Life in a startup is a balancing act, with meetings the weights threatening to tip the scales. PMs must translate complex discussions into clear action items and make sure nothing slips through the cracks. Here’s my secret weapon.

Why AI Notetaking is a Game Changer

Let’s face it, traditional notetaking is a time-consuming chore. Capturing key details while also actively participating requires a superhuman level of focus. Even worse — conversations don’t organically translate into innovation and success for the business. Unless I can find the time to summarize and share my notes, our meetings are inherently less productive. Here at Rotational, we’re all about harnessing the power of AI for good. Thankfully, that includes making my life easier, too.

Fireflies.ai is an AI-powered meeting assistant designed to help teams capture, transcribe, and organize meeting discussions. It automatically records conversations during meetings, and generates accurate transcripts. AI notetakers like Fireflies.ai (some alternative tools are listed at the end of this post) use advanced speech recognition and natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to transcribe and analyze the content of your meetings.

We started using Fireflies earlier this year, and it has quickly become my trusty AI sidekick, automatically transcribing conversations and flagging important points. This frees me up to truly engage in the meeting, ask insightful questions, and steer the conversation towards actionable outcomes.

But the benefits of AI notetaking extend far beyond freeing up a few minutes in your day. Here are three key ways Fireflies.ai has made my life (and project management) a whole lot easier, while also helping us to keep true to our core values:

Enhanced Accuracy and Completeness

I can’t count how many times I’ve been in a meeting where something important was said but I missed it, or my notes were a mess. What I love about Fireflies.ai is that it records every word, even when the conversation speeds up. It gives me peace of mind knowing I’ll always have a clear, accurate record of the meeting—no more scrambling to remember what was said.

This aligns perfectly with Rotational’s core value of excellence, by ensuring we have the best possible foundation for moving forward. As a non-technical TPM, I truly can’t express enough how much these meeting recaps have benefitted me, and streamlined the task of story creation within Shortcut (another favorite tool) following each meeting.

Streamlined Collaboration

At Rotational, things move quickly and everyone wears multiple hats. We often have meetings where key decisions are made, but not everyone can always be there in real time. Tracking down action items from missed meetings or sifting through handwritten notes is time-consuming and error-prone. We work hard to uphold respect as a core value, especially given how quickly things move and how much everyone has on their plate.

For me, Fireflies.ai has become an essential tool for staying aligned with my team. It ensures that everyone’s voice is heard, even when things get hectic. Now, whether I miss a meeting or need to revisit a conversation, the searchable transcripts and timestamped notes make it easy for me to quickly get up to speed and find the action items that matter. This fosters open communication and a collaborative environment.

Effortless Time Savings

At our startup, growth is everything. We’re constantly pushing to ship new features and deliver value to our customers, but with a small team and limited resources, staying organized and efficient is a challenge.

Instead of spending time taking notes, chasing down clarifications, or trying to remember what was said, we can focus entirely on the work at hand. If something important comes up during a meeting, the action items are automatically highlighted, so there’s no confusion about who’s responsible for what. We can then assign tasks directly in our project management tools, keeping everyone aligned and moving in the same direction.

The time saved is truly staggering. Imagine never needing to replay hours of recordings or frantically comb through handwritten (sticky) notes. This newfound time allows me to delve into more strategic tasks, ensuring our projects stay on track and we continue to ship value.

Alternative and Emerging Options

Fireflies.ai has several competitors in the AI-powered meeting assistant and transcription space, including Otter.ai, Rev.ai, Trint, Sonix, Descript, Happy Scribe, and Meetgeek. Each offers unique features, so choosing the best one depends on your specific needs, whether it’s simple transcription, meeting insights, or deep editing and collaboration tools.

The key differentiators are:

• Accuracy and Human Review: Some services, like Rev, offer human transcription services in addition to AI, which can be useful when high accuracy is required.
• Collaboration Tools: Platforms like Otter.ai and Descript offer advanced collaboration features for teams, while Fireflies.ai focuses on automatically creating action items and meeting summaries.
• Specialization: Tools like Descript target creators who also need editing tools, while others like Meetgeek focus on meeting insights and summaries.

A Note on Privacy and Security

While AI-powered notetaking tools like Fireflies.ai can greatly enhance meeting productivity, it’s important to be mindful of data privacy and security.

As with most cloud-based AI tools, your meeting data (including the audio and transcript) is processed and stored on external servers. When the meeting takes place, your audio and/or video data is sent to the AI tool’s servers for transcription. In the case of Fireflies.ai, the data is encrypted during transmission to protect it from unauthorized access. The audio is then processed by proprietary algorithms, which are hosted on cloud servers. The encrypted transcriptions and meeting insights are then stored on third party servers.

In spite of the measures taken by Fireflies, sometimes it’s not worth the risk. In certain meetings — such as those discussing sensitive client projects or confidential internal matters — we intentionally choose not to include the AI agent. By excluding the AI from these conversations, we prevent any risk of sensitive information being captured, stored, or processed without explicit consent. Balancing convenience with confidentiality is key, and we remain cautious about when and how AI transcription is used to ensure our discussions remain secure.

Final Thoughts

As a project manager at Rotational Labs, I’m just starting to dive into the innovative solutions that AI can offer to improve efficiency and empower my team. Fireflies.ai is a perfect example of how AI can be harnessed responsibly and ethically (adhering to our safety, trust, and reliability principles) to streamline workflows and propel projects forward. So, if you’re a fellow project manager drowning in a sea of meetings, I highly recommend giving AI notetaking a try. You might just find yourself with more time to focus on what truly matters: fostering a collaborative environment and delivering exceptional projects.

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