What record mode does

Record mode lets the ChatGPT desktop app listen to a meeting, brainstorm, or voice note, produce a live transcript, and then turn it into a structured summary when you stop recording. The summary lands in your chat history, where you can turn it into follow-up emails, action lists, or a project plan with one more prompt.

For anyone who's been paying for a separate meeting-notes subscription on top of ChatGPT, this is worth a look — it covers the core of what those tools do.

Check you can use it first

Two real restrictions. First, plan: record mode is available on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu accounts — not the free tier. Second, device: it currently works in the macOS desktop app only. Not the browser, not Windows, not your phone. If you're on a Windows machine, the practical alternative is at the end of this guide.

Setting it up

Download the ChatGPT app for Mac from openai.com if you don't have it, or open the app menu and click "Check for Updates" if you do. Then grant two permissions: go to System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone and enable ChatGPT, then System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording and enable ChatGPT. The second one is what lets it hear the other side of a video call.

To record, open the app and click the microphone icon at the bottom of the chat window. A live transcript appears as people speak. When the meeting ends, click stop, and ChatGPT processes the recording into a structured summary. You can record up to 120 minutes per session.

The consent step you must not skip

Recording people without telling them is a legal problem in most Australian states and a trust problem everywhere. The rule is simple: announce it at the start, every time. "I'm recording this with an AI note-taker so I don't have to scribble — anyone object?" Two seconds, and you're covered. If a client or colleague objects, take notes the old way. OpenAI says audio recordings are used for transcription only and deleted afterwards, but consent is about the people in the room, not the vendor's policy.

Turning the summary into something useful

The automatic summary is decent, but the follow-up prompt is where the time savings live. Paste this into the same chat after the recording is processed:

From this meeting transcript, give me: 1. DECISIONS — every decision made, one line each, with who made it 2. ACTIONS — a table of action items: task, owner, deadline. If no deadline was stated, write "not set" 3. PARKED — anything raised but deferred to a later meeting 4. DRAFT EMAIL — a short follow-up email to attendees summarising the above, ready to send Don't invent owners or deadlines that weren't said. Mark anything ambiguous with [CHECK].
💡 On a Windows machine?

You can get most of the benefit without record mode: use your meeting platform's built-in transcript (Teams, Zoom, and Meet all offer one), download it after the call, and paste it into ChatGPT or Claude with the prompt above. It's one extra step and works on any computer.

What it won't do

It doesn't join meetings as a bot, it doesn't reliably label who said what in a noisy room, and it won't catch jargon or names it mishears. Skim the transcript before you send the summary to anyone — particularly numbers, dates, and names, which are exactly the things a transcription gets wrong most often.

Do this this week

Pick one internal meeting — not a client call — and run record mode (or the paste-the-transcript method) from start to finish, including the consent announcement and the follow-up prompt. Compare the result with the notes you would have taken by hand. Most people find the AI version more complete and the writing-up time close to zero. After one successful test, make it your default for internal meetings.