How To Prepare For A Meeting With AI
A good meeting brief answers four things: why this meeting exists, what happened last time, what’s still open, and what you want to leave with. Pull it from your own trail: the calendar invite, the last meeting’s notes, the latest email thread and open tasks. AI can put it together the evening before, so you only spend five minutes reading.
How To Do It
These steps work with the tools you already have, whatever you use.
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Put The Goal In The Invite
Add one line to the event description in Google Calendar or Outlook: “Decide on the Q1 vendor” or “Agree on the launch date.” If you can’t write the line, question whether the meeting is needed.
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Find Last Time’s Notes
Google Meet attaches its notes doc to the Calendar event, and Teams keeps a Recap tab in the meeting chat. Otherwise, search your notes app for the attendee’s name.
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Search The Latest Emails
In Gmail, search from:dana@acme.com newer_than:30d; in Outlook, search from: with the address. Skim the last few messages for promises and open questions.
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Check Open Tasks By Person
Filter your task tool by each attendee. Walking in knowing who owes what saves the first ten minutes of the meeting.
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Write It Under Four Headings
Goal, Last time, Open items, My ask. Keep it to one screen. With a Copilot license, Outlook can also help prepare for a meeting by gathering related emails and files.
What To Watch Out For
- Prepare the evening before, not a week before. Briefs go stale fast.
- Send the agenda to attendees a day ahead so they prepare too.
- Use the brief to steer the meeting, not as a script to read out loud.
How Octopus Prime Does It
Your Octopus Prime agent builds the brief from your calendar, past call summaries, the project log, email and open tasks, and has it waiting in chat when you wake up.
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An Evening Prep Task
Set a repeating task each weekday at 6 p.m.: “Brief me on tomorrow’s meetings.” The agent wakes when it’s due.
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It Reads Your Trail
The event and its attendees, the last summary in the project log, recent email threads, and tasks still open for each person.
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The Brief Is In Chat By Morning
Read it on your phone over coffee, with links to each source if you want the detail.
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Ask Follow-Up Questions
“What did we promise Kevin last time?” The agent answers from the project log and past summaries.
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Questions
What should a meeting brief include?
The goal, who’s attending and their role, what happened last time, open items, and what you want to leave with. One screen is enough.
Can Copilot prepare me for meetings?
With a Microsoft Copilot work license, Outlook can gather and summarize emails and files related to a meeting. It works inside your Microsoft 365 account.
How does the agent know what happened last time?
Calls in Octopus Prime save a transcript and summary, and decisions go in the project log. It can also read notes you keep in your docs or email.
Is this different from prospect research?
Yes. Prospect research is about a company you don’t know yet. A meeting brief is mostly your own history with people you already work with.
Let your agent do the steps. You approve what matters.
From $10/month 30 days free No credit card
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