Tips for taking minutes in a virtual board meeting

Key takeaways:

• Virtual board meetings are now a permanent feature of governance, not a temporary fix. Taking accurate minutes in this environment requires preparation, the right tools, and a close working relationship with the chair.
• Key tips include preparing with the chair in advance, knowing your attendees, reading the board papers beforehand, and using a board portal to navigate materials during the meeting.
• AI minute-writing tools can speed up drafting and action capture, but they do not replace the legal judgement and contextual expertise of a company secretary.

Claire has served more than 11 years as company secretary at Angel Trains.

Virtual board, committee, and management meetings are now a permanent part of how organisations operate. What began as a necessity has become standard practice, and for many boards, a hybrid or fully virtual meeting is now the default.

The technology has improved significantly, but one challenge remains: taking accurate, legally robust minutes in a virtual environment. For boards and their committees, minutes aren't just a useful record of what was discussed and agreed. They're a legal requirement. Board minutes need to demonstrate that directors have fulfilled their legal and fiduciary duties and can be used both defensively and offensively in court proceedings. It's crucial that minutes evidence that directors carefully considered the impact on all the stakeholder groups set out in Section 172 of the Companies Act 2006.

This isn't easy at the best of times. Doing so in a virtual meeting presents additional challenges. Here are my tips to help company secretaries and PAs set themselves up for a successful meeting.

1. Get familiar with the technology

Video platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet are the standard for virtual board meetings. Having video turned on is preferable where possible: it allows all attendees to be seen, makes it easier to know who is speaking, and helps you spot when someone wants to contribute.

That said, there will often be at least one board member who prefers to join by phone. A trial run before the meeting is worth arranging, particularly for less frequent attendees, so that any access or connectivity issues can be resolved in advance rather than at the start of the meeting itself.

If you are using an AI transcription or minute-writing tool, check in advance that it is compatible with the platform being used and that all attendees are aware it is running. More on AI tools and the legal considerations around them later in this article.

2. Know who's attending

Make sure you know who's expected to attend the meeting and who has sent apologies so you can ensure there'll be a quorum. When the meeting starts, if you're using video you can see who has joined and simply run round the (virtual) room. If all or some attendees are joining by telephone, take a register as though you were at school, rather than everyone trying to announce their presence at once. You'll also need to pay attention to anyone who leaves the meeting or drops off the call early to note this in the minutes and be sure a quorum is still present.

3. Set yourself up for success with the chair

Working closely with the chair before the meeting would be essential in making sure that everything runs as smoothly as possible. Here are a few things you can consider:

• Suggest a preparatory call with the chair to run through everything they need to keep in mind to keep the meeting running smoothly.
• Ask your chair to get people's comments and questions in turn to avoid people speaking over each other.
• If it's a telephone meeting ask the chair to get everyone to say their name before they share their comment so that you know who's speaking even if there are attendees whose voices aren't familiar to you.
• Lastly, ask the chair to summarise the key points and any actions after each item before moving on to the next to give you the chance to check you've captured everything important.

4. Get feedback before or after the meeting

Suggest the chair asks directors to share any comments on the previous minutes or updates on action items that aren't covered elsewhere on the agenda before or after the meeting. Directors should be able to do this either by email or using the annotation tools in their board portal app. This will not only save time going through them in the meeting but also reduces the risk of the meeting secretary missing any detail.

5. Read the meeting papers

This might sound obvious, but I know from experience that it's not always feasible for the company secretary to read all the papers that are submitted ahead of a meeting and it's perfectly possible to take accurate minutes without doing so. However, for a virtual meeting, knowing what's in the papers will really help you understand what's likely to come up and keep up with the discussion. It will also help you recognise any names or technical terms you're not familiar with.

6. Don't be afraid to interrupt

If you can't hear what someone is saying, either because they're speaking softly or because of signal issues, don't be afraid to interrupt and ask him or her to speak more loudly or repeat what was said. If you can't hear, the chances are other attendees can't either and it could be an important point.

7. Use a board portal app

A purpose-built board portal makes remote minute-taking significantly easier. You can annotate papers directly during the meeting, highlight key figures and names you will need to refer back to, and navigate the pack by page number so you and the other attendees can stay on the same page throughout.

Minute Writer goes further. It turns your notes, transcripts, or recordings into a structured draft, intelligently grouped by agenda item, even when discussions jump between topics. It pulls through paper summaries and attendee information directly from your portal, and captures decisions and actions automatically. The result is a high-quality starting point that a company secretary can then review, refine, and apply their judgement to.

AI handles the drafting. You bring the legal expertise, the context, and the accountability that no tool can replicate.

8. Take comfort breaks

This applies to physical meetings too, but if it's likely to be a long meeting agree to have short comfort breaks at set times or after specific items. Whilst other attendees can slip away for a couple of minutes for a comfort break, the meeting secretary can't do this for risk of missing something critical.

9. Share draft minutes with executive sponsors

Although it's standard practice to share the draft minutes of a meeting with just the chair (and perhaps the CEO) before circulating them more widely, I'd suggest that after typing up the minutes of a virtual meeting it's a good idea to share relevant sections with the presenter or executive sponsor of that item too so they can check that all the important points have been captured — this can be particularly helpful if the subject matter was complex or sound quality was poor.

How AI is changing virtual board minute-taking

AI minute-writing tools have become a practical option for governance teams. Understanding what they do well, and where their limits lie, is essential before integrating them into your minute-taking process.

What AI minute-writing tools can do

A purpose-built AI minute-writing tool can transcribe meetings in real time, convert notes or transcripts into a structured draft grouped by agenda item, extract decisions and actions automatically, and pull through attendee information and paper summaries from your board portal. Minute Writer does all of this within a secure, governance-specific environment, built on 20 years of boardroom expertise. It is designed for the requirements and nuances of formal board minute-writing, not general-purpose summarisation. Users report saving 40% of the time they previously spent on minutes.

What AI minute-writing tools cannot do

AI cannot exercise legal judgement. It cannot attribute intent, interpret the significance of what was left unsaid, or capture the non-verbal dynamics that an experienced company secretary reads in the room. It cannot verify with certainty who said what, particularly in a meeting where multiple attendees join by phone. And it cannot take responsibility for the accuracy or legal adequacy of the final record. That accountability sits with me, as company secretary.

How to use AI alongside your own expertise

The most effective approach treats AI as a drafting tool, not a replacement. Use it to generate a structured first draft, then apply your own knowledge of the meeting, the organisation, and the legal requirements to review, refine, and finalise the minutes. This is exactly how Minute Writer is designed to work: it handles the heavy lifting, you bring the context and judgement.

Legal and compliance considerations

Before using any AI tool for board minutes, there are several considerations to work through. On data privacy, ensure the tool processes and stores data in line with your organisation's policies and applicable regulations, including UK GDPR. Minute Writer leaves no audio recording and saves zero data in the AI once minutes are approved, with custom retention policies you control directly. On confidentiality, board minutes contain highly sensitive information. Avoid any tool that stores data externally or uses it for model training. On admissibility, AI-generated minutes that have been reviewed and approved by a company secretary are generally treated in the same way as manually produced minutes. The review step is not optional.

Common mistakes in virtual board minute-taking

Virtual meetings create specific conditions that make minute-taking harder. Contributors are less visible, chat and annotation tools generate parallel conversations, and AI drafting tools can create a false sense that the work is done. These are the mistakes that arise most often as a result.

• Relying on recordings instead of structured notes. Recordings are a safety net, not a substitute. Reconstructing minutes from audio after the fact is time-consuming and risks missing key decisions.
• Capturing too much detail instead of key decisions. Board minutes record what was decided, who is responsible, and by when. More words do not mean better minutes.
• Failing to record actions with a named owner and deadline. An action without an owner is unlikely to be followed up. Every agreed action needs a clear description, a named individual, and a target date.
• Missing contributions made in chat or annotation tools. Substantive points made in the chat function or via portal annotations need to be captured. Monitor these throughout the meeting.
• Treating an AI-generated draft as a finished document. AI minutes require review, refinement, and your judgement before they are circulated. You remain responsible for the accuracy and legal adequacy of the final record.

I hope these tips are useful for company secretaries and governance professionals navigating the demands of virtual minute-taking. And if you are a company secretary and have any additional suggestions of your own, do get in touch!

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