Introducing the Future of Meeting Notes

Imagine this: You're on a call, fully engaged in the conversation. When the call ends, you receive all the information you need, formatted exactly as you like, and it's sent directly to your inbox, Slack, HubSpot, and more. You don’t need to type a single word or use a keyboard shortcut.

Introducing the future of meeting notes, available today.

AI-Powered Notes Take You Halfway

Meeting notes are records that help us create accountability, share information, and track progress. In short, it helps us get work done. But taking notes can get in the way of listening and engaging with customers on the other side. 

We took the first step towards solving this conundrum with AI notes. The premise was simple. At the end of every meeting, Grain gives you a short summary, a list of key points, and action items—so that you can focus on the conversation without worrying about missing any important information and next steps.

Standard AI notes, while useful to catch up on missed calls, often fall short when it comes to extracting the specific information and insights you require. 

Consider this: How you take notes and what you document depend on the meeting and its objective. Meeting notes from a sales discovery call will look different from, say, a customer interview. In a sales discovery call, you’ll be documenting prospect’s business challenges, needs, budget constraints, objections, and questions. On the contrary, in a customer interview, you’ll be documenting product feedback, feature requests, and positive/negative comments.

To truly automate note-taking and admin work that comes with it, AI needs to understand how you prefer to take notes, which details matter to you, and what the purpose of a meeting is.

Many companies now let you outsource note-taking to an AI, but until today, none have nailed the notes and replaced a human. Today, we’re excited to announce a big leap in AI Notes. 

Templates

Your meetings differ, so should your notes. Sometimes the standard structure you are used to—Summary, key points, and action items—doesn’t cut it. So, rather than giving you a standard notes, we want you to design the way Grain’s AI takes your notes. 

Wondering how? Meet, Notes Templates. 

Notes Templates give you the flexibility to select the sections you want in your notes and customize the formatting for each section. With Templates, AI-generated notes will include your chosen sections, formatted exactly how you prefer, whether it's time-stamped bullet points, paragraphs, or any other format of your choice.

"It’s been a game changer. Using it to structure my notes has saved me hours. I get to have my notes my way, in the exact structure that I like."

- Ali Khan, Co-Founder, Wrenly AI.

Here’s an example.

Simply put, with Notes Templates, you design the sections and the format, Grain AI will write the actual notes. 

There are two ways to get started with Notes Templates. You can create your own custom template designed just for you or choose a preset template designed by Grain. 

Creating Your Template

It’s easy to create your own Notes Template. 

1. Create and Add Your Sections

Sections are the building blocks of your template. Start by adding the sections that you’d like to have in your meeting notes. You can choose to add a prebuilt section or create a custom section. 

a. Custom Section:

You can create a custom section using ChatGPT-style prompting. Just let Grain know what information you would like to have in this specific section and the way you want it to be formatted (optional). 

For instance, if you’d like to have a section in your notes that lists the customer pain points, you can type “What pain points is the customer experiencing with our product”. Grain will generate the content based on your prompt and give your custom section a title as well. 

Note that Grain generates a sample of the section to be added, helping you gauge how closely it matches your expectations. You can experiment with different prompts to find the one that works best for you.

a. Prebuilt Section:

Prebuilt sections are designed by Grain to help you get answers to some of the common questions. To add a prebuilt section, just click it. 

Use sections to extract the information you need and order them based on your preferences. Once you’ve added all the sections, click ‘Save’ to save the template. Here’s the detailed guide on creating Custom Templates. 

Prebuilt Templates

Introducing prebuilt templates for different use cases, so you don't have to create your own. Choose a template, and the AI will create notes to match it. Whether it's a sales call, a customer check-in, or a standup, Grain has a template for you.

Each template has sections to help you collect different information and insights based on the call. For example, in the "Sales Discovery" template, you'll find sections like Budget, Competitors, and more. In a "Customer Check-in" template, there are sections for customer feedback. 

1. Sales Discovery:

Designed to help your sales teams understand prospects better. Easily uncover their needs and preferences to improve your sales strategy.

Sections: Summary, Customer Needs, Competition, Customer Budget, Stakeholders, and Next Steps. 

2. Sales Follow-up:

Designed to track follow-up meetings and important details. Keep commitments organized and never miss a beat.

Sections: Summary, Pricing Feedback, and Deal Timing.

3. Customer Feedback:

Designed to gather feedback from customers. Use this to collect insights and suggestions for improving your product or service. 

Sections: Summary, Customer Pain Points, Customer Praise, and Next Steps. 

4. Basic Meeting:

Designed to simplify standard meetings. Record discussions, track tasks, and ensure productive outcomes with ease.

Sections: Includes sections for a brief summary, list of key points, and next steps.

Applying the Notes Templates

Once you've created a template, you can apply it to past or future meetings to generate meeting notes.

If you prefer a 'set it and forget it' approach, you can designate any template as the default. This means that Grain AI will automatically generate notes based on the selected template for all your upcoming meetings. 

If you prefer to use different templates for different meetings, like us, you can do so with just a few clicks.

Need to change the template after the meeting? You can switch from one template to another at any time, and Grain AI will rewrite your notes accordingly. 

Here’s the detailed guide to help you apply the Templates to your meetings. 

AI Prompts

You don’t have to prepare a template beforehand to get the information you need.  

Just like with ChatGPT, you can use prompts to ask questions about your meetings. You have two options: copy and share the answer or add it as a section to the meeting (or both the meeting and Template). How-to guide. 

“I can type in my questions and get the answers I need. It's ChatGPT designed for meetings.”

- Olga Chervinskaia, User Experience Researcher, Apron.

Here’s an example:

Ask the AI a question and get the answer based on the transcript data. It’s that simple. You can use custom sections to extract specific information from the call, such as pain points, sentiment, or other aspects.

With Notes Templates and Custom Sections, you can fully delegate note-taking to Grain AI – an AI that writes notes just like you, at last!

The Future of Note-taking

At Grain, we've always believed in giving you the freedom to focus on conversations, actively engage, ask questions, and wrap up discussions—without the need to think about notes again. Why? Because better conversations lead to stronger relationships, improved results, and accelerated growth for your business.

The future of note-taking doesn't involve taking notes at all.