It’s happened to the best of us: you’re 45 minutes into a "meeting" that definitely could have been an email, nodding along while your soul slowly exits your body, and suddenly someone asks, "So, what are your thoughts on the deliverables for Q3?"
Your brain: Error 404. Information not found.
But what if I told you that you could literally sit there, drink your coffee, and let a digital twin do the heavy lifting?
We’re talking about the Meeting-to-Action-Item Pipeline. If you aren't using this yet, you're playing the productivity game on "Hard Mode" for no reason.
How to set this up? It takes 3 minutes, we promise
The Otter Way:
Sign up at Otter.ai and grab the free plan (300 minutes/month)
Connect your Google Calendar or Outlook
Check "Auto-join meetings" and you're done
Otter will now join ALL your meetings automatically, transcribe everything, and deliver notes 5 minutes after the meeting ends.
The Notion Way: (Note Notion requires a Business plan, which includes unlimited AI features.)
Type /meet on any Notion page
Hit "Start Recording"
Notion handles the rest: transcript, summary, action items, all generated instantly
Pro tip: Connect Notion Calendar to auto-add meeting notes to every calendar event.
The Fathom Way:
Download the desktop app or Chrome extension
Connect to your calendar
Fathom auto-joins meetings and delivers summaries in 30 seconds
The Chrome extension is especially slick, it embeds recording controls directly in Google Meet.
What You Actually Get After Each Meeting
All three tools deliver similar core features:
Full transcript with speaker identification
AI-generated summary that cuts a 30-minute call into a 1-minute read
Automatic action items pulled from the conversation
Searchable history so you can find that thing Dave said three weeks ago about the budget
The One Rule You Can't Skip: ALWAYS tell people you're recording.
It's the right thing to do, and in many places (looking at you, California and 11 other two-party consent states), it's literally the law. All three tools let you announce recording at the start of meetings, and some—like Notion—have built-in consent collection features to keep you compliant.
Other Cool Tricks the Pros Are Using
Connect to Notion via Zapier to have all meeting notes appear automatically in your workspace, so to-dos become tasks
Use search to find promises: When someone says "I'll get that to you by Friday," AI captures it. Use search later as proof.
Review action items every Friday so nothing falls through the cracks
Create highlight clips (Fathom feature) to share specific moments with teammates who missed the call
The Bottom Line: We're living in the future y'all, and it's honestly pretty convenient. So stop reading and go try one of these. Your future self (who actually remembers what happened in that 3pm call) will thank you.
PS: We've got the tutorials you need to kill it in your next meeting:
⚡ Prompts to try:
Go try the AI tool!