Get a Meeting Recap from Copilot in Teams for Office and PI Meetings

What This Does

Your office holds a weekly team meeting, and you host a kickoff with a new PI. Someone has to write down who agreed to what. Copilot in Teams meetings summarizes key discussion points, suggests action items and answers questions about what was said, during the meeting or afterward.

The recap is a first draft of your notes. You still compare it against what happened before anyone else sees it.

Before You Start

• Copilot in Teams meetings needs a Microsoft license that includes it. Microsoft's page says that the organizer controls Copilot for meetings they organize, even without a license of their own. Ask your IT group which licenses your institution has. Pricing is on Microsoft's pages.
• The meeting is hosted inside your organization. Microsoft's page says Copilot does not work in meetings hosted outside the participant's organization, so a PI kickoff with an outside collaborator may not support it.
• Everyone in the meeting knows that Copilot and transcription are on. Recording and transcription are subject to your institution's policy, so check it and tell attendees at the start.
• The topic suits it. Skip Copilot for meetings that discuss personnel matters or export-controlled work. Turn the option off for those meetings.

Steps

1. Find the AI feature

When you schedule the meeting, open Online meeting options and find the Copilot and other AI section, where the Allow Copilot and Facilitator setting lives. Microsoft's page describes these values:

• During and after the meeting: transcription is required. Copilot starts when someone begins transcribing, and stopping transcription stops Copilot.
• Only during the meeting: Copilot works from speech-to-text during the meeting. Untranscribed data and Copilot interactions are gone once the meeting ends.
• Off: Copilot is disabled, and recording and transcription are disabled too.

Your organization's policy, sensitivity label and template settings decide which of these values you can choose. For a recap you want afterward, choose the first.

2. Tell it what you need

During the meeting, select Copilot in the meeting controls. If transcription is not yet running, Copilot sends a prompt asking you to start it. Confirm, and tell the group.

Afterward, open the meeting chat and select Open Copilot at the upper right, or use the Recap tab. Microsoft's page says the transcript must exist for Copilot to answer questions about what was said. Then ask:

"List the decisions made, the action items with the person responsible, and every date mentioned. Note anything left unresolved."

Microsoft's page says the response cites the sources it used. If the answer is long, Open in Word appears for responses over 1300 characters, and tables can open in Excel.

3. Review and use the result

Compare the recap with your own notes before sharing it. Check four things:

1. Each action item belongs to the right person.
2. Each date matches what was said, and the recap marks agreed dates apart from suggested ones.
3. Nothing in the recap was never said.
4. Nothing that should stay private appears in it.

Edit the recap in your own words. Then post it to the team. Keep the final version in your office's normal place for meeting notes, not only in the Copilot history. Microsoft's page notes that Copilot history for a recurring meeting can disappear when a later meeting in the series is transcribed.

Real Example

Scenario: A kickoff for Award 1 (invented) with PI A and Person B from the department. Your notes say: the setup brief goes to PI A on 2026-10-16, and Person B will ask whether a subaward is needed.

What you ask: The prompt from step 2, in the meeting chat after the call.

What you get: A list with the setup brief and the subaward question as action items, and one date. In this invented case the recap also lists a second date, 2026-10-23, that nobody agreed to. It came from someone floating a possible date.

What you do: Cut the second date or mark it "proposed." Confirm the first against your notes. Then send the cleaned-up recap.

Tips

• State the purpose and the date format at the start of the meeting. Plain statements ("the setup brief goes out on 2026-10-16") transcribe more clearly than "next Friday."
• If the organizer sets Copilot to Off, ask them before assuming it is a mistake.
• Watch your own phrasing: do not say anything in a transcribed meeting that you would not want in a transcript.

Tool interfaces change. If a button has moved, look for Copilot in the meeting controls or in the meeting chat, and for the meeting options in the scheduler.