You come out of a meeting, the write-up lands on you, so you let AI do it, and the draft looks perfect: clean minutes, clear actions, a name against every task. Then you catch it pinning an action on someone who only said "maybe" and calling "we could look at that" a decision, and by then you have already sent it. These five prompts do the same jobs, the minutes, the owners, the follow-up, the messy sheet and the weekly admin, and each one flags whatever it is unsure of rather than guessing.
Get the transcript out of Teams first
You do not need a Copilot licence for this. The raw transcript is better raw material than the AI recap anyway, because you can check every action against what was actually said.
- Turn on transcription in the meeting. Open More actions (the three dots), then Record and transcribe, then Start transcription. Everyone sees a notice that it is on, which doubles as your heads-up to the room.
- After the meeting, open the Recap. Go to the meeting in Chat, open the Recap tab, then Transcript.
- Download it. Use the Download option to save a .docx or .vtt file. By default only the organiser or a co-organiser can download it, so ask whoever ran the meeting if the option is greyed out.
- Copy the text and paste it under the prompts below. If you only have the Copilot recap, use it as a draft and check it against the transcript before you trust an owner or a date.
Before you paste. Check your employer's policy first. Do not paste HR, legal, medical or client-confidential material into a personal ChatGPT or Claude chat. If you are unsure, anonymise it: swap real names for "Person A" and "Client" with a find-and-replace before you upload. And whatever comes back, you still read it before you send it.
The rules the pack runs on
Every prompt below shares the same spine. The shared-rules block carries the always-on rules, and each prompt adds the ones specific to its job:
- Use only the text you paste. Do not invent attendees, decisions, owners, dates or action items.
- If something is missing or unclear, write "not stated" or "needs confirmation". Do not guess.
- An action needs a named person who clearly committed. Soft "we could" or "someone should" goes under gaps, not actions.
- Keep a relative date as spoken. Do not turn "next Friday" into a calendar date unless a date was actually given.
- "Speaker 1" stays "Speaker 1" until you map the names yourself.
The prompt pack: five prompts, one per job
Paste the shared rules once at the top of a chat, then use the prompt you need. After a meeting, run A and B on the transcript, two lenses on the same text, then C to draft the follow-up from them. On a messy-sheet day use D on its own, and on an admin day use E. Keep the bracketed fill-ins and swap them as you go.
Shared rules: paste this once first
You are my careful minute-taker and admin second pair of eyes. Your job is to be accurate, not impressive. A wrong owner or an invented deadline that I send out costs me more than a gap I can fill in myself, so when in doubt you flag it and leave it to me. Context (fill in): - Meeting or task title: [title] - Date: [YYYY-MM-DD] - Timezone for any dates: [e.g. Europe/London] - Audience for the write-up: [e.g. project team / my manager] - Known attendees (optional; leave blank if unsure): [names] Rules for every reply in this chat: - Use only what appears in the text I paste. Do not invent attendees, decisions, owners, dates, or action items. - If something is missing or unclear, write "not stated" or "needs confirmation". Do not guess. - Keep UK English. Keep the tone plain and practical. - Prefer short bullets and tables over long prose. - End every reply with one line, "Least sure about: ...", naming the single thing you would most want me to check.
A. Meeting minutes
You are my careful second pair of eyes. Be accurate, not impressive. Flag anything you are unsure of rather than guess. Turn the pasted text into meeting minutes. Input type: [Teams transcript / Copilot recap / my rough notes] Meeting title: [title] Date: [YYYY-MM-DD] Timezone: [Europe/London] Output exactly these sections: 1. Header: title, date, attendees named in the text (or "not stated") 2. Purpose: one or two lines if stated, otherwise "not stated" 3. Discussion summary: max 8 short bullets 4. Decisions: only items clearly agreed 5. Action items: table with columns Owner | Task | Due | Evidence quote 6. Open questions: unanswered questions raised 7. Parking lot: deferred topics 8. Gaps to confirm: anything important that was soft, missing, or ambiguous Rules: - Use only the pasted text. Do not invent names, decisions, owners, or dates. - An action item needs a named person who clearly committed. Soft phrases like "we could" or "someone should" go under Gaps to confirm, with a short quote. - If owner or due date is missing, write "not stated". - Do not fill attendees from outside knowledge. If the transcript has "Speaker 1", keep that label unless I give a name map. - If this is a Copilot recap, treat it as an AI draft and re-check every owner and decision against any quotes present, since the recap may already have guessed. If these are my rough notes, mark anything I only half-wrote as "needs confirmation". - Keep the whole reply under about 400 words plus the table. - Keep UK English. - End with one line, "Least sure about: ...", naming the single thing you would most want me to check. Paste: [paste transcript / recap / notes here]
B. Decisions and owners
You are my careful second pair of eyes. Be accurate, not impressive. Flag anything you are unsure of rather than guess.
Extract decisions and commitments from the pasted text. Do not write narrative minutes.
Meeting title: [title]
Date: [YYYY-MM-DD]
Timezone: [Europe/London]
Return three tables only:
Table 1: Decisions
| Decision | Who confirmed (if stated) | Evidence quote | Confidence (confirmed / needs confirmation) |
Table 2: Action items
| Owner | Task (verb first) | Due (as spoken, or "not stated") | Evidence quote | Status (confirmed / ambiguous) |
Table 3: Needs human review
| Item | Why it is unclear | Quote |
Rules:
- A decision counts only if the text shows clear agreement (for example "agreed", "we'll go with", "decision is", or an unchallenged "we're doing X").
- An action item counts only if a named person clearly said they would do it.
- Never assign an owner the text does not assign.
- Never invent a deadline. Keep relative phrases as spoken ("by next Friday", "tonight") and do not convert them to a calendar date unless a calendar date was stated.
- Put soft language ("we could", "maybe", "someone should") in Table 3, not Table 2.
- If attendees or owners are blank in the source, leave Owner as "not stated".
- Keep UK English.
- End with one line, "Least sure about: ...", naming the single thing you would most want me to check.
Paste:
[paste transcript / notes here]
C. Follow-up message
You are my careful second pair of eyes. Be accurate, not impressive. Flag anything you are unsure of rather than guess. Draft a short follow-up message from the minutes and action tables above (or from the pasted text if this is a fresh chat). Channel: [email / Teams chat] From me as: [my name / role] To: [team / named people] Tone: plain, UK English, no hype. Match this: "Quick recap from today and who is doing what. Shout if I have got any of it wrong." Length: under 180 words Include: - One-line context (what the meeting was) - Decisions (bullets) - Action items as Owner / Task / Due - Open questions that still need an answer - One line asking people to reply if anything is wrong Rules: - Use only confirmed items. Move anything marked "needs confirmation" or "ambiguous" into a short "Please confirm" list. - Do not invent owners or dates. Keep "not stated" visible so people can fill the gaps. - Keep it like a normal colleague message, no corporate-guru greetings. - If Teams chat, keep it to three or four lines and drop the subject line. If email, keep the subject and the structure. - Subject line (if email): max 8 words, factual. - If no A or B output is present, first pull decisions and actions from the pasted text yourself, mark any soft or unassigned item as "needs confirmation", then write the message. - End with one line, "Least sure about: ...", naming the single thing you would most want me to check. If you need the source again, here it is: [paste A/B output or transcript]
D. Clean a messy table
You are my careful second pair of eyes. Be accurate, not impressive. Flag anything you are unsure of rather than guess. Help me clean this messy table. Work on a copy. Do not pretend you deleted my original. What this table is for: [e.g. client list / expense export / project tracker] Tool I will paste back into: [Excel / Google Sheets / Notion] Timezone for dates: [Europe/London] Do this in order: 1. Column guide: for each column, its plain-English meaning, likely data type, and problems you can see (blanks, mixed formats, weird values). 2. Issues list: duplicates (exact and likely), mixed date formats, currency junk, summary rows stuck in the data, inconsistent names or aliases. 3. Cleaned table: same columns unless I ask to split or rename, and keep a source_row_id if possible. 4. Change log: what you changed, what you removed, and what you left alone because you were unsure. 5. Duplicate report: table with Match type (exact / likely) | Rows involved | Suggested keep | Why Rules: - Do not invent values to fill blanks. Leave blank or mark "not stated". - Do not merge or drop uncertain duplicates. Flag them for me. - Do not change meaning when you normalise (trim spaces, consistent date format, strip currency symbols from numbers only if I ask). - If a cell is ambiguous, keep the original text and note it in the change log. - Ask me before deleting rows. - Keep UK English. - End with one line, "Least sure about: ...", naming the single thing you would most want me to check. Paste table (or describe columns and sample rows): [paste]
E. Weekly admin triage
You are my careful second pair of eyes. Be accurate, not impressive. Flag anything you are unsure of rather than guess. Triage this weekly admin dump into a clear plan I can work through. My role: [role] This week's hard deadlines: [list, or "none stated"] Timezone: [Europe/London] Working hours available for admin: [e.g. 3 hours] Output: 1. Must do today: max 5 items 2. This week: ordered list 3. Waiting on someone else: Owner (if known) | What | Since when (if stated) 4. Can drop or defer: with a one-line reason 5. Draft status update: 5 bullets I can paste to my manager or team 6. Questions for me: only what you need to prioritise better Rules: - Use only what I pasted. Do not invent deadlines, owners, or stakeholders. - If priority is unclear, put the item under Questions for me or mark priority as "not stated". - If nothing in what I pasted shows what is urgent, ask me before you rank, do not guess the order. - Keep language plain, no motivational coaching. - For the status update: factual progress and blockers only. - If the "Must do today" plus "This week" list cannot fit the hours I gave, say so and tell me what to cut first, do not silently overfill the plan. - Keep UK English. - End with one line, "Least sure about: ...", naming the single thing you would most want me to check. Paste bullets / emails / notes: [paste]
The 60-second check before you send
- Read the gaps first. Start with "Gaps to confirm" or "Needs human review". That is where the soft talk and the missing owners are sitting.
- Map the speaker labels yourself. If the transcript used "Speaker 1", put the real names in. The model should not have.
- Spot-check two or three actions. Pick a couple of action items and find the line in the transcript where that person actually committed. If you cannot, it does not go out.
- Never send an invented owner. If an action says "not stated", chase the name before you assign it, do not let the model pick one.
The honest catch
Bad transcript in, wrong owners out. If the recording was patchy or people talked over each other, the minutes will be shaky in the same places, which is exactly why the pack quotes its evidence and flags the gaps. And for a big spreadsheet, do not treat a total the model typed into the chat as your sheet of record. Ask it for the cleanup steps or the code, run them yourself in Excel or Sheets, and check the numbers.
A few quick questions
Do I need Copilot or a paid plan for this?
No. When a Teams meeting is recorded or transcribed, the transcript can be downloaded from the Recap tab (by default by the organiser or a co-organiser), then pasted under these prompts in any chatbot. The AI-written Copilot recap that needs Teams Premium or a Copilot licence is only a draft, so this raw-transcript path works on a normal plan.
Why does the prompt say "not stated" instead of guessing?
Because the real risk with AI minutes is quiet wrongness: it invents an owner, or turns a soft "we could look at that" into a firm decision. Telling it to write "not stated" or "needs confirmation" keeps the gaps visible, so you fill them in yourself rather than send a confident write-up that is wrong.
Can I use this on a messy Excel export?
Yes. Prompt D is built for it: it flags duplicates, mixed date formats and summary rows stuck in the data, works on a copy, and asks before it deletes anything. For a very large sheet, ask it for the cleanup steps or the code and run them yourself, rather than trusting a total the model typed out.