Notetaker best practices

Notetaker allows you to automatically record, transcribe, and summarize video meetings. With Notetaker, you can keep your CRM up to date, and make follow-up easier for your team. Learn how Notetaker works, and best practices for using Notetaker.

Please note: this article is neither an exhaustive summary of global meeting recording laws nor legal advice. Instead, it provides information to help you better understand best practices for using HubSpot's Notetaker. From a legal and compliance standpoing, it is your responsibility to understand your consent obligations and obtain proper consent from meeting participants before recording. HubSpot always recommends you seek legal counsel for your specific compliance obligations.

How Notetaker works

When Notetaker is turned on, a bot joins the video call platform hosting the meeting (e.g., Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams) at the scheduled meeting time. The bot appears as a named participant and announces its presence at the time it joins.

After the meeting, HubSpot generates a call/meeting record associated with the relevant CRM records. Notetaker then adds the recording, transcript, and AI-generated outputs (meeting summary, action items, and CRM property suggestions) to the call/meeting record.

Please note: Notetaker is turned off by default. A Super Admin must turn on the feature at the account level before it can be used. Once turned on at the account level, it can be configured per user. Learn more about setting up Notetaker.

Notetaker presence and announcement

When Notetaker joins a meeting, it identifies itself in two ways:

• Chat notification: Notetaker always posts a written message in the meeting chat when it joins. This notification cannot be turned off.
• Audio announcement: by default, Notetaker plays an audio message announcing its presence when it joins. This announcement can be turned off in Notetaker settings.

The bot's display name defaults to your account's company name (e.g., Sprocket Co.'s Notetaker). The name prefix can be changed in Notetaker settings, but the Notetaker portion is fixed and cannot be changed.

Notetaker starts recording based on the meeting host's granted permissions. For example, by clicking Approve when prompted by the video platform (such as in Zoom's recording consent dialog) or by following preconfigured permissions in your video platform (such as in Google Meet). Meeting hosts should review their granted permissions when configuring Notetaker.

Consent for Notetaker recordings

Please note: while this article highlights certain jurisdictions, it is not an exhaustive guide. Before using Notetaker, make sure you have a comprehensive understanding of recording laws and regulations in the relevant jurisdictions where your meeting participants may be. As a best practice, always obtain consent when in doubt.

Meeting recording laws differ by jurisdiction. In the United States, some states require consent from only one party to the call ("one-party consent"), while others require consent from all participants ("all-party consent"). Recording a meeting without required consent may have legal consequences.

Under the GDPR and other European privacy frameworks, recording a meeting generally requires a valid legal basis and, in most cases, the informed consent of all participants. Participants should be given a meaningful opportunity to decline or leave the meeting before recording begins.

Consent mechanisms in Notetaker

HubSpot provides the following built-in mechanisms to support your consent obligations:

Bot presence notification (always on)

Notetaker always announces its presence via a chat message when it joins a meeting. This notification is sent to all participants in the meeting chat and cannot be turned off. You can also configure the audio message that plays when the Notetaker bot joins a meeting.

Pre-meeting email consent (optional)

Admins can turn on a setting that requires affirmative consent from each invited attendee before the meeting begins. When this setting is turned on:

• Each meeting invitee receives a consent email in advance.
• If any invitee does not consent, Notetaker will not join the meeting. The host cannot manually add Notetaker after the fact if consent has not been obtained.

This setting is recommended for organizations operating in all-party consent jurisdictions or under GDPR.

Removing Notetaker from a meeting

If a participant objects to being recorded, Notetaker can be removed in two ways:

• From HubSpot: the meeting host can remove Notetaker from the meeting through HubSpot settings.
• From the video platform: any meeting participant with permission to remove participants from the call (e.g., a meeting co-host) can remove the Notetaker bot directly from the video platform.

Timing considerations

The instruction for Notetaker to join a meeting is sent 30 minutes before the scheduled start time. Changes to Notetaker settings made within 30 minutes of a meeting may not take effect for that meeting. However, Notetaker can still be manually removed from an active meeting at any time.

Other privacy concerns

Employee monitoring

Because Notetaker joins all scheduled meetings when turned on (unless a user opts out), your employees and colleagues may also be recorded. Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have legal obligations to notify employees that their meetings may be monitored or recorded. Super Admins can configure which users have Notetaker turned on, and where it joins meetings automatically, which can help manage compliance in jurisdictions with specific employee monitoring rules.

What data HubSpot collects and stores

Understanding what data Notetaker processes can help you meet your privacy and compliance obligations.

HubSpot stores:

• The meeting recording (audio/video file), retained for two years in HubSpot's file manager.
• The completed meeting transcript.

Notetaker is powered by Recall.ai (operating as HubSpot's sub-processor, Hyperdoc Inc.), which captures the meeting recording and provides speaker timeline data to HubSpot. Recall purges the recording from its own servers seven days after the meeting ends. The speaker timeline used to align transcript text with speaker names is discarded by HubSpot after this process is complete.

Please note: Notetaker is not a Sensitive Data-covered service and cannot support Protected Health Information (PHI). If you are interested in handling PHI, opt into the Notetaker Bot for HIPAA beta.