What is the difference between a meeting transcript and an AI summary?
A transcript represents what was said as text. A summary selects and interprets parts of that conversation, usually emphasizing decisions, topics and next steps. These are separate operations, and a summary can misrepresent a discussion even when the underlying transcript is mostly accurate.
A proposal is not yet a decision
Meeting summaries need to distinguish an early suggestion from the final agreement. They also need to preserve uncertainty and corrections. Polished wording can obscure those distinctions, so an important conclusion should remain traceable to the relevant part of the conversation when the workflow retains it.
Consider an invented discussion where someone suggests Friday, another person objects and the group agrees on Monday. A summary that lists Friday as the deadline has selected the wrong state of the discussion. We care more about preserving that final decision than producing a smooth paragraph about the meeting.
Sources
Sources checked September 8, 2026. How we research these answers ↗