Generate a Meeting Minutes Transcription: A Complete Guide With Templates

It’s easy for details to get lost during a meeting. Remote workers may have choppy WiFi or the designated notetaker might miss crucial points—and employees often have to chase down notes afterward to recall what was discussed.

Manual note-taking like this can be slow and unreliable. But AI-powered tools make meeting minutes transcription easy for everyone to understand and access. You can watch recordings on your own time, and remote workers don’t have to worry about technical problems or different time zones. Plus, having accurate transcriptions means you can skip meetings you don’t need to actively participate in.

Read on to discover how using AI to transcribe meeting minutes improves overall note accuracy and team productivity.

How to transcribe meeting minutes: 4 steps

Fellow has built-in recording, transcription, and summarization, so you don’t have to install additional resources for extra features. Everything’s in one place, making it easy to track discussions in real time and even easier to find what you need later.

Before you start, invite Fellow’s Meeting Copilot to your preferred meeting platform, whether Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet. You’ll need the AI features enabled in Fellow first. Click your profile’s circle in the top-left corner and head to “Workspace settings.” Then, toggle the AI features and enable the AI Meeting Copilot to start recording and transcribing your calls. Once you’ve done that, follow these four steps to learn how to record meeting minutes:

1. First, turn the auto-recording feature on by clicking the lightning bolt icon in the app’s top-right corner and toggling “Auto-record.”
2. To enable the auto-recording feature, start recording by clicking the purple “Record” button on the right side of your screen, just above the meeting name and participants’ profile pictures. The button pops up five minutes before the call’s scheduled start time, letting you click and carry on while the Meeting Copilot works in the background.
3. Once the meeting starts, you’ll see a small popup window. Click it to allow the Copilot in. It’ll record, create minutes, and automatically stop recording once the session ends.
4. The Copilot processes the transcription and creates detailed notes with a summary, questions, decisions, and main action points.

Best practices for high-quality meeting transcriptions

Following these tips helps Fellow’s Copilot give you a more precise transcription with well-organized notes. 

Following these tips helps Fellow’s Copilot give you a more precise transcription with well-organized notes. 

1Use clear dictation for audio transcription

Fellow works better in quiet settings with clear audio, such as a dedicated conference room with minimal background noise. However, some of your employees may work remotely, with little control over their surroundings. Consider offering your team a stipend for high-quality audio equipment, like microphones and pop filters, for improved recording accuracy.

2Talk slowly and pause

Encourage your team to speak at a moderate pace and take pauses between sentences. It’s also important to avoid filler words like “um,” “er,” and “like,” which increase transcription errors and affect the quality of meeting minutes.

Talking slowly lets your note-taking tool capture each word and helps participants understand the speaker. You can also lead by example during meetings. Speak deliberately and thoughtfully when making opening statements, allowing team members to digest complex topics during the small breaks between sentences. They’ll follow your lead.

4Ask attendees to identify themselves when speaking

Post-session meeting minutes featuring several speakers may confuse readers. The AI transcriber tracks who’s saying what and adds this clarity to its notes.

5Let a moderator guide the meeting

A designated moderator ensures meetings flow smoothly by managing turns and diverse perspectives and redirecting the conversation to agenda items.

6Use a meeting agenda template

Moderators can ensure calls stay on track by using a meeting agenda. A well-defined agenda keeps conversations focused and—if you use a template built into Fellow—categorizes the transcription into sections before it even begins.

Think of updates since the last meeting, the topics you want to address, and action items to implement before the next session. The Copilot automatically handles action items for you, even adding “Questions” and “Decisions” sections to your Meeting Recap’s highlights.

2 free meeting minutes templates

Here are two meeting templates from Fellow that work seamlessly with the Copilot for more productive calls.

1Meeting Minutes Template

This outline fits nearly every need, from long sessions with multiple participants to quick one-on-ones. It covers:

• Key discussion points
• Attendee details
• Previous minutes’ approval
• Off-topic motions
• Adjournment

2Board Meeting Minutes Template

Board meetings usually involve key decision-makers discussing critical issues that require resolution ASAP. This meeting template for board members is free, compatible with the Copilot’s auto-record feature, and has all the bells and whistles to help the moderator organize this important information in one place. 

If you’re looking for a more formal template for board members and senior executives, try this one instead.

Make the most of your minutes with Fellow

A dedicated meeting recorder and transcriber transforms how you conduct meetings, leveling up manual note-taking to something as easy as clicking a “Record” button. Several AI-powered tools exist, but Fellow stands out for its ease of use and centralization.

Apart from summarization and video transcription services, Fellow has built-in features to improve productivity so your team never wastes time on a call. You can sync it with any calendar, use the Meeting Guidelines to schedule optimal meeting times, and even skip calls without missing key details.

Say goodbye to slow note-taking and try Fellow for productive AI-powered meetings.

FAQ

What are meeting minutes?

Meeting minutes are a written or typed record summarizing the main points and action items discussed. They’re a valuable reference for attendees and non-attendees, keeping everyone on the same page.

AI-powered transcription tools (like Fellow) turn speech to text for meetings and create accurate, detailed notes. This approach saves your team time (less repeating yourself later, fewer questions from teammates) and ensures no one misses critical details.

Also, Fellow offers CEOs and senior executives a way to manage remote and asynchronous teams effectively, ensuring that internal responsibilities and client expectations are consistently met. For those in similar leadership roles, all you have to do is follow a few simple steps to start creating minutes.