If you use ChatGPT like your life depends on it, you’ve probably wondered whether it can also take meeting notes for you.
The short answer? Yes, and here goes the long answer.
There are two ways in which you can use ChatGPT to take meeting notes:
Using ChatGPT Record Mode
Manually uploading transcription and using the right prompt to generate notes
Let’s look at both of these methods in detail.
The AI Twitter crowd went absolutely feral when ChatGPT Record mode dropped. 'This changes everything!' 'Goodbye meeting notes apps!' Classic AI hype cycle. But the actual feature feels like a beta that escaped into the wild. Before I get into that, let’s see how it works.
Record mode is available for Plus, Enterprise, Edu, Business, and Pro workspaces, and only available for the macOS desktop app. No web version yet.
Here’s the step-by-step process:
Open the ChatGPT Mac app (not the website!)
Look for the record button at the bottom of any chat. It's next to where you'd normally type
Click it and deal with permissions. Your Mac will ask for microphone access, then system audio access
Start talking. ChatGPT live-transcribes as you talk with a timer showing elapsed time. You can pause/resume freely.
Hit “Stop” when done. You’ll be given options to “Upload”, “Delete”, or “Cancel”.
Choose “Upload” to send the transcript to the ChatGPT server for processing. Within seconds, it opens a private canvas with a structured summary.
A few important things:
Each session can run up to 120 minutes and ends with an editable summary that includes time‑stamped citations and suggested action items.
Since ChatGPT doesn’t join your meetings as a bot, no one really knows you’re recording them. So, make sure to explicitly ask for consent.
Record mode works with all meeting types, whether you’re in a virtual or in-person meeting, or back playing a recorded conversation, because it captures microphone/system-level audio.
Now let’s look at the pros and cons. TL;DR: When it works, it’s great. When it doesn't, you've lost that meeting forever (if you were recording in real-time).
The 120-minute limit is generous - Most meetings don't hit this anyway, but I've recorded entire workshop sessions without worrying about running out of time. Compare that to tools that cap you at 30 minutes on free tiers.
Canvas integration is genuinely useful - Once you get your summary, you can edit it collaboratively, ask ChatGPT to reformat it, or transform it into other documents. I've turned meeting notes into project plans, emails, and even slide outlines without leaving the interface.
It handles interruptions gracefully - You can pause mid-meeting to take a phone call, resume when you're back, and it treats it as one continuous session. No weird gaps or formatting issues.
The reliability issue is real - I've had it stop mid-recording randomly (network hiccup, even though it's supposed to be local processing), and once it just... forgot a 20-minute chunk of a client call.
AI hallucination creates false meeting records - This is the scariest one. ChatGPT will confidently invent details that never happened. I've seen it fabricate entire action items, claim people said things they didn't, or create follow-up meetings that were never scheduled.
Speaker identification is basically broken - It can tell the difference between your microphone and system audio, which works for one-on-one calls. But gets really confused with multiple speakers. And, If someone joins late, it doesn't identify them as a new speaker.
No explicit GDPR compliance workflow - OpenAI basically shrugs and says, "make sure you have consent." That's it. If you're dealing with European clients or employees, Record mode puts you in a legally gray area.
Record mode is included at no extra cost if you're already on a paid plan. But if you're currently using free ChatGPT, you'd need to upgrade to at least a Team plan ($25/month) to get access to Record mode.
According to official ChatGPT documentation, audio recordings are only used for transcription purposes and are deleted afterwards.
However, if you are a Pro, Plus, or Free user and have “Improve the model for everyone” enabled in your settings, then they may use transcripts and canvases from record mode to train their models.
If a user deletes a conversation, the canvas and transcript in that conversation are removed from their systems within 30 days, unless they are legally required to retain them.
If you're already paying for a ChatGPT Team plan and want to experiment with AI note-taking for casual internal meetings, it's worth trying. But for client calls, legal discussions, or anything where accuracy matters, the risk of losing or corrupting your meeting record isn't worth the convenience.
You still have to verify everything it produces anyway, which defeats most of the time-saving benefits. It's a glimpse of what meeting AI could be, but it's not quite ready for professional use.
This is where I found more success. It's more manual, but you get way better control and results.
I use my phone's voice recorder for in-person meetings, and just let Zoom transcribe virtual ones. Then I copy-paste into ChatGPT with specific prompts I've refined through trial and error.
After testing dozens of variations, here are the prompts that consistently give me useful output:
💡
I'm going to paste a meeting transcript. Please create a summary with exactly these sections:
- MAIN DECISIONS (what we agreed on)
- ACTION ITEMS (who does what by when)
- OPEN QUESTIONS (what we still need to figure out)
- NEXT MEETING (when and what to discuss)
Keep each section to 3-4 bullet points max. Here's the transcript:
[paste transcript]
This works because it's specific. Generic prompts like "summarize this meeting" give you generic garbage.
💡
Turn this transcript into formal meeting minutes. Use this exact structure:
Meeting: [Date/Time/Purpose]
Attendees: [List everyone who spoke]
Key Discussions: [Main topics with brief context]
Decisions Made: [What was decided and by whom]
Action Items:
- Task | Assigned to | Due date | Status
Next Steps: [What happens next]
Here's the transcript:
[paste transcript]
💡
From this meeting transcript, create a table with these columns:
| Issue Discussed | Current Status | Who's Responsible | Deadline | Dependencies |
Only include items that have clear action items or decisions. Ignore general discussion. Here's the transcript:
[paste transcript]
Chunk Long Transcripts: ChatGPT has limits. If your meeting was over an hour, break the transcript into 30-minute chunks and process them separately. I learned this after getting "that's too long" errors repeatedly.
Clean Your Transcript First: Take 2 minutes to fix obvious transcription errors - especially names and technical terms. "John" becoming "Jon" throughout screws up the action item assignments.
Be Specific About Format: Don't just say "make a list." Say "create a numbered list," or "use bullet points," or "make a table." ChatGPT defaults to paragraph form, which is useless for action items.
Test Your Prompts: I keep a doc with my best-working prompts because what works varies by meeting type. Sales calls need a different output than technical planning meetings.
When you copy-paste transcripts into regular ChatGPT conversations, different privacy rules apply than in “Record mode”. By default, OpenAI may use your content to train its models unless you opt out through the "Improve the model for everyone" toggle in Settings > Data Controls.
The biggest trap is the feedback system - even if you've opted out everywhere, giving a single thumbs up or thumbs down on any response means the entire conversation, including your meeting transcript, can be used for model training.
This creates a situation where one accidental click can override all your privacy settings, making your sensitive meeting data part of ChatGPT's training dataset.
The Good: This method gives you complete control. You can run the same transcript through different prompts to get summaries for different audiences - detailed minutes for the file, an executive summary for your boss, and action items for the team.
The Annoying: Sometimes ChatGPT decides to be "helpful" and adds context that wasn't in the meeting. I once had it infer that we "probably decided" something we absolutely did not decide. Always double-check.
The Weird: It occasionally misses obvious action items while perfectly capturing random side conversations. I think it gets distracted by interesting tangents.
First and foremost, let’s take bot-based AI notetakers like Otter or Fireflies out of the running. For the simple reason that they may feel intrusive and may not provide the one-up we are looking for, in terms of privacy.
Coming to bot-free AI notetakers, we highly recommend Hyprnote. Here’s why:
Hyprnote, like ChatGPT, also listens to system audio and runs on Mac, but that is pretty much where the similarities end.
Hyprnote, being a local-first AI notetaker, keeps all your data on your device. It uses local AI models to transcribe your calls in real-time and generates instant AI summaries, without a single byte of data going to the cloud. This minimizes compliance surface area and third-party data exposure concerns.
Not only that, it’s an open-source solution, so you can inspect every line of code, modify any component, and self-host on your infrastructure. No licensing servers or usage tracking.
Besides, here are some of Hyprnote’s awesome note-taking features.
Take notes and let AI enhance them based on the transcript, or let AI do the magic completely without hallucinations.
Set custom vocabulary for industry jargon, client names, project codenames, or technical terms so the AI transcription gets them right every time.
Familiar interface that just works. Feels like Apple Notes with powerful AI running locally in the background.
Universal platform support. Works with any meeting software and in-person conversations without bots or restrictions.
Custom templates for every situation. Tailored formats for therapy sessions, legal meetings, job interviews, or casual coffee chats.
Search your meeting history naturally. Ask "What did Sarah say about the budget?" instead of scrolling through months of notes.
AI chat for instant clarification. Get immediate answers about action items, deadlines, or who said what during meetings.
Control how much AI changes your notes. Choose minimal improvements to your original thoughts or complete AI restructuring.
Verify everything with source analysis. Hover over summaries to see the exact transcript quote behind every AI-generated point.
And if that’s not enough, Hyprnote provides unlimited AI summaries and all its core features free forever. You can upgrade to Pro ($8/month) only when you need unlimited advanced functionality.
Want to try Hyprnote? Download it for free!
Yes, if you have the right plan and setup. But "can" and "should" are different questions. I've had it work great for internal team meetings and completely flop on important client calls.
Recording length is currently capped at 120 minutes per session. Longer sessions stop automatically and generate notes that are uploaded as a private canvas.
Here’s the step-by-step process.
Open ChatGPT Mac desktop app
Click the record button (bottom of chat)
Grant microphone + system audio permissions
Start talking. You can pause/resume freely.
No. Business features like data analysis, record mode, canvas, projects, tasks, custom workspace GPTs, and deep research require paid plans. Minimum $25/month for Team.
Your audio gets deleted after transcription, but the transcript can be used for AI training unless you're on Enterprise or opt out. For sensitive meetings, this should raise some concerns.
Hyprnote