/ The challenge.

Remember the last time you left a project meeting full of good intentions, thinking, “I’ll write those notes down after the next call,” only to realise later that important details had already slipped away? That's exactly the challenge we tackled together with the Daymakers team, exploring how AI-driven transcription tools could help them effortlessly capture project meetings. In this article we'll share the process and tools we used to set their team up for success.

Your brain is designed for having ideas, not holding them.‍

This principle comes from David Allen, productivity guru and author of Getting Things Done®. When we organized the GTD Summit with David in Amsterdam back in 2019, we experienced firsthand how much more creative teams can be when they stop using their brains as shopping lists.

Generative AI now makes embracing this principle easier than ever. Nowadays, we join every meeting with an AI-powered tool that captures and transcribes everything — ensuring nothing ever gets forgotten.

/ The solution.

Transcription tools (like Otter.ai, Wudpecker, and Fireflies.ai) have been around for some time. While speech-to-text technology isn't new, recent advancements have dramatically improved its effectiveness. OpenAI’s Whisper model, a leading speech-to-text technology, powers many commercial apps behind the scenes. These apps now effortlessly record meetings, generate transcripts, summarize key points, and capture action items — instantly sharable to preserve the essence of every conversation.

How we evaluate transcription tools

When choosing transcription tools, we focus on several key criteria relevant to every event professional looking for the right solution:

Must-Haves:

• Accurate Transcripts: High-quality (Dutch) transcription of the entire conversation. Many tools excel in English but falter in other languages.
  
  
• Clear Summaries: Structured summaries outlining action points based on conversations. After all, a meeting’s value is measured by the actions it produces.
  
  
• Speaker Diarization: Recognizing who is speaking at any moment. Without speaker identification, context becomes unclear, reducing the usefulness of summaries.
  
  
• Integration Capabilities: Compatibility with major video conferencing platforms (Zoom, Meet, Teams). Since meetings are often hosted externally, reliable integration is critical.
  

• Cost Efficiency: Reasonable pricing, particularly when adopting the tool across larger teams or entire organizations.

‍Nice-to-Haves:

• Offline Meeting Support: Ability to process offline meetings seamlessly.
  
  
• Discrete Note-taking: Subtle methods of capturing meetings without explicitly inviting transcription bots.
  
  
• Video Recording: Automated video capture of online meetings.
  
  
• Collaboration: Easy collaboration and note-sharing with teammates or integration with third-party applications.
  
  
• Highlighting Features: Ability to tag key moments during calls for inclusion in summaries.
  ‍

Our favorite tools: Supernormal and MacWhisper

In our collaboration with Daymakers, two tools stood out as indispensable, each complementing different meeting scenarios - Supernormal for digital meetings and MacWhisper for offline sessions. Since we aren't always initiating calls ourselves, versatility and broad compatibility were essential.

Supernormal – Ideal for digital meetings

Strengths:

• Outstanding Dutch Transcription: Generates excellent quality Dutch transcriptions and summaries with an intuitive interface, allowing quick edits (~1 minute) post-call to finalise key points.
  
  
• Broad Compatibility: Works seamlessly with major platforms (Zoom, Teams, Google Meet), delivering accurate transcripts with reliable speaker diarization.
  
  
• Team Collaboration: Allows creation of groups, making it easy to manage and share summaries (e.g., quickly distributing to a sales team).
  
  
• Integrations: Connects effortlessly with CRM tools (Hubspot) and productivity platforms like Slack and Zapier, streamlining meeting note-sharing.
  
  
• Discrete Note-Taking Options: Offers a Chrome extension for subtle note-taking without explicitly inviting transcription bots, ideal for sensitive calls. However, speaker diarization is unavailable in this mode.
  
  
• Interactive Video Recordings: Enables automatic video recording with clickable transcript sections, speeding up content review.
  
  

Weaknesses:

• Extra Setup for Dutch Transcripts: Requires additional Google Meet configuration for optimal Dutch performance, initially inconvenient but manageable. Supernormal has dedicated an entire support-article to the subject.
  
  
• Limited Offline Meeting Support: Uploading offline recordings requires MP4 format, necessitating extra conversion steps from other audio formats.
  ‍

MacWhisper – Ideal for offline and flexible recording

It offers the flexibility to quickly record and transcribe meetings with minimal effort. Additionally, the paid version involves just a one-time fee, making it highly cost-effective in the long run. The model performs exceptionally well for Dutch transcription, although it struggles somewhat with English words interspersed — a common challenge for Dutch users, as we often blend English terms and expressions into our conversations.

Strengths:

• One-Time Cost: Single purchase makes it economical for broad adoption across teams. Transcriptions are powered by your own laptop's CPU.
  
  
• Recording Flexibility: Ideal for both digital and offline meetings, enabling discreet, quick audio capture without complexity.
  
  
• Direct Whisper Access: Allows adjusting OpenAI Whisper model settings (small, medium, large) for balancing transcription speed versus accuracy.
  
  
• System Audio Capture: Can record all system audio with one click, effectively capturing digital meetings without explicit meeting platform permissions.
  ‍

Weaknesses:

• High CPU Usage: Heavy laptop resource consumption, especially during transcription, impacting other intensive applications like Adobe Photoshop.
  ‍
• MacOS Exclusive: Only available on Mac, limiting use for Windows or Linux teams.
  ‍

Despite their limitations, combining Supernormal (digital) and MacWhisper (offline) proved an optimal strategy for Daymakers, balancing structured collaboration with practical flexibility.

Why full transcripts are essential

Sharing a meeting summary with clear action points is undoubtedly valuable for accountability. However, full transcripts provide broader context, becoming indispensable assets for future tasks leveraging ChatGPT. Here are some impactful examples:

• Detailed Project Planning: Using full meeting transcripts adds nuance and depth when drafting project plans, ensuring critical details aren't lost—details summaries alone might overlook.
  ‍
• Effective Handover Briefings: Transcripts provide essential context for handovers, enabling colleagues to leverage ChatGPT to perform sentiment analyses, uncover personal client anecdotes, or verify previously discussed topics.
  ‍
• Creating Custom GPTs: Detailed transcripts from past meetings serve as goldmines when building specialized GPT models (Custom GPTs) tailored to specific clients, ensuring precise and contextually accurate responses.

A complete transcript ensures no detail ever slips through the cracks, offering a valuable, reusable source of insights, enabling teams to work smarter and more efficiently every day.