AI Etiquette: 7 Expert Tips for Using AI Meeting Assistants

Whenever a new piece of technology comes along, there’s inevitably an adjustment phase. AI note takers, also known as AI meeting assistants, are no exception.

Recently, there’s been a slew of columns, news articles, and LinkedIn buzz about the wave of AI assistants that have been popping up at meetings. For example, Tim Duggan wrote for The Sydney Morning Herald that we need to take a moment to think about how we’re introducing AI note takers before simply piling them into meetings.

“I’m all for adopting useful new technologies, but there are both ethical and legal questions we need to address,” he wrote.

Add to that, a column in Bloomberg, another in the Wall Street Journal, and thoughts on LinkedIn like this from founder Dr. Jim Wagstaff.

We also interviewed Katrina Ingram, the founder of Ethically Aligned AI, an Edmonton-based consultancy that helps organizations make better choices when onboarding AI technology. 

“Because it’s so new and it seems like overnight we now have this new capability, people are still really trying to navigate that,” says Katrina. 

The ubiquity of these posts shows that AI note takers aren’t just a trend — they’re one of the most useful tools recently developed for the workplace. With an AI note taker, meeting attendees are finally relieved from the burden of manual note-taking, freeing them up to fully participate in a meeting. By recording, transcribing, and summarizing meetings, AI meeting assistants create a reliable, searchable record of every call, keeping attendees informed and accountable.

However, AI meeting assistants also raise ethical and etiquette questions and, at Fellow, we’re not afraid to address them head-on.

AI meeting assistant etiquette checklist

Here, we’ll go over some do’s and don’ts for using an AI note taker. Follow these to ensure the comfort, security, and confidentiality of your meeting attendees while still taking advantage of these tools. This is a great resource to forward to your team members if you’ve just adopted a new AI note taker. Along the way, we’ll hear from AI and ethics experts.

1. DO: Ask to start recording, especially if it’s your first meeting

Our first etiquette tip is to never simply have your AI meeting assistant join and start recording without an explanation or getting consent.

There are two reasons for this. First — it’s just polite! If someone would prefer not to be recorded, whether for personal comfort or because a sensitive topic will be discussed, they should be given a chance to opt out. 

Second, there’s a legal issue here. In some regions, recording requires consent from all parties involved.

So, the best course of action is to clearly ask, “Is it okay if my AI meeting assistant attends this call?”

In the same vein, be on on time for your meetings so your fellow attendees are just sitting and staring at your bot. Katrina remembers the first time this happened to her, and it was rather confusing.

“It was actually kind of funny because the bot went there to the meeting first before the person showed up, and I said hello to it,” she says. “And I’m like, oh, wait a minute, I think I just said hello to a bot.”

Although you may be used to your bot, remember that for others this may be their first time encountering an AI meeting assistant.

“Imagine if this were real life and we were meeting at a coffee shop. Instead of you showing up, some random stranger shows up that I don’t know who they are, and they sit down at the table. They don’t really have the capacity to introduce themselves so they just kind of show up,” says Katrina.

“That would be super weird, right? We would not do that to someone.”

This may change over time, though. Perhaps in 10 years, says Katrina, bots in meetings will be such a no-big-deal move that disclosures won’t be necessary. Likewise, if your organization uses an AI meeting assistant for all your internal meetings, at some point everyone will be comfortable and simply expect a bot to arrive.

“But right now we’re in a moment where things are still really new. So it’s a courtesy to have that conversation with people and to legitimately give them the opt out,” says Katrina.

2. DO: Explain what the bot does and why it’s useful

Once you’ve introduced your AI meeting assistant, the natural next question is going to be what it does. You should be prepared to answer that question.

At the most basic level, you can explain that your bot is going to record the meeting and create a transcript and summary of the discussion. You can say how this will be helpful in remembering what was said, eliminating the need for manual notes, and keeping track of action items. And, best of all, your fellow attendees can get the recap, too.

Most people just want to be informed about what your app is doing. They may also want to know what will happen to that meeting data. With Fellow, for example, it will be placed in a secure meeting library and only attendees will have access to it.

3. DON’T: Use an AI note taker if you’re not sure it’s secure

An AI meeting assistant has the privilege of listening in on your company’s most important discussions — therefore, making sure they’re secure is paramount.

Our next tip is that you shouldn’t sign up for and bring an AI meeting assistant to meetings without first ensuring that it’s secure. Ideally, that means your IT department has assessed and approved a particular AI note taker for company-wide use.

We wrote a guide for what security and privacy measures to look for in an AI meeting assistant, along with a downloadable security checklist.

At a minimum, a secure AI note taker should:

• Not use meeting data to train its AI
• Be SOC II and GDPR ready, as well as HIPAA compliant if needed
• Let you determine who can see meeting recaps
• Let you determine how long data is retained for
• Let you control which meetings are recorded
• Allow you to pause and resume recording, as well as redact afterward

A good AI meeting assistant’s security protocols should be easy to find and easy to understand. If you’re not sure, don’t risk it.

Also, keep in mind that other attendees might have questions about security that you might need to answer.

“I do think you should be able to answer some of the basic questions around privacy. For example, what is the purpose of the transcription or the recording? Is it for your own notes? Is it going to wind up in some other documents? Is it going to be remixed with other data and used for something else?” says Katrina.

“You need to be prepared to kind of have a conversation around that.”

4. DO: Limit the number of bots in a meeting

One of the AI meeting assistant faux pas we’ve seen come up in social media posts is when bots outnumber attendees.

“When there are more bots than people on a call it feels like no one values the meeting and so you are wasting your time attending at all,” says Ann-Maree Morrison. She’s an e-commerce and business advisor who wrote an article on LinkedIn about how AI meeting assistant etiquette needs to be more clear.

“It is also extremely rude to those who do attend as they have scheduled and taken time for the call out of their busy schedules. They cannot talk to the bot!”

This is an easy one to address. First, we recommend that organizations adopt a single AI note taker app. This is a smart move for security, but also because it means there will be a shared recap library so only one person’s bot needs to attend to capture information for everyone.

Another issue that has arisen is that people are sending their bots to meetings so they can skip attending. Asynchronous updates are one of the huge advantages of AI meeting assistants because it means meeting attendees can be kept to a reasonable and productive number. However, rather than sending your bot without explanation, the best option is to have an org-wide note taker onboarded. That was, you can be sure a colleague brought it along and can share the recap with you.

5. DO: Pause recording for sensitive conversations

For the majority of business meetings, having a recording, transcription, and summary is a huge benefit. However, there are exceptions.

“Sometimes meetings are sensitive for HR or personal safety reasons,” says Ann-Maree.

That could mean turning off recording for the call, but with a tool like Fellow, you have more options. Fellow allows you to pause recording with a single click, completely shutting off the meeting bot. Then, simply resume once a sensitive conversation is done.

Knowing that, if your fellow attendee has concerns about something being recorded, you can explain that the recap stays between attendees, but still have the option to pause recording if that’s preferred.

Did you forget and record something you shouldn’t have? With Fellow, you’re able to redact portions of a conversation and permanently delete it from the recording, transcript, and summary.

With these features, you get the best of both worlds.

6. DO: Share the recap after so everyone can benefit

This ties in with limiting meeting bots. To ensure all stakeholders can reap the benefits of an AI note taker, make sure to share the recap.

The caveat here is that this should be done securely. With Fellow, for example, recaps are by default only shared with meeting attendees. Make sure if you share the recap beyond that group that those people are approved. It’s simply good etiquette to only share meeting notes with people all attendees have approved, or that are within your same organization.

Along with this, also keep your company’s meeting recording library organized with Channels so everyone can benefit. For example, customer calls from the Sales or Customer Success team are great viewing for your Marketing team to gain customer insights. Keep your library sorted with channels, like you can do with Fellow, and maintain permissions for appropriate access.

7. DO: Develop an AI policy

Our last piece of advice for AI meeting assistant etiquette is for organizations. Ai meeting assistants are hugely helpful and here to stay, so get ahead of this technology by developing an internal policy.

This is a policy that, ideally, lets employees know which AI note takers are approved for use, what conversations or teams should skip recording, and how to manage bringing the AI meeting assistant to external meetings.

“I think what’s really important is doing that level of corporate due diligence and then from there thinking about the protocols and the norms we’ve been talking about,” says Katrina.

She also adds that organizations should be prepared to revisit that policy often as AI technology and norms evolve.

“If you’re going to pick a use case, this one makes a lot of sense for me to really get on top of now that it’s here,” she says.

Meeting etiquette in the AI age

In the end, using an AI meeting assistant ethically and with good etiquette comes down to ensuring comfort and security. With these tips, you can go forth with confidence to your next AI-powered meeting.

It’s also worth noting that these norms will change over time. For example, here at Fellow, we bring our own AI meeting assistant to nearly every meeting and we’re all very comfortable with having Fellow come along. Over time, at other organizations, AI meeting assistant usage will also become more commonplace and require less explanation.

The key is also choosing the right AI meeting assistant. Fellow is built with important features like pausing and resuming recording and redacting after the fact. We’re also transparent and proactive when it comes to security. With our implementation sessions, we help make the transition to using an AI note taker as smooth as possible.

Try Fellow for free today.