Google has made a lot of pitches about the future of AI. It wants AI to be the new face of search, (though that rollout's going quite poorly), and it wants AI to be the selling point for its newest smartphones—but as Lifehacker's Associate Tech Editor Michelle Ehrhardt discovered, even the Pixel 9 Pro's AI features feel half baked.
As tired as many of us may be of underwhelming experiences with AI, useful applications of the technology are still more than welcome. Perhaps that will be the case with “take notes for me,” a new Google Meet feature that is finally rolling out this week.
"Take notes for me" might not be the flashiest name, but it is apt. When enabled, Gemini, Google's AI platform, will automatically organize and summarize everything that was said during a Google Meet video call. When the call is finished, Gemini will save its notes to the meeting organizer's Google Drive, and will attach the file to the Google Calendar event, so anyone who was invited to the meeting can check it out.
Gemini will include a brief summary of the call in its meeting notes before diving into more detailed breakdowns of what was said, but you can also view a summary "so far" while the meeting is in progress. If you join the meeting late, you can catch up on both the gist of the discussion, as well as the last thing that was said. You can rate these in-meeting summaries, so if you feel Gemini missed the mark with its interpretation, you can give it that feedback.
Google has been testing this feature since at least April, and began rolling it out to eligible Google Workspace customers on Tuesday. By Sept. 10, it should be available to all applicable users.
In order to take advantage of this unique AI feature, you or your company will need to be subscribed to Google Workspace with a qualifying add-on plan. That includes:
Gemini Enterprise
Gemini Education Premium
AI Meetings & Messaging
Let's say your work or school has paid for one of these add-ons. The feature will be enabled by default on the admin's end, so you shouldn't have to request it from your IT department. On your end, you'll need to be using a computer or a laptop. (This feature isn't available on mobile at this time.) Gemini will only be able to transcribe conversations in English, as well.
With all that in mind, start a Google Meet call, then click Take notes with Gemini, which looks like an blue and purple icon of a pen. Choose whether you want Gemini to transcribe the call, as well as whether to have the AI record the meeting itself, then choose Start taking notes. You can manually refresh the "Summary so far" by clicking the rotating arrow. All participants will have the option to click Stop taking notes at any time, in case the conversation turns private or confidential, unless host controls are set for the call.
