Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
More and more, people tell me they don't take notes anymore. After all, we've got Copilot in Teams. And how many times have you seen one of those AI bots show up to a meeting on someone's behalf?
"It sends us a summary afterwards." AI meeting notes are genuinely amazing. But are we relying on them too much, and is the presence of these tools making us miss the point of a meeting entirely?
Because a meeting shouldn't just be a data-capture exercise.
The whole point is for people to get together, exchange ideas, reason through problems and challenge each other, so the room arrives at something better than anyone walked in with. A slab of text, however well formatted, can't replace your presence in that process. Freeing up the minute-taker, giving absentees a record, letting you stop worrying about a perfect summary: those are perfect uses of AI. But sending a bot instead of you isn't saving time. It's opting out of the work the meeting exists to do.
In this one I make the case for writing notes by hand. How it activates the visual and spatial parts of your brain so you're processing rather than just recording. Why a pen on a page is a more honest signal of attention than a laptop screen nobody can see behind. And how parking a thought on paper instead of blurting it keeps you present. Then where digital actually earns its place: feeding those messy, arrow-covered handwritten notes into Copilot in OneNote afterwards to make sense of your own thinking. Human thinking first. AI assist second.
This isn't an argument against AI in meetings. It's an argument against outsourcing your thinking. Take notes, do the cognitive work while you're in the room, and then let AI help you shape, share and refine what you produced.
~---~ Contact ASI Solutions ~---~
Are you ready to do more with your device? Talk to the Digital Skills team at ASI Solutions to see how a Technology Coach can help you and your team to achieve more today. Contact our team at training@asi.com.au
~---~ Let's Connect! ~---~
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/asi-solutions-training
Facebook: facebook.com/asi.com.au
Twitter: twitter.com/asi_solutions
Instagram: instagram.com/asi_solutions
Website: https://www.asi.com.au/
More and more, people tell me they don't take notes anymore. After all, we've got Copilot in Teams. And how many times have you seen one of those AI bots show up to a meeting on someone's behalf?
"It sends us a summary afterwards." AI meeting notes are genuinely amazing. But are we relying on them too much, and is the presence of these tools making us miss the point of a meeting entirely?
Because a meeting shouldn't just be a data-capture exercise.
The whole point is for people to get together, exchange ideas, reason through problems and challenge each other, so the room arrives at something better than anyone walked in with. A slab of text, however well formatted, can't replace your presence in that process. Freeing up the minute-taker, giving absentees a record, letting you stop worrying about a perfect summary: those are perfect uses of AI. But sending a bot instead of you isn't saving time. It's opting out of the work the meeting exists to do.
In this one I make the case for writing notes by hand. How it activates the visual and spatial parts of your brain so you're processing rather than just recording. Why a pen on a page is a more honest signal of attention than a laptop screen nobody can see behind. And how parking a thought on paper instead of blurting it keeps you present. Then where digital actually earns its place: feeding those messy, arrow-covered handwritten notes into Copilot in OneNote afterwards to make sense of your own thinking. Human thinking first. AI assist second.
This isn't an argument against AI in meetings. It's an argument against outsourcing your thinking. Take notes, do the cognitive work while you're in the room, and then let AI help you shape, share and refine what you produced.
~---~ Contact ASI Solutions ~---~
Are you ready to do more with your device? Talk to the Digital Skills team at ASI Solutions to see how a Technology Coach can help you and your team to achieve more today. Contact our team at training@asi.com.au
~---~ Let's Connect! ~---~
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/asi-solutions-training
Facebook: facebook.com/asi.com.au
Twitter: twitter.com/asi_solutions
Instagram: instagram.com/asi_solutions
Website: https://www.asi.com.au/
