What are meeting minutes and why are they important?

Meeting minutes are the official written record of a board meeting. They capture decisions, actions, and discussions, providing accountability and legal compliance while supporting future reference. Clear minutes also help directors track progress and ensure alignment. Board Intelligence’s Minute Writer tool makes this process easier by drafting precise, compliant minutes automatically.

Can AI take meeting minutes?

AI can assist with minute-taking, provided it’s used in the right way. A generic AI tool prompted with a transcript may produce incomplete or inaccurate records. In contrast, governance-focused solutions are built to capture and structure minutes reliably; transcribing meeting discussions into clear summaries with decisions and actions highlighted. Board Intelligence’s AI-powered Minute Writer is designed specifically for boards and committees, combining automation with governance-ready outputs.

How to take meeting minutes with AI?

With Minute Writer, you can choose how you provide the meeting record. Use Minute Writer’s secure transcription tool to capture and transcribe the meeting directly, or upload a transcript from another service or use your own notes. If you use Minute Writer’s transcription, the meeting audio, transcript and minutes stay within the same governed environment. You can pause recording for off-record discussion, and the transcript is automatically structured by agenda item ready to turn into a draft of minutes. Minute Writer also uses your existing agenda and meeting papers, so you don’t need to upload your entire board pack. It can automatically pull through the meeting structure and attendees, include summaries of supporting papers, and apply your preferred formats and pro-forma text. Whether you start with a Minute Writer transcript, a third-party transcript or your own notes, the result is a structured first draft that’s ready for you to review and finalise.

Can Copilot or ChatGPT be used to take minutes of a board meeting?

General AI tools like Copilot or ChatGPT can create basic text summaries, but they aren't built with the rigour, security, or structure required for board governance. They summarise the content you give them, without the governance-specific context and workflows that boards need. Minute Writer is different. It has been designed specifically for boards and committees, with safeguards and workflows that go far beyond generic tools. For example, it: • Structures outputs around frameworks developed by our consulting team and used by FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 boards. • Uses multi-stage prompts that break the task into smaller, reliable steps, producing consistent, board-ready outputs without requiring prompting expertise. • Is informed by your board's own conventions and the wider context of your meeting pack. • Gives you control over retention, with data never retained or used to train the AI. And because it supports the workflow from transcription to drafting and actions, everything stays connected in one place. This means the minutes you get are consistent, confidential, and tailored to the needs of governance teams, not just a generic summary.

How do AI meeting minutes tools handle and secure confidential information?

AI tools must safeguard highly sensitive board papers and discussions. That’s why leading solutions use encryption in transit and at rest, strict access controls, and compliance-grade hosting. With Board Intelligence’s Minute Writer, security goes even further: • No data is ever saved by the AI. • Retention policies can be configured by the user, so your organisation controls how long data is stored. • Your data is never used to train AI models. This ensures confidential information remains fully protected while still giving governance teams the speed and efficiency benefits of AI.

AI Meeting Minutes Taking Software

Transcribe meetings with confidence

From the first step, Minute Writer operates within our secure platform trusted by 3,000+ boards worldwide. Capture and transcribe meetings directly in Minute Writer — no third-party tool needed.

Transcribe in real time: automatically identify speakers across in-person, online and hybrid meetings.
Stay in control of what's captured: pause recording whenever discussion moves off the record, then resume when you're ready.
Go straight from transcript to a first draft: automatically structure the transcript by agenda item, ready to turn into a draft.

“

Wow I have just tried it. Outstanding! With the two sets of minutes I have done yesterday and today you have saved me 10 hours.”

St George’s Golf Club

Find out more

Turn records into drafts in an instant

Start with the heavy lifting done, as Minute Writer creates a great first draft from your transcript or notes.

Use any starting point: convert Minute Writer transcripts, third-party transcripts or typed notes into draft minutes with just a few clicks.
Bring the discussion together: automatically split your minutes between items and group related points made at different times during the meeting.
Capture what matters: pull out structure and attendees from your meeting's agenda, and capture key decisions and actions.

“

Minute Writer is giving me 60% of time spent on minutes back — time which I’m now using on more strategic and value-add work.”

Sarah Dobson, Head of Executive Support, Cambridge Building Society

Why Cambridge Building Society trusts Minute Writer over the rest

“Generic AI tools work well for high-level summaries, but for minuting formal board and committee meetings, detail is key — and that’s what we get from the AI in Minute Writer.”

Sarah Dobson, Head of Executive Support, Cambridge Building Society

Try it for yourself

Automate the tedious work, your way

Need things done a certain way? With Minute Writer, you decide what goes in and how it looks.

Set your style: customise the writing style and level of detail used in your minutes.
Reuse what works: include recurring pro-forma text on an item-by-item basis, with details like time and location updated dynamically.
Tailor to each forum: add summaries of supporting papers generated directly from your portal, and choose from a library of preset formats for each board or committee.

“

Minute Writer has truly transformed the way I work and has taken away the hours of work involved in writing the first draft — everything is faster, and now I can’t imagine preparing minutes without it.”

Vicky Turner, Corporate Governance Manager, Education Development Trust

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Pull actions across

Pull actions straight from Minute Writer into Action Tracker in one click, with the meeting context carried across. No copying or re-entering actions.

Assign and notify

Assign each action to an owner and set a due date, with owners notified directly so everyone knows what's expected and when.

Track progress

Track the status and progress of every action in one place, with updates flowing back into Minute Writer so your record stays up to date.

And stay in control throughout

Your board, your rules. In Minute Writer, you set how data is handled — from what gets recorded to who can access it and when it's deleted. And support is just one call away.

Control what's captured: pause recording whenever discussion moves off the record.
Control what stays: set custom retention policies, so your meeting data is handled according to your organisation's rules.
Get support when you need it: true 24/7/365 support from BI24, our specialist support team.

“

BI24 are amazing! Without fail, every time we need something, they are the most responsive support team I deal with across all of our vendors globally.”

Stuart Geddes, CIO, Ocorian

Try Minute Writer’s AI

With the only AI built for board effectiveness

No general-purpose AI here, but one designed around the science of board effectiveness and our 20 years of boardroom insights.

And because it’s built and administered by us, your data remains your data and will never be shared, saved by the AI, or used for training.

See why boards choose our AI

What are meeting minutes and why are they important?

Meeting minutes are the official written record of a board meeting. They capture decisions, actions, and discussions, providing accountability and legal compliance while supporting future reference. Clear minutes also help directors track progress and ensure alignment.
Board Intelligence’s Minute Writer tool makes this process easier by drafting precise, compliant minutes automatically.
Can AI take meeting minutes?

AI can assist with minute-taking, provided it’s used in the right way. A generic AI tool prompted with a transcript may produce incomplete or inaccurate records. In contrast, governance-focused solutions are built to capture and structure minutes reliably; transcribing meeting discussions into clear summaries with decisions and actions highlighted.

Board Intelligence’s AI-powered Minute Writer is designed specifically for boards and committees, combining automation with governance-ready outputs.
How to take meeting minutes with AI?

With Minute Writer, you can choose how you provide the meeting record. Use Minute Writer’s secure transcription tool to capture and transcribe the meeting directly, or upload a transcript from another service or use your own notes.

If you use Minute Writer’s transcription, the meeting audio, transcript and minutes stay within the same governed environment. You can pause recording for off-record discussion, and the transcript is automatically structured by agenda item ready to turn into a draft of minutes.

Minute Writer also uses your existing agenda and meeting papers, so you don’t need to upload your entire board pack. It can automatically pull through the meeting structure and attendees, include summaries of supporting papers, and apply your preferred formats and pro-forma text.

Whether you start with a Minute Writer transcript, a third-party transcript or your own notes, the result is a structured first draft that’s ready for you to review and finalise.
Can Copilot or ChatGPT be used to take minutes of a board meeting?
General AI tools like Copilot or ChatGPT can create basic text summaries, but they aren't built with the rigour, security, or structure required for board governance. They summarise the content you give them, without the governance-specific context and workflows that boards need.

Minute Writer is different. It has been designed specifically for boards and committees, with safeguards and workflows that go far beyond generic tools. For example, it:
- Structures outputs around frameworks developed by our consulting team and used by FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 boards.
- Uses multi-stage prompts that break the task into smaller, reliable steps, producing consistent, board-ready outputs without requiring prompting expertise.
- Is informed by your board's own conventions and the wider context of your meeting pack.
- Gives you control over retention, with data never retained or used to train the AI.
And because it supports the workflow from transcription to drafting and actions, everything stays connected in one place.

This means the minutes you get are consistent, confidential, and tailored to the needs of governance teams, not just a generic summary.
How do AI meeting minutes tools handle and secure confidential information?
AI tools must safeguard highly sensitive board papers and discussions. That’s why leading solutions use encryption in transit and at rest, strict access controls, and compliance-grade hosting. With Board Intelligence’s Minute Writer, security goes even further:
- No data is ever saved by the AI.
- Retention policies can be configured by the user, so your organisation controls how long data is stored.
- Your data is never used to train AI models.
This ensures confidential information remains fully protected while still giving governance teams the speed and efficiency benefits of AI.

AI meeting minutes writer for boards and committees

Turn notes, transcripts and meeting recordings into accurate, governance-ready minutes with AI built for boards.

What if putting together meeting minutes took, well… minutes?

With Minute Writer, you can speed up the entire minute-taking process — using AI that’s been designed by governance experts to put you in control and keep your data private at all times.

Transcribe meetings with confidence

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Turn records into drafts in an instant

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Automate the tedious work, your way

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Connect minutes to action

Once your minutes are approved, actions flow directly from Minute Writer into Action Tracker — with their meeting context intact. Owners can then update progress, while changes are reflected back in Minute Writer automatically.

And stay in control throughout

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With the only AI built for board effectiveness

What are your meeting minutes costing you?

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