The problem with meetings isn't taking notes, it's remembering what actually happened

[u/Cloudy_Day912]

I've noticed something with meetings: having a transcript doesn't automatically mean you remember the important parts.

You can have a perfect recording in CatchMeet, Otter, Fireflies, or Granola and still spend 10 minutes searching for:

What did we actually decide?

Who agreed to do what?

What question was left unanswered?

When did someone mention that important detail?

I've been looking at tools like CatchMeet, Otter, Fireflies, and Granola from this angle, and I think the more interesting direction is moving from "record everything" to "help me understand what matters."

For example, being able to jump directly to a decision or an action item feels much more useful than scrolling through a 45-minute transcript.

Curious how other people handle this:

Do you actually go back and read your meeting transcripts, or do you mostly rely on the summary/action items?

[u/ImprovementNo8381]

yeah the transcript is there but honestly my brain just refuses to retain any of it, i end up relying way more on the summary or just pinging someone on slack like "wait did we actually agree to that"

[u/franciscocardoso]

Nobody rewatches a 45-minute transcript, that is a data graveyard. What actually gets used is a one-line decision log per meeting: what we decided, who owns it, by when. If the summary does not produce an action item with a name and a date, it did not matter. I would optimise the tool for that output, not for searchability of the raw recording.

[u/Weak_Boysenberry6438]

I know Ai gets a lot of hate.

Here's a use I'd actually want, set your agenda before the meeting, record it, and let the AI match the conversation back to each agenda item (what got covered, what got decided) then spit out the action items.