Draft Minutes from F2F 64
Ben Wilson
The Forum Infrastructure Subcommittee (FIS) discussed the current state and future direction of meeting minutes, including the use of AI-assisted tools for drafting them. The session aimed to gather feedback from Forum members on concerns, preferences, and recommendations for improving the minutes process.
FIS has been evaluating AI tools to assist with minute-taking. It was found that while some tools perform better than others, none are reliable enough to automate minute generation without human oversight.
A privacy concern was raised that cloud-based AI tools could potentially use submitted voice data for model training. It would be a different situation with use of a local tool or a tool that was not used to train models. There was general agreement that AI could assist with drafting minutes, but human review is essential.
The quality and format of minutes are currently variable across committees. Suggestions were made to standardize the format using a template and prompt that can be used in AI tools to ensure consistency.
Discussion covered what minutes should aim to capture—whether they should reflect the full “journey” of the discussion or focus solely on the “destination” (i.e., decisions made). The proposed format for future minutes would include a summary of discussions where pros and cons have been presented and the “why” for decisions that were or were not made, the key decisions that were made, action items and next steps. (Action items should be captured explicitly in minutes and be distinguished from general next steps. Action items should be clearly marked and assigned when agreed upon.) It's also valuable to record when no consensus is reached and when further discussion would be needed.
Several participants emphasized the long-term value of including thorough explanations of the reasoning behind decisions, especially for reference purposes when there are questions about why certain guideline language was adopted. There should also be explicit callouts during meetings to help minute-takers avoid having to interpret tasks retrospectively. A reminder was given that subcommittees have flexibility in minute formatting and content but should aim for clarity and utility.
It was proposed that FIS develop a reusable prompt and template to guide AI-generated minutes. FIS will need to examine AI tools for alignment with Forum privacy expectations and formatting needs. It was also suggested that FIS prepare exemplar minutes as a reference model to guide future minutes.
FIS will: create an exemplar set of minutes based on a recent teleconference, develop a draft minutes template and AI prompt, test additional AI tools and report back with recommendations.
One final agenda item: Forum feedback is welcomed on completing full migration of Forum email infrastructure to Google Groups.