Turn meeting notes into action items with AI

1. Start with a small, checkable set of notes

This fictional portal project gives us enough detail to test the prompt, including information that has deliberately not been agreed. The line labels make it easier to trace each result to its source.

Meeting: 7 October 2026 · Portal update
[S1] The team agrees to release in two stages. Release dates have not been chosen.
[S2] Luca will test restoring the backup by 9 October 2026.
[S3] Marta will send the revised homepage copy by 8 October 2026.
[S4] The user manual needs updating. No owner or deadline was agreed.
[S5] Davide says: “I could test the mobile layout.” No assignment was confirmed.
[S6] The next meeting is on 12 October 2026.

All names and events in this example are invented. For a real meeting, select the relevant notes and use only material you are authorised to process in your chosen tool. Keep the original available for review.

Before: an underspecified request

Summarise these meeting notes and list what everyone needs to do.

This leaves the model to decide how to handle missing owners, tentative offers and dates. We cannot judge a specific answer without running it, but we can already see that the request does not define those rules.

2. Ask for a draft that preserves uncertainty

The four blocks separate the goal, the working rules, the notes and the required output. Copy the whole example first. When adapting it, replace the notes and keep the rules that matter to your team.

<request>
  <goal>Prepare a meeting follow-up draft for the team to review.</goal>
  <method>
    Use only the notes supplied below as source material.
    Separate decisions, tasks and tentative proposals.
    Do not invent owners, deadlines or commitments.
    Write "to be agreed" when an owner or deadline is missing.
    Keep proposals without a confirmed assignment among open questions.
    Cite the source line for each task and decision.
    Keep the next meeting date separate from task deadlines.
  </method>
  <attachments>
    <notes>Meeting: 7 October 2026 · Portal update
[S1] The team agrees to release in two stages. Release dates have not been chosen.
[S2] Luca will test restoring the backup by 9 October 2026.
[S3] Marta will send the revised homepage copy by 8 October 2026.
[S4] The user manual needs updating. No owner or deadline was agreed.
[S5] Davide says: “I could test the mobile layout.” No assignment was confirmed.
[S6] The next meeting is on 12 October 2026.</notes>
  </attachments>
  <output_format>
    Write in English. Use these sections:
    1. Decisions.
    2. Table: task | owner | deadline | source | open question.
    3. Open questions and proposals.
    4. Next meeting.
    Keep the wording concise. Do not send messages or create calendar events.
  </output_format>
</request>

Goal

Define the next use: a follow-up draft for the team, ready for human review.

Method

Separate agreed work from tentative proposals. Keep missing fields visible and require a short source reference for each task.

Attachments

Include the notes in the prompt or upload a readable file and identify it clearly. Mentioning a filename alone does not attach a document.

Output format

Name the sections and table columns. This gives you a stable structure to compare with the original.

XML-style tags are a way to organise a request. They do not guarantee accurate extraction or protect against instructions embedded in a document. Treat the notes as source material and review the result.

Further reading: Anthropic explains using descriptive XML tags to separate instructions and input material. This guide’s meeting scenario, prompt and reference answer are original Take Two teaching materials. Anthropic · Structure prompts with XML tags ↗

3. What a reviewed draft should contain

The example below was written for this guide. It is a reference answer for checking the exercise, not a captured response or a performance claim about an AI model. Your tool may phrase the result differently.

Three details worth checking

The manual is still an action

It appears in the task table because the notes identify work to do. The owner and deadline remain “to be agreed”; the draft does not quietly fill them in.

Davide has not accepted a task

His comment belongs among the open proposals. Converting it into an assigned task would change what the notes say.

The next meeting stays separate

12 October appears only as the meeting date. Luca and Marta keep their explicit deadlines; the manual gains none.

If the answer assigns Davide a task

Point out the exact error and ask for a targeted revision. Then check the whole table again: fixing one row does not prove that the others are correct.

In [S5], Davide makes a tentative offer, not a confirmed commitment. Move it to open proposals. Keep the tasks supported by [S2], [S3] and [S4]. Do not change their owners or deadlines. Return the corrected draft.

4. Review before you share

Use this checklist on the example, then on your own notes. If a fact is unclear in the source, ask the team instead of treating a fluent answer as confirmation.

1. Coverage

   Are all three actions from [S2]–[S4] present, with no duplicate tasks?

2. Ownership

   Do Luca and Marta retain their tasks? Are the manual owner and Davide’s possible assignment still unconfirmed?

3. Dates

   Are 8 and 9 October attached to the correct tasks? Has 12 October stayed separate from the deadlines?

4. Traceability

   Does each source reference actually support the task, owner and deadline beside it? Open the original notes rather than trusting the label.

5. Decisions and proposals

   Is the two-stage release a decision, while mobile testing remains an open proposal?

6. Sharing

   Remove irrelevant or sensitive details, confirm the commitments with the people concerned and review the destination before sending the draft.

Keep the structure; change the meeting

Save the prompt with your team’s preferred columns. For the next meeting, replace the source notes and check the draft against them. If you need status, dependencies or priority, add those fields and specify “to be agreed” when the notes do not provide them.

The structured prompts course develops this method across goal, method, attachments and output format. The free toolkit includes a reusable template and more examples.