Where we work · the United Kingdom
AI meeting notes in the United Kingdom.
British working life still runs on rooms — chambers, surgeries, site huts and committee rooms — and none of them have a meeting link for a notetaker bot to join.
The UK has an unusually strong minute-taking culture. Council committees, charity trustee boards, NHS multidisciplinary team meetings, school governing bodies and housing association panels all produce formal minutes that someone has to write, circulate and get approved at the next sitting. That job is normally done by a clerk typing at speed while also trying to follow the debate. GetNotes records the room instead, labels who spoke, and produces a draft with the decisions and actions already separated out.
The obvious objection is the right one: a machine-written minute is not an approved record. GetNotes does not dispute that. What comes back is a draft — speaker-labelled transcript, summary, decisions, action items with owners — for a clerk to correct into house style and a board to approve in the usual way. The value is in the reconstruction work it removes, not in skipping the approval step. Anything contested still gets checked against the audio, which you still have.
On data protection, the accurate framing matters. Under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 you need a lawful basis to record identifiable voices — consent is one basis, legitimate interests is another where you have told people plainly what you are doing. So 'you must always get consent' is not quite right; 'you need a lawful basis and you must tell people' is. The ICO's published position on covert monitoring is much firmer: it is for exceptional circumstances. Secret recording is the weak position almost every time.
This is general information rather than legal advice, and every organisation's position differs — a trustee board, an NHS team and a letting agent are not answering the same questions. The practical rule is the one your chair already uses: announce at the start that the meeting is being recorded for minutes, note it in the record, and be clear about how long the audio is kept and who can open it. Announced recording is the defensible position; covert recording is not.
Where it earns its keep
A solicitor's client attendance
A first appointment in the office runs ninety minutes and produces the dates, figures and instructions the whole matter will rest on. An attendance note written from memory afterwards is thinner than the conversation was. Record it on the desk with the client's agreement, and the file note practically writes itself — while the fee earner keeps eye contact throughout.
A parish or district council committee
Planning committee runs late, three members speak over one another on a contested application, and the clerk is trying to capture the exact wording of the resolution. GetNotes separates the voices and writes up what was proposed, who moved it and what was resolved, leaving the clerk to check the record rather than reconstruct it.
A site visit on a live project
A quantity surveyor and a site manager walk a partially finished block, agreeing variations, access dates and who chases the M&E subcontractor. Nothing about that happens at a desk, and none of it survives to Friday's progress meeting unless someone writes it down. Record the walk-round on a phone in a hi-vis pocket and upload it in the van.
How GetNotes works
- Record or upload. Hit record on your phone or laptop in the room — or drop in an audio file you already have. No bot joins anything.
- It writes it down. Every word transcribed, every speaker labelled, in 90+ languages including ones that switch mid-sentence.
- Share the minutes.Summary, decisions, and action items with owners — ready before everyone's back at their desk.
Questions, answered
Is recording a meeting lawful under UK GDPR?
Recording identifiable voices is processing personal data, so you need a lawful basis under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. Consent is one option; legitimate interests can apply where you have been open about the recording and its purpose. The ICO treats covert monitoring as exceptional. GetNotes is designed to be used openly — tell the room before you record. This is general information, not legal advice.
Can GetNotes minutes be approved as the official record?
Treat GetNotes output as a draft. It gives you a speaker-labelled transcript plus a summary, the decisions and action items with owners, which the clerk or secretary edits into house style. The minutes still go to the chair and get approved at the next meeting in the normal way. Approving an unchecked AI draft as the formal record is not something GetNotes recommends.
Does GetNotes work for Welsh or multilingual meetings?
GetNotes transcribes 90+ languages and handles meetings where speakers switch language mid-conversation, which is common in bilingual settings and in community meetings across UK cities where Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali or Polish sit alongside English. Speaker labels are applied throughout, so a multilingual discussion still comes back as a readable, attributed record.
Why is GetNotes priced in dollars rather than pounds?
Pro is $19 per month, charged in US dollars, so what appears on your statement depends on your card's exchange rate and whether your bank adds a non-sterling fee. Your first meeting is free — one-time, up to 30 minutes, no card required — so you can test it on a real committee meeting or client attendance before paying anything.
Other markets
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