Use Zoom's AI to Capture Meeting Summaries and Action Items

What This Does

Zoom AI automatically transcribes your financial review meetings and generates a summary with key decisions and action items, so you can focus on the conversation instead of furiously taking notes. For business reviews, budget meetings, and close-week calls, this saves 20-45 minutes of note-taking and follow-up documentation per meeting.

Before You Start

• You have a paid Zoom account (Pro, Business, or Enterprise). Meeting summary is included with eligible paid Zoom Workplace plans, not the free plan, though Zoom's free ZoomMate Basic add-on covers 3 hosted meetings per month.
• Your Zoom admin has enabled Zoom's AI features (check with your IT/M365 admin if unsure)
• You're the meeting host or have recording permissions
• Meeting participants have been informed that AI transcription is on (check your company's AI usage policy)

Steps

1. Turn on meeting summaries in your Zoom settings

Do this once before your next meeting. Zoom used to group these features under the name "AI Companion" and dropped that brand in 2026, so older help articles and colleagues may still use the old term.

1. Go to zoom.us in your browser and sign in
2. Click "Settings" in the left sidebar
3. Scroll to the AI section
4. Turn on automatic meeting summaries
5. Turn on in-meeting questions (optional but useful)

What you should see: The controls switch to the enabled state. Troubleshooting: If you can't turn these on, they may be controlled by your company's Zoom admin. Send them a request to enable meeting summaries for your account.

2. Start a Zoom meeting and activate the meeting summary

1. Start or join a Zoom meeting as host
2. Hover over the AI icon in the Zoom toolbar at the bottom of the screen (it looks like a sparkle icon)
3. Tick the Meeting summary checkbox, then click Start Zoom AI
4. A banner appears for all participants indicating that the meeting is being summarized

What you should see: A notification in the meeting that the summary has started. Participants will see this banner.

3. Run your meeting normally

You don't need to do anything special during the meeting. Zoom AI works in the background:

• It transcribes all spoken content
• It identifies when decisions are made
• It flags action items (especially when someone says "I'll take care of that" or "Can you send me...?" or "By Friday...")

For financial review meetings, the AI is particularly good at capturing:

• Budget decisions and approval amounts
• Forecast changes discussed
• Action items with owners and deadlines
• Questions that were raised but need follow-up

4. Review and share the summary after the meeting

1. When the meeting ends, Zoom sends the meeting host an email with the summary
2. The summary also appears in the Zoom web portal under "Recordings", in the AI summaries section
3. Review the summary. It typically includes:

• A 1-paragraph overview of what was discussed
• Key topics (with timestamps to the transcript)
• Action items with suggested owners

1. Edit as needed and email to attendees as the meeting follow-up

What you should see: A well-structured meeting summary email within a few minutes of the meeting ending.

Real Example

Scenario: Your 90-minute quarterly business review has 12 people: 4 finance team members and 8 business unit leaders. Decisions get made verbally, commitments are given, and follow-up items are created. Historically, you've spent 30 minutes after the meeting writing up the recap email.

What you do: Start the meeting summary at the beginning of the meeting. Focus entirely on the discussion.

What you get: A summary email within 5 minutes of the call ending, including:

• "Decision: Q2 reforecast will assume West region recovery of 80% of the pipeline slip"
• "Action item: Sarah (Finance) will send updated template to all BU heads by Friday"
• "Action item: Marcus (Sales) will confirm Q2 deal close dates by EOW"
• "Follow-up needed: IT CapEx variance explanation to be provided by John in next week's close review"

You review, add any missed items, and forward to the group in under 10 minutes instead of 30.

Tips

• Tell Zoom AI your agenda topics at the start of the meeting: "Today we're covering March close, Q2 reforecast, and the CapEx budget." This helps it organize the summary by topic.
• For sensitive meetings (e.g., discussions about headcount or M&A), check your company policy before enabling AI transcription
• If you use Microsoft Teams instead of Zoom, Copilot in Teams works the same way. Start transcription from the meeting controls, then use the Recap tab in the meeting details afterward (needs Copilot access on your account; most organizations buy the add-on, smaller ones may have free basic access; ask IT if you're not sure).

Tool interfaces change. If a button has moved, look for similar AI/magic/smart options in the same menu area.