How to Use Zoom AI Companion for Meeting Minutes (2026 Guide)

To use Zoom’s AI for meeting minutes, switch on Meeting summary in your Zoom web portal settings, then click the AI button in the meeting toolbar and choose Start summary once the meeting is under way. When the meeting ends, the host gets an AI-written summary (key points, decisions and next steps) by email and in the web portal, ready to review, edit and share as your minutes.

That is the short version. Below are the exact steps, the 2026 naming change that is confusing a lot of people, and how to turn the raw summary into minutes you would actually send around.

First, a note on the name (as of November 2026)

If you can’t find “AI Companion” in your Zoom app, the feature hasn’t gone anywhere. Zoom’s developer changelog says the AI Companion brand was retired in July 2026, and Zoom’s June 2026 blog post says features such as meeting summaries, transcription and chat compose remain built into Zoom Workplace “under their functional names rather than the AI Companion brand.”

At the same time Zoom introduced ZoomMate, a separate agentic product. It is not simply a new name for meeting summaries. Some third-party guides report that the settings now sit under a Zoom AI heading rather than AI Companion, but many help pages (including Zoom’s own older articles and university guides) still use the old labels. In the steps below, look for whichever label your account shows. Menu names may keep changing.

What you need before you start

• A paid Zoom Workplace license. Zoom’s AI bluepaper states that Basic (free) users, including Basic users inside paid accounts, don’t get these AI features.
• The feature allowed by your admin. In company and school accounts, an admin may have locked the setting on or off. If the toggle is greyed out or marked “Locked by admin,” you’ll need to ask them.
• To be the host (or have the host’s permission). Hosts control who can use the AI features in their meetings: everyone, internal participants only, or just the host.

You do not need to record the meeting. Zoom says the summary is built from the meeting transcript, not from a recording.

Step 1: Turn on meeting summary in your settings

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
2. Open Settings.
3. Select the AI Companion tab (or Zoom AI, if your account shows the newer label).
4. Under Meeting, switch on Meeting summary. If a confirmation dialog appears, click Enable.
5. Optional: tick Automatically start meeting summary for all meetings I host if you want minutes for every meeting without clicking anything.
6. Save your changes if prompted.

These steps match guides from the University of Illinois and Zoom’s own admin instructions. Admins doing this for the whole organization use Account Management > Account Settings instead of personal Settings.

Step 2: Start the summary in the meeting

Unless you chose auto-start, summaries don’t run by themselves. Once the meeting has begun:

1. Click the AI button in the meeting toolbar (labeled AI Companion in older versions). On a narrow window it may be under More.
2. Choose Start summary.
3. Participants see a notice that the summary is running.

Two things to know. First, Zoom community answers point out that opening the AI side panel is not the same as starting a summary: you have to click Start summary. Second, Stanford IT reports that participants now have to acknowledge an AI policy disclaimer to stay in a meeting when the host starts a summary or smart recording, so mention it at the start of the call.

Step 3: Pick a template that fits your minutes

The default summary is fine for most meetings, but templates get you closer to formal minutes. According to a Zoom Community post, Zoom offers ten summary templates with the standard AI features, plus an extra one (Problem, Root Cause & Solution) for Custom AI Companion add-on customers.

You can choose a template in three places:

Changing the template after the meeting regenerates the summary in the new format, so you aren’t stuck with the first version.

Step 4: Find, check and edit the summary

After the meeting ends, the summary is processed and sent to the host’s email. You can also open it in the web portal: click the AI section in the left navigation and open My Summaries, where you can search by meeting topic, meeting ID or date range. If an entry is greyed out, it’s still processing.

Before anything leaves your hands, read it. Several university IT teams stress that the host is responsible for the accuracy of AI output. Watch for:

• Wrong attributions. Who said what can get muddled, especially with people sharing one room’s microphone.
• Decisions that were only discussed. AI summaries sometimes turn “we should consider” into “we agreed.”
• Missing context. Anything said off-mic, in chat, or before you started the summary won’t be there.

Use Edit on the summary page to fix errors, then save.

Step 5: Share it as your meeting minutes

From the summary page, use Share and enter names or email addresses. Stony Brook’s guide notes there’s an option to add all meeting invitees in one click.

You can also set automatic sharing. Options include Only me (meeting host), which is the default, and host, co-hosts and alternative hosts, with broader options depending on your account. Many organizations recommend keeping it host-only so you can correct the summary before anyone else sees it.

Turning an AI summary into proper minutes

A Zoom summary is a strong first draft, not finished minutes. Zoom’s community moderators note it doesn’t format summaries into a customer-ready email for you. A quick workflow that works well:

1. Pick a minutes-friendly template before the meeting (Step 3).
2. Add the admin details the AI doesn’t know: attendees and apologies, the formal meeting title, and who chaired.
3. Rewrite decisions as decisions. One line each, with the outcome stated plainly.
4. Turn next steps into an action table: task, owner, due date. Check every owner and date against what was actually agreed.
5. Share for corrections, then file the approved version wherever your team keeps records.

Troubleshooting

• No “Start summary” option: check the setting in Step 1, then ask your admin whether it’s locked or limited to certain users.
• The summary never arrived: confirm it was actually started during the meeting, check My Summaries, and look in spam for mail from Zoom. Zoom community threads also mention admin transcription restrictions as a cause.
• You weren’t the host: summaries go to the host by default, so ask the host to share it with you.
• Labels don’t match this guide: Zoom has been renaming AI features through 2026. Look for “Meeting summary” under either AI Companion or Zoom AI.

Privacy considerations

Meeting summaries are stored in the host’s Zoom account. One university knowledge base notes summaries can only be deleted manually, with no custom retention settings, though this may differ by account. If your meetings involve confidential, legal or HR topics, check your organization’s policy before turning on automatic summaries, and tell participants when the AI is running.