How to Make AI Your Team’s Best Meeting Assistant

We’re drowning in meetings. The average employee now spends nearly 21.5 hours a week in them, creating a productivity problem that costs U.S. companies an estimated $37 billion annually. It’s a challenge every leader is trying to solve.

Fortunately, innovation is providing a powerful solution. A new generation of AI-powered notetakers like Gong, Otter.ai, Granola, and Fireflies.ai has emerged to tackle this problem head-on. An AI meeting assistant acts as a digital scribe, joining calls to transcribe conversations and create automated summaries.

This allows teams to stay fully engaged in the discussion, confident that the key details are being captured. The rapid adoption—with platforms like Otter transcribing over 100 million meetings by early 2021—proves just how valuable this technology is.

Like any game-changing technology, the initial rollout of these tools raised important questions. For all the value of automated productivity, what are the best practices for putting them to work?

Understanding the New World of Meeting AI

The first wave of meeting bots changed the game, but also revealed areas for growth. As with any new technology, there were growing pains. Some early platforms had complex setups, while others, originally designed for different purposes, had to adapt to the corporate world.

Most importantly, these tools sparked a necessary conversation about privacy and data security. Leaders and employees alike began asking legitimate questions like, “How do we ensure everyone consents to being recorded?” “How is our data being used and protected?” 

These questions weren’t a sign of fear. They were appropriate for responsible leaders to ask. They pushed the industry to mature quickly, leading to a new generation of AI tools designed with trust and transparency at their core. 

Early privacy policies from some vendors allowed for data to be used in ways that made businesses uncomfortable, like for third-party marketing or model training.

From Smart Tools to Trusted Coaches

The industry listened. Today, the standard for AI meeting assistants includes robust safeguards like SOC 2 Type II compliance, encryption, and clear data policies. But the most exciting development is the evolution of the tool’s purpose itself. The goal is no longer just transcription; it’s about enabling real change.

This is the vision behind Kona Meeting Assistant by 15Five. 

Kona Meeting Assistant connects to Google or Outlook calendars and joins scheduled 1:1s in Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams. Once enabled, it joins manager–employee meetings to capture key moments like progress updates, wins, blockers, and action items so managers can stay fully present in the conversation.

Over time, those summaries build a continuous record of growth that reflects each employee’s real contributions throughout the review period.

When review season comes, Kona compiles these summaries into a fair, balanced, and ready-to-edit performance snapshot. Managers save hours of writing time and avoid the usual pitfalls of recency bias. The result is a performance review process that feels faster, easier, and more meaningful.

Unlike generic AI note takers, Kona Meeting Assistant was designed specifically for performance management, not just meeting transcription. 

Kona understands which insights actually matter for reviews, focusing on feedback, progress, and development, and ignores personal conversations that would not be relevant. It’s also fully integrated into 15Five, so managers and HR teams can move seamlessly from conversation to performance cycle without switching tools or copying notes into other systems.

Kona was built on a foundation of “privacy by default.” All personally identifiable information (PII) is removed before any data is processed. Furthermore, the de-identified data is never retained or used for model training, and companies have complete control, with the ability to opt out or enable AI features as they see fit.

The notes and summaries generated by the Kona Meeting Assistant are private to the manager and their direct report. HR administrators cannot see the content of these 1:1 notes without the manager’s explicit consent

When you build AI this way, with trust and connection at the center, it helps people be more engaged, stay longer, and perform better. 

A Leader’s Checklist for Building Trust with AI Notetakers

Putting AI notetakers to work thoughtfully is the key to getting their benefits. Here’s a leader’s checklist for introducing these tools in a way that builds confidence and trust:

• Foster Transparency and Consent—always be upfront. Ensure all participants know that the meeting is being recorded and provide their consent. Look for tools that make this process automatic and clear.
• Partner with Principled Vendors—do your homework. Choose partners whose privacy policies guarantee that your data remains your own and is never used for external model training or sold to third parties.
• Put Smart Access Controls in Place—use role-based permissions to ensure that sensitive conversations are only accessible to the right people. Good governance builds trust.
• Champion Privacy-First Design—select solutions that are engineered for security from the ground up, such as by de-identifying data before it’s processed.
• Empower Your Team with Choice—the best vendors provide flexibility. The ability for your organization to enable, restrict, or disable AI features ensures you stay in control.
• Communicate the ‘Why’ and ‘How’—proactively explain the purpose behind the AI meeting assistant—to reduce administrative work, improve focus, and provide better coaching—and be transparent about how data is protected.

AI tools can be incredible partners when you choose the right ones. The best tools don’t just transcribe meetings, they help your people grow. Look for technology that enhances our ability to connect, create, and lead. Get this right, and you’ll build a workplace that’s both more productive and more human.

If you’re interested in learning more about 15Five and our Kona Meeting Assistant, click here for a demo.