You leave a meeting brimming with ideas, but then the emails pile up, another call starts, and the insights fade.
Whether it’s a webinar, a team workshop, or even a podcast you meant to summarise for your clients, the challenge is the same: how do you actually capture the good stuff and turn it into action?
Sure, most of us now rely on built-in Zoom assistants to handle meeting minutes.
But what about those brilliant thoughts shared in a hallway chat, or a long-form video you want to break down into highlights?
Enter the next wave of AI-powered transcription and summarisation tools—and a few clever ways to build your own.
Descript – Descript is a powerful all-in-one audio and video editing platform offering a unique content creation and editing approach. Its standout feature is the ability to edit audio and video by simply editing the transcript, making it incredibly intuitive for users more comfortable with text editing. It now has some really cool summarisation features built-in, which are fantastic time-savers for when you want to upload videos to YouTube (things like automatic chapter markers, show notes and more)
Otter.ai – Otter.ai is another widespread AI-powered transcription and note-taking tool. It offers real-time transcription for meetings, interviews, and lectures, making capturing and reviewing important information easy. Otter can also compose action item emails, summaries and more.
Krisp.ai – Krisp has been around for a while and is primarily known as a noise-cancellation tool for audio and video calls. But it also has some superpowers now that include AI-powered meeting assistant capabilities. Krisp can transcribe meetings in real time, generate summaries, and even create action items from your conversations. Its ability to provide clear audio by removing background noise makes it particularly useful for ensuring high-quality transcriptions, even in less-than-ideal recording environments – like the local coffee shop.
Of course, many other tools do similar things, such as Trint, Rev, and Fireflies.ai. Each offers unique features for transcription and summarisation.
But you don’t always need a separate tool now that ChatGPT-4o, Claude, and Gemini, with their bigger context windows, can also summarise longer audio.
You can, in theory, create your own “Otter.ai”
Here are some prompts to try:
Paste the transcript and ask your favourite LLM any of the following:
Executive Summary: Distill the key content into a concise one-paragraph overview
Key Takeaways: Identify the 3-5 most important points discussed in the session
Actionable Insights: List specific steps or recommendations that can be implemented from the discussion
Themes and Trends: Outline overarching themes, trends, or recurring concepts identified throughout the conference
Questions and Debates: Highlight key questions raised, issues discussed, or contrasting viewpoints presented
Case Studies and Examples: Describe any significant real-world examples or case studies shared
Innovative Ideas: Summarise any novel ideas, new methodologies, or emerging technologies introduced
Unexpected Learnings: Note any surprising facts, perspectives, or thought-provoking moments
Quotes to Remember: Tell me some of the most memorable quotes or impactful statements…
Expert Predictions: Highlight any future predictions or potential implications for the real estate industry
Follow-Up Materials: List additional resources, materials, or references suggested for further exploration.Of course, the real value of note-taking comes from taking action, so once you have your nuggets of wisdom, don’t forget to do something with them!
*This story was first published by AI Powered Agents.
