I Couldn't Use Granola for Meeting Notes.
So I Used This Instead.

Granola’s been everywhere lately, the AI note-taker everyone’s suddenly using for meetings. I wanted in. Then I actually thought about what it needed access to.

Recording a work meeting and running it through a third-party AI tool means company information leaving the building, into a system security hadn’t approved and wasn’t going to approve any time soon. Not worth it. The idea got vetoed before I’d even finished pitching it to myself.

So I went looking for something already sitting inside a tool we already used, one that had already cleared whatever internal approval mattered. Turned out Slack had it the whole time.

Huddles have AI notes built in

Slack Huddles, the audio-call feature most people use for quick chats, has an AI recording and note-taking option built in. Nothing new to install, nothing new to get approved. It was already there.

It works well when working remotely. But what I was missing was when I was having an in person meeting.

What to do?

Here’s what I actually did. I made a channel, #note-taking, and added exactly one person to it: me. When I’m in an in-person meeting, I open that channel on my phone and start a Huddle. Turn on AI recording and put the phone on the desk.

Meeting begins. People chatter and it captures everything. Better than taking notes on paper because, let’s face it… my handwriting isn’t getting better, it’s getting worse.

When the meeting ends, the AI notes are just there. Waiting.

The notes have a weird side effect

Since I’m the only one in that Huddle, the notes read strange. Literally: “Myself said this to myself. Myself has this task.” Talking to myself, formalized into meeting minutes. First time I read one back, I laughed. Now I just skim past it.

Was it worth it?

Yes. Not because the notes are perfect, they’re not, they’re an AI’s best guess at what was mumbled into my phone mid-meeting. But it beats the alternative, which was trying to hold everything in my head until I got back to my desk and hoped I remembered the important part. Things stopped getting missed. That’s the whole win.

If you’re stuck the same way I was, the tool you want is blocked but you need something now, check what’s already sitting inside the software you’re already allowed to use. It’s usually more capable than you gave it credit for.