Most of us do the same thing before a meeting.
We glance at the calendar invite, skim the title, maybe check who's in the room, and then we show up hoping the agenda becomes clear in the first five minutes.
That works well enough. Until it doesn't.
When the meeting matters: a client call, a tricky conversation with a vendor, a review with leadership, a negotiation. Showing up with no prep is a tax you pay in real time. You spend the first half of the call figuring out what you actually need from it.
AI can fix this, and it takes about five minutes.
Not by doing the thinking for you. By helping you get clear before the room starts talking.
🗞️ THIS WEEK IN AI
1. AI assistants are getting better at working with your calendar and context
A few tools now connect directly to your calendar and documents so they can brief you before a meeting starts. This used to require a lot of setup. It is becoming a lot simpler.
Why this matters: The prep workflow I walk through below works without any of that. But over the next year, a lot of this will happen automatically. Worth knowing the direction things are heading.
2. "Agentic" AI is mostly hype right now, but one use case is genuinely useful today
Most people do not want a pile of new AI apps. They want the tools they already use to quietly get better. You keep hearing about AI that runs entire workflows on its own, no human in the loop, just tell it the goal and it figures out all the steps. Most of that is still early and unreliable. But there is a simpler version that works well right now: you give AI a specific job and a clear set of instructions, and it does that one thing well. Think of it like briefing an assistant before a meeting rather than handing them your entire to-do list and walking away.
Why this matters: You do not need AI doing everything on its own to get real value from it. Giving it a clear, narrow task is enough. That is exactly what this issue covers.
3. Voice and real-time AI are moving into meeting rooms
Tools that listen, transcribe, and summarize in real time are becoming standard. But there is a gap between capturing what happened and being ready for what comes next. Prep is the thing those tools do not cover.
Why this matters: Most meeting AI tools focus on what happens after the meeting ends: notes, recaps, action items. Getting ready before the meeting is still mostly a manual job. That is the gap this issue addresses.
🛠️ THIS WEEK'S TRICK
Use AI to Prep for Any Meeting in Under 5 Minutes
A quick note before we start: this is different from Issue 4, which was about turning meeting recordings into notes and action items after the fact. This is about what you do before you walk in.
The goal: show up knowing what you need, what to watch for, and what you want to walk away with.
This works best for:
client calls where stakes are higher than usual
vendor reviews or contract conversations
any meeting where you are presenting or defending a position
performance or feedback conversations
strategy or planning sessions you need to actually influence
It is overkill for a quick internal sync. But for the calls that matter, it takes five minutes and changes how you show up.
Step 1: Pull together what you know
Before you open AI, jot down a few quick facts:
Who is in the meeting and their role
What the meeting is supposed to be about
What you actually want from it (not the same thing as the agenda)
Any relevant history, tension, or context worth flagging
This does not need to be polished. It is just the raw material you will hand to the AI.
Step 2: Run the prep prompt
Open ChatGPT or Claude and paste this, filling in your actual details:
I have a [type of meeting] coming up with [name/role/company].
Here is the context:
[drop in your notes from Step 1]
Help me prepare by giving me:
1. A 3-point agenda I could suggest or follow
2. The 3 questions I should be ready to answer or address
3. The 2–3 things I most want to walk away with
4. One thing I should probably not say or do in this meeting
5. A one-line framing for how I open the call
Keep it practical and direct.Step 3: Read the output, edit where it misses, and use it
AI does not know the full history of your relationship with this person or every nuance of the situation. It will get some things wrong or too generic.
That is fine. The value is not that every point is perfect. It is that you are now thinking about the meeting clearly instead of winging it.
Edit what needs editing. Then use the agenda and your talking points as a quick reference before you dial in.
Why this works
Most meeting prep fails because it never happens, not because people do not know how to do it.
When prep feels like work, people skip it. This turns it into a five-minute prompt. The bar is low enough that you will actually do it.
And once you have done it a few times, you will notice something: the meetings themselves get shorter. You know what you want. You steer toward it faster.
Quick tip: If you have a long email thread or previous meeting notes related to this conversation, paste them in with the prompt. The more context you give, the sharper the prep.
🔧 TOOL OF THE WEEK
Notion AI: notion.com
If you already use Notion for notes, docs, or project tracking, the built-in AI is worth turning on.
The reason it works well for meeting prep: you can keep a running page for a client or project, then ask Notion AI to summarize what has happened, surface open questions, or draft a quick agenda. No copying anything out of the tool you are already in.
It is not a standalone AI product. It is AI built into a place a lot of people already store their notes and documents, which makes it more immediately useful than opening a separate tab.
Price: Free plan available. AI features are part of the paid plan (~$10–12/month per person depending on plan).
Best for: People who already live in Notion and want AI that works with their existing notes and docs.
Worth trying? Yes, especially if you maintain client or project pages. The meeting prep workflow in this issue maps directly onto it.
💡 PROMPT OF THE WEEK
If you are heading into a conversation where someone might push back or ask hard questions, like a pitch, a performance review, or a client check-in, try this before you go in:
I am about to have a [type of conversation] with [person/role].
Here is my main position or message: [write it in 2–3 sentences]
What are the 3–5 hardest questions or objections they are likely to raise?
For each one, give me a short, honest response I could use.
Be realistic, not reassuring.
The last line matters. Without it, AI tends to tell you what you want to hear. "Be realistic, not reassuring" keeps it honest.The last line matters. Without it, AI tends to tell you what you want to hear. "Be realistic, not reassuring" keeps it honest.
👋 THAT'S A WRAP
The best meetings I have been in, on either side of the table, usually had someone in them who clearly thought about it beforehand.
That does not require hours of prep. It requires five minutes and the right questions.
Try this before one meeting next week. See if it changes how you show up.
If this was useful, forward it to someone who has back-to-back calls every Tuesday and Wednesday and no time to breathe between them. This one's for them.
See you next Friday.