Microsoft have recently removed the previous 1mb file limit for attachments in Copilot.
Description
What? Take the transcript from a meeting and ask Copilot to create meeting minutes, including actions.
Why? Automatically-generated minutes can:
- Allow everyone present in the meeting to be active participants (no one needs to divide their attention by taking notes).
- Save time and surface actions (no one needs to manually create tidy minutes from their own notes).
- Help people who missed the meeting to quickly catch up (it’s quicker to skim minutes than to watch a full recording!)
Instructions
Step 1: Download the transcript of a recent meeting as a Word doc. If you recorded a meeting in Teams, you’ll find the transcript under the ‘Recap’ tab – note that you need to be the meeting organiser in order to see the ‘Download’ option:
Alternatively, if you have a video or audio recording but no text transcript, you can use Microsoft Word to generate a text transcript from your file.
Step 2: Go to Copilot (office.com/chat) and sign in with your Coventry account. If you’re already using Copilot, just select the ‘New chat’ button at the top right.
Step 3: Select ‘Add a file’ (the paperclip 📎 icon) at the bottom right of the text box, and then select the .docx transcript document on your computer in the file browser. Don’t press submit yet!
Step 4: Copy and paste the following prompt into the Copilot message box, then select the ‘Submit’ button (the arrow at the bottom-right):
🤖 Prompt (click to expand, then copy and paste into Copilot)
I want you to make a meeting summary from a transcript. Maintain a professional demeanour at all times, ensuring that the summary is formal and suitable for a business environment. You will deliver summaries and responses with a focus on professionalism, suitable for distribution in a business setting or academic environment without the need for further editing. Where actions are agreed upon within the transcript, these will be listed as bullet points at the end of the meeting summary. IMPORTANT: If there are no clear actions in the transcript, it’s fine not to include actions in the summary!
Make sure that the length of the summary is long enough for people who were not at the meeting to get a good understanding of the discussion points. In terms of length, aim for approximately 750 words per hour of discussion (where timestamps are available). If timestamps aren’t available, make an educated guess on the length of discussion.
Start with an executive summary, and then produce the full meeting minutes as bullet points, with appropriate headings for each section of the meeting. Try and structure the summary in chronological order. Finish with a list of actions. IMPORTANT: Only include actions if there are clear actions. It’s okay to say ‘No actions were agreed upon’. If there are clear actions, and where responsibility is clear from the transcript, ensure that the actions list state which meeting attendee is responsible.
Step 6: If you want to share the meeting summary with your colleagues, you can ask Copilot to ‘Give me the summary as a Word doc that I can download’. NB sometimes this doesn’t work – in that case, you can just press the ‘Copy’ button and manually paste the summary into a Word doc or email to share.
Important: Always check Copilot’s output. Generative AI tools can hallucinate (create plausible but incorrect information).