Use Zoom Meeting Summary for Automatic Meeting Notes

What This Does

Automatically generates a meeting summary and action item list after every Zoom call. delivered to all participants' email, so you never have to type up meeting notes again for Zoom-based meetings.

Before You Start

• Your organization uses Zoom Pro, Business, or Enterprise (meeting summary is included with eligible paid plans. no extra charge)
• You are the meeting host or co-host, OR the host has turned on meeting summary for the meeting
• Participants should be aware that AI is summarizing the meeting (best practice, and required in some states)

Steps

1. Turn on meeting summary in your Zoom settings

Sign in at zoom.us and open Settings. Look for the meeting summary controls in the AI section and turn on automatic meeting summaries. This is a one-time setup. Zoom used to call these features "AI Companion" and dropped that name in 2026, so older help articles and colleagues may still use the old term.

What you should see: The meeting summary controls switch to the on position, along with the related smart recording option.

Troubleshooting: If you don't see the meeting summary controls in settings, your organization's Zoom admin may need to enable them. Contact IT and ask them to turn on Zoom's AI meeting summary features for your account.

2. Start the summary at the beginning of a meeting

When you start your Zoom meeting as host: hover over the AI icon in the meeting toolbar at the bottom of the screen → tick the Meeting summary checkbox → click Start Zoom AI. A banner appears to all participants letting them know a meeting summary is being generated.

Alternatively, turn on the automatic start option in your account settings to have it activate for every meeting you host.

What you should see: A banner at the top of everyone's Zoom window confirming the meeting summary is active.

3. Run your meeting normally

Zoom listens and transcribes throughout. You don't need to do anything else, just run your meeting.

4. After the meeting, review and send the summary

Within 5 minutes of the meeting ending, you'll receive an email from Zoom with: a meeting summary (3-8 bullets), an action items list with owner names, and a link to the full transcript.

What you should see: An email from "Zoom" in your inbox with subject "[Meeting Name]. Meeting Summary."

5. Forward the summary to attendees

Review the summary quickly (check that action item owners are correctly identified), then forward the email to all participants or paste the summary into your standard meeting recap format.

Real Example

Scenario: You facilitate a weekly 30-minute project sync on Zoom with 5 team members. Currently you spend 20 minutes after each meeting writing notes.

What you do: Start the meeting summary at the meeting start → run the meeting normally → receive the auto-generated summary in your inbox → forward it with a subject line update → done in 3 minutes instead of 20.

What you get: Meeting notes out within 10 minutes of the meeting ending, every week, with zero manual effort.

Tips

• Announce it at the start. Say "I have Zoom's meeting summary running to capture notes today". participants appreciate knowing and often contribute more clearly when they know it's being captured.
• The action items are speaker-attributed. If someone says "I'll follow up with the vendor," Zoom assigns that action item to that person by name. Review to make sure attributions are correct.
• Use the transcript for disputed questions. If there's ever confusion about what was decided, the full transcript is available in your Zoom account under Recordings → Meeting Summaries.

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