Join me exploring Microsoft Copilot through each letter of the alphabet. This week, M is for Meetings.

Copilot is gold dust when it comes to meetings. I’ve experimented with Copilot Chat, Copilot Cowork, and Copilot Voice on mobile and am going to give you some tips for using these for your own meetings below. There are some really practical ways Copilot can help with the entire meeting lifecycle.

Oh you didn’t know meetings have a lifecycle? Let’s go back to basics on a few things then…  

What’s the point?

In my opinion, every meeting should have a point. An outcome. Move you from point A to point B. 

That could be tactical: “I am blocked on all these actions, help me with next steps.” 

Or more on the soft side: “Let’s talk because I have worked on my own at home all day and need to interact with a human.” 

Either way, a meeting should have a goal. When you start transcribing your meetings (and I know that’s not always possible), that’s where Copilot’s gold dust begins to sprinkle. 

Meeting types

I’d break this down into 2 flavours:

Recurring meetings: your regular one-to-ones, team stand-ups, customer catch-ups, project check-ins. These have history. There are previous transcripts, old actions, ongoing threads. This is where Copilot really comes into its own, because it can connect the dots across everything that’s gone before.

One-off meetings: a strategy session, a kick-off, a decision meeting. No prior transcript to draw on, but Copilot can still help you go in prepared and come out with something useful.

Your role changes everything

What you need from a meeting depends entirely on whether you’re attending it or running it.

If you’re attending: your job is to contribute something useful and follow up on whatever you agreed to do. That’s it. Honestly, Copilot has got you well covered here, and I’ll show you how in a moment.

If you’re running the meeting: or, bless you, if you work in project management, that’s a very different kettle of fish. You’re responsible for the prep, the structure, the outcome, and making sure everyone else follows through on their actions afterwards. Not just your own. Everyone’s. This is where things get more interesting, and where the gaps in what Copilot can currently do start to show.

Let’s look at the stages of a meeting lifecycle then, and how Copilot can help you at each stage, whether you’re attending or running the show. 

Stage 1: Before the meeting (the prep nobody does, but should)

If you’re attending: A quick prompt before a one-off meeting can be the difference between walking in cold and walking in like you’ve done your homework. Try asking Copilot Chat: “I have a meeting about [topic] this morning, help me prepare” It’ll pull relevant emails, documents and context together so you at least look like you’ve been paying attention.

If you’re running it: This is the gold dust. 

A quick note: the examples below use Copilot Cowork, which is a newer capability that not everyone will have access to yet. If you’re working with standard Copilot Chat, the same prompts are still worth trying.  

I have regular monthly catch-ups with customers that I always transcribe. Before a recent one, I tried this prompt in Copilot Cowork:

“I have a meeting scheduled next week with [customer]. Help me prepare. What did we talk about last time, what are the open loops, what’s been going on with them?”

What came back was so good. Cowork:

• Flagged that a previous meeting had been cancelled, so this would actually be our first proper catch-up in a while, something I’d half-forgotten. 
• Gave me a summary of recent interactions across email, Teams chats, and meeting transcripts, including previously mentioned actions that seemed like they had been dealt with. (So impressed it could tie this stuff together).
• Listed open loops worth revisiting in easy to digest bullet format. 

And then, tucked in at the end, it noted some personal things my customer had mentioned in a previous conversation (family-related stuff) that it thought might be worth checking in on. That’s the kind of thing I’d usually be reminding my boss about, it’s like having a ‘me’ for, well, me! 

I hadn’t asked for it. Copilot just included it. A pretty ‘human’ touch. 

It then offered to create a one-pager agenda I could send ahead of the meeting. This is all stuff that would have taken me many more minutes to refresh myself on by manually checking out previous email strings, Teams chats, transcripts and documents. Told you, gold dust. 

I think the advantage I / Copilot had here is that this is a regular meeting that I always transcribe. 

How would it get on when there’s nothing to draw from?  

The school run strategy session

Meeting prep on a school run, why not? Multitasking at its finest. (Or an addiction to ‘doing’, you decide.) 

I had a strategy meeting coming up this week that I had some trepidation about. I worried that there would be lots of different opinions, lots of talking, but a real risk that no next steps would be captured, or worse, everyone would leave with a different idea of what was actually decided. 

I was short on time, walking to the car, so I opened Copilot on my phone and just… talked to it. Out loud. Via Copilot Voice.

I explained what the meeting was about, who’d be in the room, what I was worried about, and what I actually needed to come out of it: a clear plan, even if there were variations across short, medium, and long term.

Copilot talked back and helped me draft a structured agenda, right there on the pavement. By the time I got to the office, the whole thing was sitting in my Copilot chat history, ready to go.

Meeting prep: done. On the school run. Give me a third thing to do at the same time, I dare you. 

Stage 2: During the meeting (you’ve already read this bit)

This is your F is for Facilitator reminder. Go back and read it if you missed it. That blog covers how Copilot can help during Teams meetings using Facilitator in detail.

The one thing I’ll repeat here, because it matters for everything that follows: always transcribe. Without the transcript, none of the after-meeting magic is possible. 

Stage 3: After the meeting (your follow-up) 

If you’re attending:

This prompt has become a regular part of my post-meeting routine, and I’d hand it to any attendee as it works well in standard Copilot Chat:

“I had a meeting with [person] yesterday, help me catch up after it. What were the action items? Prioritise any that seem outstanding. If it looks like I’ve already completed others based on my chats, channels, emails and transcripts, bullet those at the bottom.”

What comes back is a smart, prioritised action list. Not a raw dump of everything mentioned during the meeting. Copilot cross-references what’s happened since the meeting and works out what you’ve already progressed. Done things sink to the bottom of the list. Waiting things rise to the top. It even offered to help me with specific items on the list, like drafting emails and documents.  

For an attendee, this is basically job done.

If you’re running the meeting:

I tried a different prompt in Cowork: “Give me all the actions from this meeting and help me track progress on all of them.”

Copilot did its best. It pulled together the actions into a smart list for me. And then, when I pushed further and asked it to help me keep track of the programme of work, so that I could see who had what, what was overdue, what needed a nudge, guess what it did next? (If you’re squeamish, cover your eyes here.)

It suggested an Excel tracker.

Don’t get me wrong, I do like Excel for certain things, but a visible project management tool that tracks progress and encourages accountability, it ain’t. 

When I asked Cowork if it could create a Planner board instead, I got this:

Planner isn’t available to it. Microsoft To-Do isn’t available to it. Its best offer is a spreadsheet that nobody will look at, or flagged emails that will get buried.

I understand why Copilot gave me that answer, but as a meeting organiser it’s a big gap for me. 

Stage 4: Beyond the meeting (The follow-up of the follow-ups)

This is the meeting lifecycle stage that often gets forgotten, and it’s the one that actually determines whether a meeting was worth having.

The first follow-up is: did everyone take away their actions and are they assigned?

The second follow-up, the one that matters, is: are those actions getting done, or are they quietly gathering dust in someone’s to-do list while the deadline slides past?

As an attendee, you only need to worry about your own. Copilot handles that beautifully.

As the meeting runner or project manager, you’re responsible for everyone’s. And right now, Copilot’s answer to “help me see whether the whole team is on track” is a spreadsheet.

What I’d actually love is something that gives everyone visibility; who’s got what, what’s overdue, what needs a chase, ideally surfacing automatically in something like Planner, with notifications that don’t rely on people proactively opening a file they’ve already forgotten about.

I’m toying with different ways of closing this gap (maybe an agent?) watch this space… and if you’ve got ideas, do share! 

The prompts, all in one place

Before the meeting (attendee) Copilot Chat:

“I have a meeting about [topic] this morning. Help me prepare.”

Before the meeting (runner) Cowork:

“I have a meeting with [person/team] next week. Help me prepare. What did we discuss last time, what are the open loops, and what’s been going on with them?”

After the meeting (attendee) Copilot Chat:

“I had a meeting with [person] yesterday – what were my action items? Prioritise outstanding ones and move anything I’ve already completed to the bottom.”

After the meeting (runner)  Cowork:

“Give me all the actions from this meeting and help me track progress on all of them.” (Fair warning: this is where Copilot will suggest a spreadsheet. It’s trying its best.)

TLDR

According to Microsoft’s own research, the average employee loses more than 16 working days a year to meetings. Copilot won’t give those days back, but it can make every stage of every meeting more useful. 

Your role matters: attendees are well catered for with prep prompts and smart action follow-ups. Runners and PMs will get a long way with Copilot too, especially on prep and transcript-based action capture. 

But the accountability layer; visibility across the whole team, chasing what’s overdue, driving things through to completion – that gap is real, and a suggested Excel tracker is not the answer. We’re getting there. Just not quite yet.

And if you ever need to prep a strategy meeting agenda on the school run? There’s a tool for that now. Highly recommend.

Are you an attendee or do you run meetings? And which part of the meeting lifecycle do you most wish Copilot could fix? Let me know in the comments.

Useful links:

• F is for Facilitator
• Get started with Microsoft 365 Copilot in Teams meetings