1127 – Zoom Productivity Tools: Tom talks Zoom Notes vs AI Companion

SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

In this episode of the Screw the Commute podcast, Tom Antion and Larry discuss the differences between Zoom Notes and Zoom AI Companion, explaining how each tool works, their strengths and weaknesses, and when to use one versus the other.
Main Topic
The episode focuses on clarifying a common misconception:
• Zoom Notes and Zoom AI Companion are not the same thing.
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Zoom Notes
What It Is
Zoom Notes is a built-in collaborative note-taking workspace inside Zoom.
Key Characteristics
• Manual note-taking system
• Similar to:
o Google Docs
o Microsoft OneNote
o Apple Notes
• Users type notes themselves during or before meetings
• Can be shared with participants or kept private
Typical Uses
• Meeting agendas
• Project tracking
• Brainstorming sessions
• Committee meetings
• Podcast planning
• Technical documentation
Advantages
• Human-controlled and customizable
• Better for technical or nuanced discussions
• Easier to organize complex information
• Persistent documentation tied to meetings
Disadvantages
• Requires manual effort
• Someone must actively take and maintain notes
________________________________________
Zoom AI Companion
What It Is
Zoom AI Companion is an AI-powered assistant integrated into Zoom meetings.
Key Characteristics
• Must be manually enabled (unless auto-start is configured)
• Automatically:
o Transcribes conversations
o Summarizes meetings
o Detects action items and deadlines
o Creates recaps
o Helps absent attendees catch up
Comparison
Larry describes it as:
• Notes = “a filing cabinet”
• AI Companion = “the employee who organizes the cabinet and tells you what matters”
Advantages
• Huge time saver
• Eliminates manual note-taking
• Reduces meeting fatigue
• Helps users focus on the meeting itself
• Excellent for executives and busy teams
Disadvantages
• Can misunderstand speech or context
• AI summaries may oversimplify conversations
• Requires review/editing afterward
• Raises privacy and confidentiality concerns
________________________________________
Important Privacy Warning
Larry strongly emphasizes being careful about:
• When AI Companion is turned on
• When it is turned off
Example Given
In one meeting:
• AI Companion captured sensitive personal information about someone’s spouse’s cancer diagnosis during casual pre-meeting conversation.
• Participants did not realize everything was being recorded and summarized.
Key Takeaway
Anything said while AI Companion is active may be:
• Transcribed
• Summarized
• Included in meeting notes
This creates concerns in industries such as:
• Healthcare
• Legal
• Finance
• Government
________________________________________
Final Recommendations
Use Zoom Notes When:
• You need structured documentation
• You want full human control
• You are managing detailed or technical projects
Use AI Companion When:
• You want automation
• You want quick summaries and recaps
• You want less manual work
• You want to focus on the discussion instead of note-taking
Best Option
Larry recommends using both together:
• AI Companion for automatic transcription and summaries
• Notes for manual additions, ideas, and important highlights
________________________________________
Additional Episode Notes
• Tom promotes:
o His automation book
o His mentor program
o His online school
• Larry mentions:
o He has handled distribution for all 1,127 podcast episodes
o He is celebrating 9 years working with Tom
________________________________________
Core Takeaway
The episode’s main message is:
• Zoom Notes = manual, structured, human-created documentation
• Zoom AI Companion = automated AI-driven meeting transcription and summarization
Using them together can significantly improve meeting productivity, but users should remain aware of privacy implications when AI recording features are enabled.

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Episode 1127 – Zoom Notes Vs AI Companion
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.
[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 1127 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today we're going to talk about Zoom notes versus the AI companion. So this is a Zoom oriented episode. And my right hand guy, Larry from up New York is going to take take over here in a minute and tell you the differences and what you can do with both of them. Hope you didn't miss episode 1126. That was how to pay for stuff in a store with your cell phone. I used to watch people hold their phones up there and wonder what's going on. Well, I figured it out. And it's a lot of interesting stuff in so many different ways. Now that you can do it both on your smartphone. All right. Pick up a copy of our automation book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Version 3.0 is the latest. However, Short keys is promoted in that book, which I have been pushing very hard for years because it saves you millions of keystrokes and it's now a browser extension instead of a an installed program. So that's the difference in when you when you get your copy of that book. So go to screwthecommute.com/automatefree to grab your copy. All right. And check out my mentor program at greatinternetmarketingtraining.com. And my school at IMTCVA.org, certified to operate by SCHEV.
[00:01:53] All right. We're going to bring Larry on. Larry has got millions and millions, I think 22 million certificates and degrees and stuff it. Stuff that I can't pronounce. And, he has handled all 1126 episodes of this podcast, and I'm hoping he's going to handle this one after I edit it. He, uh, he's the one that distributes it for me through libsyn. So, every, I believe every episode. Right? Plus some extras.
[00:02:27] Yes, absolutely. From the very beginning.
[00:02:30] That's amazing. Okay, so let's get into talking about, uh, stuff from Zoom so you can see what to do with the notes and what's the AI companion and all that stuff. Take it away, Larry.
[00:02:43] All right. Hello, everyone. We're going to try and keep this short because the information I'm going to give you will definitely help you on Zoom when you use it. And I don't know of anybody at this point that's not using Zoom for something. So this is very important that you pay attention to this because it will help you. So a lot of people think Zoom notes, which is built into Zoom, and it's been there since the beginning, and Zoom AI companion are pretty much the same thing. Oh no no no no, no, they are not. So one is basically, um, what's the word. I want to use collaborative workspace and note taking system. It's like taking notes in notepad or the notes app on an Apple device and so on and so on. Just taking notes, you're typing, you're taking notes. The other is an AI powered assistant built into Zoom called the AI companion. So today what I want to do is break down what each one does, where they overlap, and when you should use one versus the other. So for Zoom notes, just think of this as a shared notebook. It's a meeting notes workspace where you can type notes and all this other stuff, and you can share it with everybody else on the call.
[00:03:58] Do you have to share it?
[00:03:59] You do not have to share. No. You have complete control over who sees what in all of these things.
[00:04:05] Actually, when it's your Zoom room then, right?
[00:04:08] Yes. When it's your Zoom room, if you are collaborating with someone else and they are the host, quote unquote, then your notes get put into the group's notes and they can see all of that. But as the host or as the one setting this up, you have complete control over who sees what. You can set up your own private little notebook right there as your inside zoom. Got it. So it's very, very similar to Google Docs, Microsoft OneNote, and so on and so on, all those types of things. So why do we use notes? Very simple. It's human created. You are the one typing those notes in. Nobody else is taking these notes. So it's coming directly from you or the other people you're on Zoom with. You can organize meeting content with that. You can collaborate before, during, and after meetings with that. And it's a way to make sure that you document what has gone on in that Zoom meeting.
[00:04:57] All right. But you're typing. You're typing these in. Is that correct? Yes or no. Transcribing what's being said or what.
[00:05:04] It is not transcribing anything notes is just like any notes app you type it in, or you could use the microphone to dictate it, but you're on Zoom, so you're going to be typing it in.
[00:05:13] If you're on your phone, you'd be typing it. If you're on any other device, you'd be typing it in. So always keep that in mind when it says notes you're typing it in. All right. So let's flip the card here and go to Zoom AI companion. So what's the difference? Okay. First thing is AI companion has to be turned on. It is not on by default unless you set Zoom to do that. And I believe you can if you're the host and I'm not sure if you need a premium package or anything, but I don't think so. Uh, AI companion now is everywhere. So what is this AI companion compared to notes? Well, first of all, you don't have to type anything. Its main purpose is to automate the entire note taking process. It'll summarize meetings for you. It'll answer questions that are that are generated during the Zoom call. You can generate action items, action items, uh, CTAs, call to action, all that stuff. And it helps users catch up in case they missed the beginning of the meeting or they weren't able to attend. So you can kind of think of it as like ChatGPT is built into Zoom. And actually, that's pretty much what it is. So the core difference Zoom notes is like a notebook. You write it in, you type it in, etc. Zoom AI companion. It is intelligent in that you don't have to do a thing. You turn it on. Ai companion listens to what's going on on the zoom call, transcribes, uh, consolidates, does all sorts of stuff that you would normally pass off to a human to do. It does this during the Zoom call and provides a summary afterwards. So notes is like a filing cabinet. Keep that in mind. But AI companion is the employee who organizes the cabinet and tells you what matters. So it really is multiple steps up from just a simple note taking thing.
[00:07:01] All right. Does it? Uh, no. Like there's, let's say there's five people on the call. Does it put in the, in your compiled notes like Sally said this and Joe said this, that kind of.
[00:07:12] Yes, it can do that. That is correct. As long as everybody identifies themselves or they are identified by the, uh, the name in each of their zoom windows.
[00:07:22] So if they put a funky name and it's going to show that.
[00:07:25] Funky name will get in there. Yes.
[00:07:26] Which you do sometimes on our.
[00:07:28] I do, I could the Funky man. Oh g or something. Yeah. That will get in the notes, which is kind of fun.
[00:07:35] Yeah.
[00:07:35] Uh, some people are a little too serious about that, but yes.
[00:07:38] Unless somebody else is reviewing the notes and said, who in the heck is funky? Yeah, well, I.
[00:07:43] Have a little story about that near the end of this, and I will tell you why. You gotta be careful what you do. So the key features for notes, you can you can you create notes manually. You're editing it in real time. It's a persistent document, meaning it's tied to the meetings. And you can even have it exist before the meeting starts. You can't have AI companion exist before the meeting starts, because the meeting has to be going before AI companion can be turned on.
[00:08:10] Well, could the notes be? Your notes of what you want to talk about.
[00:08:14] Yeah. You could, it could be your agenda. Yeah, absolutely. So here's some use cases. I'm glad you brought that up. Meeting agendas. That's the top use case for this project. Tracking, brainstorming, technical documents, uh, committee meetings, if you're doing a podcast, podcast planning and all that stuff. So yes, agenda is absolutely at the top of that list. So here's an important point about this. Notes are user driven. You have to make the effort to take the notes. Uh, you write and organize the information. Some people, and I know there's plenty of them out there. They prefer manual notes because AI summaries can just miss nuance and they can be a royal pain. If somebody goes off track, you know, it gets to be a real it can be a real pain if you don't understand how to do it. So what is AI companion actually do versus notes? It will automatically recap the meeting right after it's finished. You don't have to do a thing. You don't have to press a button. You don't have to do a thing. It'll detect tasks, deadlines, follow ups, anything. That's an action item that was discussed during that Zoom meeting can come up.
[00:09:22] But you had to turn it on in the beginning of the meeting, right?
[00:09:25] Yes. You must turn it on. Now. There is, I believe there's a setting somewhere. I have not used this. So if you want to poke around in your settings, look to see if AI companion can be set to turn on automatically at the start of a meeting. I don't know if they've implemented that.
[00:09:40] Okay. Yeah, because I did a pop up box.
[00:09:43] Yes, you'll see a pop up that will say, this meeting is being transcribed by AI companion or words that.
[00:09:48] Or, or it asked me if I want to. Yes.
[00:09:51] Now I'm going to give a caveat about that right after right after this. That will you gotta think about this before you set that for automatic. So it can do smart recording. It gives highlights, uh, all this other stuff. Newer versions of Zoom can actually work with Microsoft Teams, Google meet, uh, in-person meetings and all that stuff. So it's really flexible in how you do that. So the real power of this is that if you have notes, you need to be conscious of both what's going on in the Zoom meeting and what you're typing into the notes, which is okay for a lot of people. They like doing that. What AI companion provides you is that you don't have to think at all about taking notes. Ai companion is watching, listening, and recording everything, transcribing it, and will provide you with a full summary and details at the end of your meeting. So you don't even have to think about it. It's not something that's got to be in the back of your mind. It just happens once you turn it on. All right. So advantage and disadvantages the advantages to notes. It's far more technical. It's far more accurate, I should say, when it comes to technical discussions, because you are the one driving the notes. You can put in all sorts of technobabble, gobbledygook and stuff like that that's pertinent to that meeting. It's better for permanent documentation. For the most part, it is completely under human control. Zoom has nothing to do with this except to take your notes.
[00:11:12] And it's easier to structure if you have complex projects or all sorts of other things that take it beyond the basic level. So the the con of that, the weakness is that it's a manual effort. You have to do it unless you have somebody sitting by you that's taking the notes on a keyboard, but somebody must do it. Uh, and somebody must maintain it. That's the other thing too. If you're willing to do that, then notes may be for you. Ai companion the advantages. It is a huge and I mean huge time saver. I have used AI companion in many other Zoom calls. I have other people that use it as well. And it really is a time saver because again, you don't have to think about taking notes. It's automatic, it's excellent if you're a busy executive or like Tom and I just hanging out talking on a podcast, uh, but it works great for that as well. If you missed a meeting, the AI companion summary and detailed notes will get you up to speed very quickly. That's really one of the main selling points of this. And it also reduces meeting fatigue, meaning again, you don't have to worry about it. It's not something you even have to think of. So what's the weakness of this? It can misunderstand what you're saying, and I've seen that happen. Some action items can be inaccurate. Now, to be fair, you can download these notes and edit them and all sorts of other things to tweak them up. But there are some times when it can be inaccurate.
[00:12:36] So this is not I press a button, it delivers a document. I don't have to do anything. You need to just double check. Just verify. Some users will have privacy concerns and that's the one I'm going to talk about. And also AI summaries may oversimplify certain conversations. So here's what I've noticed. Overall I think AI companion is an absolute plus, especially if you're having regular meetings. Here's the caveat you must be absolutely careful when you turn it on and when you turn it off. Here's why. I've been to several meetings with another organization where they turn on AI companion. The moment the meeting starts and people are just coming into the room and they're busy yapping and talking about stuff, and someone revealed that their wife had a cancer diagnosis and they're going for all this other stuff and everything else. Not the kind of thing you want to reveal in a business Zoom call. And yet, AI companion absolutely nailed it and put everything down in excruciating detail. That was not what the person expected or wanted. The same thing when the meeting is over, if everybody's all done and you're busy chit chatting and everything else, an AI companion is still running. It will record everything else after the meeting. So just be very aware of when you turn it on, when you turn it off. So this dives into the last section here about privacy and business concerns. Many businesses are cautious and they're right to be. So for at least the thing I just mentioned and for others as well.
[00:14:13] In some industries like healthcare, legal, finance, government, etc., they may restrict these AI features because they don't want anything automated being captured. Right? So this is a an ongoing battle between convenience and confidentiality. And in the workplace, confidentiality is going to win over. That's just that's just a fact. All right. So let me wrap this up. Let's make it real easy. If you're using you want to use Zoom notes. If you want something structured, you're managing a project on the Zoom call and you need long term documentation. We would use AI companion. If you want the automation feature of that and you just want to be hands off and focus on the Zoom meeting, be you get faster recaps of everything. See, it's a productivity boost because nobody has to worry about it. Now you're focusing on the meeting a lot, a lot less manual work. Now the recommendation is if you can use both of them together, there's nothing to say. You can't use AI companion with notes. If there are certain things you want to jot down as the meeting is going on. Notes is a great place to do it if you don't want to do that. Ai companion will capture everything that's said and that's pretty much the bottom line. So Zoom notes, it helps you remember stuff, but AI companion will remember stuff too. But it helps you. It helps make you think faster because you don't have to think about anything else.
[00:15:39] Beautiful, beautiful.
[00:15:40] And that's Zoom notes versus Zoom AI companion.
[00:15:43] There you go, folks. Hey, if you would like to speak with Larry one on one myself, one on one, Mark, one on one. Travis, one on one. Jennifer. One on one. That's what my mentor program is all about. Great internet marketing training is where we're the only place in the world that'll actually talk to you one on one. All right. So that's why it's the longest running, most successful ever in the field of internet and digital marketing and so many unique features. All right. So check it out at greatinternetmarketingtraining.com. And then my school at IMTCVA.org. It's certified to operate by SCHEV. That's the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's quality distance learning.
[00:16:31] And don't forget to mention I'm a graduate.
[00:16:33] And that's where, um, one of his 27 million certificates and degrees.
[00:16:39] Boy, that number went up real fast.
[00:16:41] Came out. Yeah. Yeah. Larry's a graduate, and, uh, he's been. How long? What's your anniversary here? Coming up.
[00:16:48] The anniversary is actually today, I believe, and it is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine years.
[00:16:58] Nine years. What? What are you supposed to get for the ninth year anniversary?
[00:17:02] I don't think there's anything. Nine. Ten. It's like, I don't know, a lot of good, expensive stuff.
[00:17:09] Oh, well, we'll talk about that next year, I guess.
[00:17:11] That's right.
[00:17:11] All right, everybody, so we'll catch you on the next episode. See you later.