How to Use Zoom AI Companion for Meeting Minutes, Step by Step

To use Zoom AI Companion for meeting minutes, turn on Meeting Summary with AI Companion in the Zoom web portal (Settings > AI Companion), then click AI Companion > Start Summary during the meeting. After the meeting ends, Zoom emails the summary to the host and saves it in the web portal, where you can edit it into proper minutes and share it.

That is the short version. Below is the full workflow, plus the settings and limitations that decide whether the output is good enough to file as official minutes. Menu names below reflect Zoom’s documentation and university IT guides as of November 2026, and Zoom renames things often, so expect small differences in your account.

What you get from a Zoom AI Companion meeting summary

According to Zoom’s AI Companion documentation, once a meeting ends the Meeting Summary feature generates a structured recap of key discussion points, decisions and action items, so nobody has to act as the note-taker. University guides such as Caltech’s describe the output as a quick recap, a list of next steps, and a summary of each topic discussed.

That maps well onto classic meeting minutes: topics, decisions, owners and follow-ups. What it does not give you by default is a formal attendance list, motions and votes, or exact wording. Treat it as a strong first draft.

Before you start: who can use it

AI Companion is included at no additional cost with paid Zoom Workplace user accounts, according to Zoom’s original announcement. Access for free users has changed over time:

• Older Zoom documentation states Basic (free) users do not have access to AI Companion features.
• With the AI Companion 3.0 launch in December 2025, TechCrunch reported that Basic users get AI Companion features for three meetings per month, with a paid standalone add-on available.

Because these sources disagree depending on their date, check what your own account shows. If you are on a company or school account, your admin may have switched AI Companion off or locked certain settings. Some institutions also prohibit it in sensitive settings such as clinical or confidential meetings, so check your organization’s policy first.

Step 1: Turn on Meeting Summary in the web portal

For your own account:

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
2. Click Settings, then open the AI Companion tab.
3. Under Meeting, switch on Meeting Summary with AI Companion.
4. Optional: tick Automatically start Meeting Summary for all meetings I host if you want minutes for every meeting without remembering to click anything.
5. Review the sharing option (often labeled Automatically share summary with). The default is the meeting host only.

Admins can apply the same toggle to everyone under Account Management > Account Settings > AI Companion, per Zoom’s documentation. If you can’t see the AI Companion tab or the toggle is greyed out, the setting is controlled by your account owner or admin. A Zoom community reply also notes that an organization-level restriction on meeting transcription can block summaries.

Step 2: Start the summary in your meeting

1. Start the meeting as the host.
2. Click AI Companion in the meeting toolbar.
3. Click Start Summary.

Participants see a notification that Meeting Summary is active. Two practical points:

• Start it at the very beginning. Guides like Caltech’s point out that you can’t recover a summary of anything discussed before you clicked Start Summary. That is the main reason to enable auto-start.
• Participants can’t start it themselves. If someone else is taking minutes, the host must enable AI Companion and allow participants to use it.

Tips that improve the minutes

The summary is built from what is said aloud, so a few habits help:

• Read the agenda out at the start. Zoom’s What’s New page says live summaries group points by agenda topic when an agenda is provided.
• State decisions and owners explicitly: “Decision: we ship on the 14th. Owner: Priya.”
• Ask people to say their name before key points if several people share a conference room microphone.

Step 3: Find the summary after the meeting

Once the meeting ends, Zoom emails the summary to the host. University guides report this can take anywhere from roughly 10 to 60 minutes depending on meeting length.

You can also open it in the web portal. Several university guides, including Stony Brook’s, describe a Meeting Summary (or Summaries) section in the left sidebar. Click the meeting topic to see options to Edit, Share or Delete the summary.

Step 4: Turn the summary into real meeting minutes

This is the step people skip, and it is the one that matters. AI summaries can be wrong, and several IT departments explicitly advise reviewing and editing before sharing.

1. Open the summary in the web portal and choose Edit.
2. Check every decision and action item against your own memory or notes. Fix names, dates and numbers.
3. Remove anything off the record or sensitive.
4. Add what minutes need but the AI won’t reliably include: meeting date, attendees, absentees, and formal motions or votes.
5. Save. One campus guide says edits apply automatically, another says you must click Save, so confirm your changes stuck before closing.

Step 5: Share the minutes

From the summary page, use Share to send it by email. You can share with attendees and with people who weren’t in the meeting. Keep these behaviors in mind:

Many IT teams recommend keeping the host-only default so nothing reaches the team before you have reviewed it.

Templates: shaping the output for your meeting type

Zoom has added summary templates that change how the summary is structured. According to the AI Companion 3.0 documentation, applying a template produces a new summary from the transcript, and one meeting can have several summaries.

If your minutes need a fixed format, such as a board or committee template, a custom template may be worth it. For most teams, the default summary plus a few minutes of editing is enough.

Common problems and fixes

• No AI Companion button in the meeting: the feature is off for your account or locked by an admin. Check Settings > AI Companion, or ask your admin.
• Auto-start is on but no summary arrived: confirm the summary actually started in the meeting toolbar, and check with your admin whether transcription is restricted on your account.
• Summary missing the first part of the meeting: it was started late. Enable auto-start for future meetings.
• Co-host didn’t get it: change the auto-share setting or forward it manually.

Bottom line

Zoom AI Companion is a solid way to draft meeting minutes: enable it once, start it at the top of each meeting (or let it auto-start), then spend five minutes editing before you share. Features, plan eligibility and menu labels have shifted several times since 2023, so if something above doesn’t match your screen, Zoom’s support center and your admin are the authority.