Extract Action Items from Meeting Notes
Turn messy meeting notes into a clear list of who owns what, without the AI inventing an owner or deadline that was never actually said.
Prompt template
Replace the parts in curly braces: raw meeting notes or transcript
From the meeting notes below, extract a clear action item list. For each item: who owns it (if stated), what exactly needs to be done, and any deadline mentioned. Do not invent an owner or deadline that wasn't stated — write "unassigned" or "no deadline given" instead of guessing.
{raw meeting notes or transcript}Example
Input: Informal notes mentioning several decisions and next steps, with owners only sometimes named.
Output: Illustrative only. A good result is a short list like: "1. Alice — update the pricing page by Friday. 2. Unassigned — investigate the API timeout issue, no deadline given." Watch for the AI assigning an owner or deadline that was never actually stated in the notes.
Quality checklist
- Verify every named owner and deadline against the actual notes, not just the extracted list
- Check that nothing discussed-but-not-decided got listed as a firm action item
Where this tends to go wrong
- The AI may confidently assign a task to someone who was only mentioned in passing, not actually tasked with it
- Ambiguous notes can produce a confident-sounding but wrong action item