How to write meeting minutes with AI (+ a free template)
The exact skeleton good minutes follow — and how to make it fill itself in.
Meeting minutes are a short, structured record of what a meeting decided — not a word-for-word transcript. Good minutes fit on one page and answer three questions: who was there, what was decided, and who owns the next step. Below is a copy-paste template you can reuse for every meeting, plus a way to let AI draft it for you from a recording, grounded in what was actually said.
What should you include in meeting minutes?
The whole point of minutes is that someone who missed the meeting can read them in a minute and know what changed. That means you are curating, not transcribing. Five sections do almost all of the work, and you reuse the same five every time so the format is predictable and searchable.
| Section | What goes here | Keep it to |
|---|---|---|
| Attendees | Who was present, who sent regrets | A list of names |
| Agenda | The topics actually discussed, in order | Short bullet per topic |
| Decisions | What was agreed, as a settled outcome | One line per decision |
| Action items | Task — owner — due date, for each | One line per task |
| Next steps | Follow-ups, the next meeting date, open questions | A few bullets |
Two of those sections carry the weight: decisions and action items. If you only had thirty seconds to write minutes, you would write those two. A decision nobody recorded gets relitigated next week; an action item without an owner is a wish, and one without a due date never gets scheduled.
A copy-paste meeting minutes template
Here is a fillable skeleton. Paste it into any doc, keep the labels, and replace the bracketed prompts. It is deliberately plain so it works for a weekly sync, a client call, or a project kickoff without redesigning it each time.
Meeting: [title] · Date: [date, start–end] · Attendees: [names] · Regrets: [names] — Agenda: [topic 1], [topic 2] — Decisions: [what was agreed]; [what was agreed] — Action items: [task] — [owner] — [due date]; [task] — [owner] — [due date] — Next steps: [follow-up]; next meeting [date].
That is the entire template — five labelled slots you can fill in past tense, opinions left out. If you want the long-form version with a narrative six-part structure, a formal-vs-informal breakdown, and a routine for writing minutes before, during, and after the meeting, we cover that separately.
Minutes vs transcript: what is the difference?
This trips people up, so it is worth being blunt about. A transcript is every word, verbatim, in speaking order. Minutes are a summary of outcomes — the decisions and the follow-ups — written for someone who was not in the room. A transcript is raw material; minutes are the finished record. You can produce minutes from a transcript, but you should never send the transcript as if it were the minutes.
| Transcript | Minutes | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Every word, verbatim | A summary of decisions and actions |
| Length | As long as the meeting | Usually one page |
| Written for | Reference and search | People who missed the meeting |
| Tone | Whatever was said | Neutral, past tense, no opinions |
Can AI write meeting minutes for you?
Yes — AI can draft minutes in this exact shape from a recording, which is far faster than typing them live. The trick is that it should draft, not send. The best setup records the meeting without a bot, transcribes it, and then applies a reusable format so the output always lands in the same five-section skeleton you defined above.
Reline does this bot-free. The desktop app captures your microphone and the system audio locally on your machine, so no participant joins the call and nothing appears in the participant list. Being precise: capture is local, while transcription and the AI summary run in our cloud under a data-processing agreement, and your meetings are never used to train models. Transcription covers 60+ languages with automatic detection.
After the meeting you point a Lens at the recording. A Lens is a reusable output format — save one shaped like the template above (attendees, agenda, decisions, action items with owners, next steps) and every meeting you run it on comes back in that structure. Because the summary is citation-backed, every line links to the exact transcript segment it came from, so you can click a decision and hear the moment it was made. That link is what makes review take two minutes instead of a re-listen.
How do you keep minutes consistent across meetings?
Consistency is not about discipline, it is about the format doing the work. If every meeting starts from the same five-section skeleton — whether a person fills it or a Lens drafts it — the minutes read the same way every week, and people know exactly where to look for the decision that affects them. A saved Lens makes that skeleton the default output rather than something you have to remember to apply.
- Use the same five sections every time, in the same order.
- Write decisions as settled outcomes, in past tense, with no opinions.
- Give every action item an owner and a due date — no exceptions.
- Circulate to everyone invited, not just who showed up.
- Keep the transcript as the source so any line can be verified later.
Minutes people trust are boring on purpose: the same shape, the same tense, the same two questions answered first — what did we decide, and who owns the next step.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions
- What should you include in meeting minutes?
- Five sections cover almost every meeting: attendees, the agenda actually discussed, the decisions made, action items with an owner and due date for each, and next steps. Write them in past tense and leave opinions out. Decisions and action items are the two sections that matter most — if you only had thirty seconds, you would write those.
- What is the difference between minutes and a transcript?
- A transcript is every word, verbatim, in speaking order. Minutes are a short summary of what the meeting decided and who owns the follow-up, written for someone who missed it. A transcript is raw material; minutes are the finished record. You can produce minutes from a transcript, but you should never circulate the transcript as if it were the minutes.
- Do meeting minutes need to be approved?
- Informal team minutes usually do not — you write them, circulate them, and act on them. Formal governance or board minutes are different: they are often adopted at the next meeting as an official legal record. For everyday working meetings, a quick human review before you send is enough; the point is that a person has confirmed the decisions and owners are correct.
- Can AI write meeting minutes for you?
- Yes. AI can draft minutes from a recording in your exact template shape, far faster than typing live. Reline captures the meeting bot-free (mic and system audio locally, no bot in the call), transcribes it in the cloud, and a reusable Lens drafts the decisions and action items with citations back to the transcript. A person should always review the draft before it becomes the record.
- How do you keep meeting minutes consistent across a team?
- Standardize the format, not the person. Use the same five-section skeleton every time and, if you use Reline, save it as a Lens so every recording comes back in that structure automatically. Consistent sections in a consistent order make the minutes predictable and searchable, so anyone can find the decision that affects them without hunting.
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