just left a meeting with 3 pages of scattered notes. Your team needs a clear summary with action items. AI turns that mess into a structured document in seconds.

The Quick Recipe

1. Copy your raw meeting notes (from any app) with Cmd+C
2. Press your Chapeta hotkey
3. Type: “Read my clipboard. Extract: 1) Key decisions made, 2) Action items with owners, 3) Open questions, 4) Next steps. Format as clean markdown.”
4. Copy the output to your notes app or share it with the team

From Raw Notes to Structured Summary

Here is what AI does with typical raw notes:

Your input (messy, incomplete):

discussed Q2 targets - sarah said we need 15% growth
john mentioned budget constraints - maybe push feature X to Q3
need to hire 2 more devs - alice will handle recruiting
deadline for MVP is march 15
bob raised concern about tech debt

AI output (structured):

Decisions:

• Q2 growth target set at 15%
• Feature X pushed to Q3 due to budget constraints
• MVP deadline: March 15

Action Items:

• Alice: Begin recruiting for 2 developer positions
• Bob: Document tech debt concerns for next meeting

Open Questions:

• How to address tech debt while meeting MVP deadline
• Specific budget allocation for new hires

Next Steps:

• Follow-up meeting needed on tech debt prioritization

Advanced Variations

Save to File

“Read my clipboard notes. Create a structured summary and save it to ~/Documents/meetings/2026-02-11-standup.md”

Email the Summary

“Read my clipboard notes. Create a structured summary. Then write a brief email with the summary to my clipboard, ready to send to the team.”

Extract Only Action Items

“Read my clipboard notes. Extract ONLY the action items with owners and deadlines. Ignore everything else.”

Compare with Previous Meeting

“Read my clipboard notes from today’s meeting. Also read ~/Documents/meetings/last-week.md. What progress was made on last week’s action items?”

Using Skills for Consistent Format

Create a meeting notes skill:

Name: Meeting Notes
System Prompt: Process meeting notes from clipboard. Extract and format:
## Decisions
Bullet list of decisions made.
## Action Items
- [ ] Owner: Task (deadline if mentioned)
## Discussion Points
Key topics discussed, 1-2 sentences each.
## Open Questions
Items that need follow-up.
## Next Meeting
Suggested agenda items for next time.
Tools: Clipboard Read, Clipboard Write, File Write

Now every meeting summary follows the same format. Invoke the skill, and your notes are processed consistently every time.

Working with Recorded Meetings

If you have meeting transcripts (from Otter, Zoom, or similar tools):

“Read the file at ~/Downloads/meeting-transcript.txt. This is a raw meeting transcript. Extract the key decisions, action items, and summarize the discussion in 500 words.”

Transcripts are often 5,000+ words. AI condenses them to the essential points.

Tips

• Be specific about format: “Markdown with headers” produces better output than “summarize”
• Include attendee names: If your notes mention who said what, the AI can attribute action items accurately
• Process immediately: Fresh context means more accurate summaries. Do not wait until next week
• Use a consistent skill: The same format for every meeting makes summaries scannable

Limitations

AI summarization works best when the raw notes contain enough signal. Very sparse notes (“discussed budget”) do not give the AI enough to work with. The AI also cannot fill in details that were not captured. If an important decision was made verbally but not written down, it will not appear in the summary. For best results, take notes that capture the what, who, and when, even if they are messy.