You want to get the most out of your Microsoft Teams meetings — especially now that Copilot is here.
But let’s be honest: between setup steps, confusing settings, and wondering what Copilot actually does, it’s easy to feel stuck before you even start.
Let’s dive in.
Step 1: Set Up Your Meeting for Copilot to Work
Before anything else, you need to get the setup right. When you create a Teams meeting, make sure you:
- Choose More Options during the event setup
- Enable Teams Meeting
- Then go to Meeting Options > Recording and Transcription
Here’s the important part:
For Copilot to work, the meeting must be recorded and transcribed. That’s how it creates the summaries, action items, and insights later on.
I always turn on Record and Transcribe Automatically so I don’t forget once the meeting starts. Unfortunately, this has to be done manually for each meeting — there’s no way to set it by default.
Step 2: What Happens Once the Meeting Starts
Once you’re in the meeting, Copilot starts working immediately. It listens, transcribes, and waits for you to prompt it.
You’ll have a Copilot button you can open. It brings up a private side panel — this is just for you. No one else in the meeting can see it. You can ask things like:
- “What did I miss while I was away?”
- “Summarize the meeting so far”
- “What are the action items?”
At the bottom of this panel, you’ll see pre-built prompts. One of my favorites is “List Action Items.”
Early in one of my meetings, I tried using it right after some casual chat — Copilot said:
“I’m sorry but I could not find the information you requested in the meeting transcript.”
Totally normal. Copilot needs real content to analyze.
Step 3: Capturing Action Items as You Talk
As our meeting continued, I asked my colleague to:
- Review the outline for my upcoming presentation
- Update our website with latest news
- Handle this months finance report
When I clicked List Action Items again, Copilot nailed it:
- It captured the outline of the presentation.
- It picked up latest news items we can had to our web dev.
- And it added the finance task, assigning it to me.
Just keep in mind: Copilot sometimes needs a few seconds to process the conversation. If you click too early, it might say there’s nothing. Try again after a short delay.
Step 4: Generate Executive Meeting Summaries
Another useful feature is asking Copilot for an executive summary of the meeting.
I did this around 13 minutes into our conversation. While my colleague was still talking, Copilot generated a complete summary of the key points in the sidebar — instantly.
It’s not magic — it just analyzes the transcript in real-time. Still, the results are impressive and super useful when you need a post-meeting summary for clients or leadership.
Step 5: Didn’t Attend the Meeting? No Problem.
If you were invited but didn’t attend the meeting, Copilot still has your back.
Just go back into Teams. You’ll find the meeting recap in your Chat or Activity tab. Open it, and you get:
- AI-generated topic summaries
- Full transcripts
- Follow-up tasks
- Links to the recording
- A searchable conversation timeline
Even though you missed the meeting, you’ll still know exactly what happened. You can also ask Copilot questions about the meeting afterward — just like you were there.
Bonus: Pull Meeting Details into OneNote and Outlook
Here’s something brand new that ties it all together.
In OneNote, you can now pull in meeting details directly. Just click Meeting Details at the top.
Make sure you’re logged in with the same account you use for Teams and Outlook. Once you do that, you’ll see a list of your meetings — just select one.
Boom. It loads in:
- The meeting name
- A link to the Outlook event
- A link to the recording
- A link to the AI summary
- Suggested tasks from the meeting
You can even turn those tasks into Outlook tasks straight from OneNote — just flag them with a due date, and they’ll show up in your Outlook to-do list.
Want to prep for an upcoming meeting? Select it from tomorrow’s calendar, and you’re ready to go.
Final Thoughts
Copilot in Teams has come a long way — and when set up properly, it becomes a genuinely powerful assistant in your meetings.
From automated action items to AI-generated summaries, it helps you stay focused, keep track of tasks, and never miss a beat — even if you miss the meeting.
I hope this tutorial helped you see what’s possible.
If you want to dive deeper, and see how AI/Copilot can help your business – get in touch with us.