Use Zoom's AI to Summarize Virtual Advising Appointments

What This Does

Zoom's built-in AI automatically summarizes your virtual advising appointments after they end, capturing key discussion topics, decisions, and action items so you can paste them directly into Navigate or your advising CRM instead of writing notes from scratch.

Before You Start

• You have a Zoom account (meeting summary is included with eligible paid Zoom Workplace plans: Zoom One Pro, Business, or Enterprise)
• Your institution has enabled meeting summaries for your account (check with your IT department)
• Important: Check your institution's FERPA policy on AI-generated meeting summaries before using this. If your institution hasn't approved Zoom's AI data handling for student meetings, proceed with caution or use only with explicit student consent and disclosure.
• You have your advising CRM (Navigate, Salesforce, etc.) open to paste notes into after the meeting

Steps

1. Turn on meeting summaries before your meeting

Sign in at zoom.us and open Settings. Look for the meeting summary controls in the AI section and turn on automatic meeting summaries. This only needs to be done once. Zoom used to call these features "AI Companion" and dropped that name in 2026, so older help articles and colleagues may still use the old term.

If you prefer to start the summary in the moment instead, hover over the AI icon in the meeting toolbar, tick the Meeting summary checkbox, then click Start Zoom AI.

2. Start your advising appointment in Zoom as usual

When the student joins, you do not need to announce that AI is summarizing unless your institution requires disclosure. Some institutions require you to inform students, so check your policy.

3. Conduct the appointment normally

Have your conversation. The AI is capturing the audio in the background. No action needed during the meeting.

4. End the meeting

Click End Meeting. Within 1-3 minutes, you'll receive an email from Zoom with the AI-generated meeting summary, or it will appear in the Zoom web portal under Recent Meetings.

5. Review the summary

The summary will include: key topics discussed, main points, and suggested follow-up items. It will not be a word-for-word transcript but a structured summary.

6. Edit and paste into your advising notes

Copy the summary, edit for accuracy, remove any irrelevant tangents, and paste into Navigate or your advising platform's notes field. This replaces your manual note-writing.

Real Example

Scenario: You conduct a 30-minute virtual appointment with a sophomore who wants to switch from a biology major to public health. You discuss prerequisites, credit compatibility, the timeline for making the switch, and steps to complete a major change form.

What Zoom AI generates: "Meeting Summary, [date] Key topics: Major change from biology to public health; prerequisite overlap; credit transfer Discussion points: Student completed BIO 101 and CHEM 110 which count toward public health prerequisites. Three additional prereqs needed (STAT 200, SOC 150, HLTH 210). Major change can be processed this semester. Advisor will send major change form link. Follow-up items: Student to complete major change form by [date]; Advisor to email prerequisites list"

What you do: Edit to add the specific courses and deadlines, paste into Navigate, done.

Tips

• The AI summary is better for factual topics (requirements, course numbers, deadlines) than for emotional support conversations. Use your judgment about when automated notes are appropriate
• You can supplement the summary with a few typed notes immediately after the meeting for any sensitive context the AI wouldn't capture appropriately
• If a student explicitly asks whether the meeting is being recorded or transcribed, tell them the truth and offer to turn the feature off for that session

Tool interfaces change. If the meeting summary option has moved, look for AI or Smart features in your Zoom settings.