A colleague wants to add a free AI note-taker to a client call. It is helpful, it is free, and it has just become a third party sitting in on a confidential meeting.
In short
Free note-takers send recordings and transcripts to services nobody at your business has reviewed.
The recording and notes built into your work Teams, Zoom or Meet account are fine, as long as everyone knows.
When someone else is recording, what you control is what you share.
What the free ones actually do
An AI note-taker joins the call, records it, turns it into a transcript and stores both on its own servers. With a free or personal account, that material can be kept, seen by staff at the provider, and used to train their models.
Now think about what gets said on a client call: budgets, launch dates, names, the thing that is under embargo until March. Most client contracts have a confidentiality clause. A free note-taker can breach it before the meeting has finished.
The safe way to get the same result
Record with your work account. The recording and AI notes inside your work Teams, Zoom or Google Meet stay inside the business.
Tell people. Say at the start that the call is being recorded and why.
Keep the list short. Pick the tools your business allows, write them down, and review new ones when people ask.
When the client brings their own
Clients and production companies often turn up with a note-taker of their own. That is their call. If someone else is recording, keep embargoed or sensitive material off that call, or check first.
The same goes for browser extensions
An AI writing extension that asks to "read all your data on all websites" means exactly that: your email, your banking, your client portals. Extensions are best approved and installed centrally, and the unapproved ones removed the same way, so nobody has to police their own browser.
Want a list your team can actually follow?
We review the tools, set up the approved ones properly, remove the rest, and give your team a one-page guide. Talk to us, or read about AI and business systems.