Once upon a time, important meetings had secretaries.
They prepared agendas, recorded decisions, documented commitments and helped ensure that one meeting could build on another.
Of course, not everyone was important enough to have a secretary.
The boss’s meetings had a secretary. The rest of us had to manage our own meetings.
And somehow, we ended up with calendars full of meetings without clear purposes, agendas, decisions or minutes.
We saved money on secretaries.
I’m not entirely convinced we saved money.
What Did the Secretary Actually Do?
Meeting minutes weren’t simply records of what was said.
They preserved decisions, established accountability and provided continuity.
What did we decide last time? Why? Who was supposed to do what? What remained unresolved?
Secretaries also helped organize meetings, prepare material and follow up on commitments.
When dedicated secretarial support became less common, those responsibilities didn’t disappear. They were redistributed to professionals who weren’t necessarily trained to perform them.
The meeting organizer became the implicit chairperson. Someone was expected to take minutes. Sometimes nobody did.
Meanwhile, eight highly paid professionals could spend an hour in a meeting without a clear purpose, only to schedule another meeting because nothing was decided.
We eliminated an identifiable cost while accepting a distributed one.
Meet Ada, Our New AI Secretary
Now imagine everyone could have a secretary.
An AI secretary.
Let’s call her Ada.
Ada could help prepare agendas, record decisions, identify actions and keep track of unresolved questions.
She could remind us what happened last time and help us prepare for the next meeting.
Afterward, she could produce meeting minutes for participants to review and confirm.
This isn’t science fiction. Tools such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom and AI-powered transcription services already provide much of the necessary functionality.
What’s changed is the economics.
We can now make secretarial support available to meetings that could never justify dedicating another person to them.
And Ada isn’t a particular product. She represents a role that different AI services can fulfill.
Why Stop at Important Meetings?
Consider one-to-one conversations, sales meetings, requirements refinement sessions or incident investigations.
These activities produce knowledge: expectations, assumptions, observations, decisions and commitments.
Yet much of it disappears when the conversation ends.
Ada could help preserve it.
And why stop at conversations?
Consider exploratory software testing.
A tester investigates a system, observes its behaviour, develops hypotheses and follows interesting leads.
Documenting the investigation interrupts it.
Now imagine Ada observing the screen while listening to the tester explain what they’re investigating.
“That’s strange. I expected the customer status to change after saving, but it didn’t. Let’s try changing the account type first.”
Ada could associate that observation with the relevant screen state, actions and subsequent results.
Instead of merely recording a conversation, she helps preserve the investigation: what was attempted, what was observed, why it mattered and what happened next.
The tester remains responsible for interpreting the results.
Ada takes care of much of the documentation.
From Meeting Minutes to Organizational Memory
Now imagine that Ada’s records don’t simply become documents stored somewhere.
They contribute to an accessible body of organizational knowledge.
Decisions remain connected to their rationale. Investigations remain connected to their evidence. Observations remain available for future work.
People could ask:
Why did we choose this solution?
Have we encountered this problem before?
What did we learn last time?
Of course, Ada needs some guidance.
Like any secretary, she needs to understand what matters, what to document and what to leave out. We can coach her by reviewing her work and providing feedback.
She also needs to respect privacy and confidentiality. Participants should know when she’s present, and unnecessary recordings or personal details shouldn’t be retained. Her minutes should capture the substance of discussions rather than reproduce every word.
The goal isn’t to record everything.
It’s to preserve what matters.
Let’s Give Everyone a Secretary
Ada won’t automatically make meetings productive.
A meeting without a purpose doesn’t become useful simply because someone writes excellent minutes.
But she could make good meeting practices easier to follow, reduce the administrative burden on participants and preserve information that would otherwise be lost.
So here’s a suggestion.
At your next meeting, bring Ada.
Use your phone, Teams, Zoom or whichever AI transcription service your organization supports.
Make sure participants are informed and the service is appropriate for the conversation.
Let everyone concentrate on the discussion while Ada takes the notes.
Review the minutes, confirm the decisions and agree on the actions.
Give Ada feedback. Tell her what to do differently next time.
And wherever appropriate, make this your default way of working.
Let’s put the secretary back in our meetings.
This time, let’s give everyone one.
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