Google Meet's newest AI-powered feature, “Note-taking,” is available starting today for Google Workspace customers with Gemini Enterprise, Gemini Education Premium, or the AI Meetings & Messaging add-on. It's similar to Meet's transcription tool, but instead of automatically transcribing everything said, it summarizes what everyone said. Google first announced the feature at its 2023 Cloud Next conference.
Unfortunately, it only supports English audio at the moment, but it seems to make missing an important meeting less stressful: It automatically takes notes in a Google Doc and attaches the file to your calendar event after the meeting so you can refer to it later. It also sends the Google Doc to the meeting organizer and anyone else who has the feature turned on.
You can take notes in Google Meet by clicking the pencil icon in the top right corner. Image: Google
Late to a meeting? Google says the new feature will also provide a summary of what you missed so you can catch up quickly when you're able to join back in, without having to worry about repeating yourself. If you use Google Meet's recording and transcription tools at the same time, links to those files will also be provided in the same Google Doc as your meeting notes.
This also seems like a great accessibility tool for people (like me) who have difficulty understanding spoken language and taking notes at the same time. It might help me stay more present during meetings by not having to ask someone to repeat themselves over and over again.
AI can make a lot of mistakes. Every time you use Meet's transcription tool, you should check the automatically generated transcription again to make sure the conversation was recorded correctly. In my experience, it often requires listening to certain parts of the recording again and manually correcting the transcription. I'm skeptical, but I hope that Google Meet will become a better note-taking tool than a transcription tool.
