Description: Tern's AI Notetaker automatically joins your video calls, transcribes the conversation, and saves notes directly to the matching contact profile.
🚩 Note: AI Notetaker is free during beta. Pricing and plan details will be announced in Q2 2026.
What it does
The AI Notetaker joins qualifying meetings from your calendar, records the audio, and generates a summary, action items, and a full transcript. If the meeting participants match contacts in your Tern CRM, notes are saved to those contact profiles automatically. You'll also receive an email with the notes after the call.
Tern stores the summary, action items, and transcript. Audio and video recordings are not stored in Tern. They are processed to generate your notes and then deleted.
Before you start
You must have a Google or Microsoft calendar connected to Tern. The notetaker works by reading your calendar and joining meetings from it.
The notetaker only joins video conference meetings on Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams. It does not join phone calls or in-person meetings.
You do not need to use Tern Scheduler to use the notetaker. Any qualifying meeting on your connected calendar can trigger it.
The notetaker joins as an independent participant and can only join meetings that do not require all participants to be signed in.
How to set it up
Go to Email & Scheduling settings.
Find the AI Notetaker section and turn it on.
Choose which meetings the notetaker should join. You can select any combination of the following:
External meetings — participants have a different email domain than you. For example, if your email is [email protected], anyone joining from gmail.com, outlook.com, or any other domain would be considered external. Most client calls fall here.
Internal meetings — all participants share your email domain.
My events — meetings you organized.
Invited events — meetings where you're a participant but not the organizer.
If you only want the notetaker to join calls you set up yourself, select My events only. This prevents it from joining meetings where you're an invitee, such as calls organized by suppliers or partners. Note: These options work as "or" conditions. If a meeting matches any of your selected rules, the notetaker will attempt to join.
Click Save. The notetaker will begin applying to future qualifying meetings.
These settings determine the default behavior for every meeting on your calendar. To override the default for a single meeting, use your dashboard.
Manage Notetaker from your dashboard
Your dashboard syncs every event from your connected calendar so you can see, at a glance, which meetings Notetaker will join, did join, or skipped.
The daily overview shows your meetings for today. Each meeting card shows the Notetaker status:
Will record — Notetaker is scheduled to join this meeting based on your default rules.
Did record — Notetaker joined and notes are available. Click View notes to open them.
Did not join — Notetaker did not join this meeting, either because it didn't match your rules or because you turned it off for this event.
From any meeting card on your dashboard, you can:
Toggle Notetaker on or off for that meeting — overrides your default rules for this event only.
Join the video call directly from the event in Tern, without opening Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams separately.
Open the notes from a past meeting Notetaker recorded.
Edit the trip and contact linked to the note — add a trip if one is connected to this meeting, or change the contact associated with the note.
View all your meetings on the calendar
The calendar view shows your next 30 days of meetings in one place. Use the filter at the top to control which meetings appear.
Click any meeting to see:
Notetaker settings for that event, including the per-meeting toggle.
Notes Notetaker took, if it joined.
The list of participants.
What happens during and after a meeting
When a qualifying meeting starts, the notetaker joins as a participant. It will appear in the meeting under your agency's notetaker name, which is set in your Business Settings. It will send a message in the meeting chat to let attendees know they're being recorded. You are responsible for informing your participants that recording is taking place.
The notetaker must join as a visible participant. There is no option today to record without it appearing in the meeting.
After the meeting ends, Tern processes the recording and generates:
A summary of the conversation
Action items to follow up on
A full transcript with speaker labels. Speaker names in the transcript are based on how each participant joined the meeting, such as their display name or the name on their calendar account.
How notes are saved to contacts
Tern matches meeting participants to your contacts using email addresses. If a participant's email matches a contact in your CRM, a note is automatically created on that contact's profile.
The note is titled with the meeting name, platform, and date (for example, "Trip Planning Call - Zoom Meeting - February 25, 2026"). It includes the summary, action items, and transcript.
If a participant's email doesn't match any contact, the note still appears in your Notes list without a contact attached. You'll also still receive the summary, action items, and transcript in your post-meeting email. To add a contact later, click into the note from your Notes list and select a contact to associate with it.
You can also change the contact linked to a note directly from the meeting card on your dashboard.
Common questions
Does the meeting have to be booked through Tern Scheduler? No. The notetaker works independently of Scheduler. It reads your connected Google or Microsoft calendar and joins any meeting that matches your rules, regardless of how the meeting was booked.
How long until my events are updated after connecting my calendar or updating a meeting ? It can take up to 5 minutes to sync your calendar events.
The notetaker joined but left before the meeting was over. What happened? By default, the notetaker leaves after 5 minutes of continuous silence. If you started a few minutes late or had a quiet stretch at the beginning of the call, it may have already left. To avoid this, start your conversation within the first few minutes of the meeting.
A participant wasn't matched to a contact, but I know they exist in Tern. Matching is based on email address only. If the email address on the calendar invitation is different from the email address saved on the contact record in Tern, the match won't be made. Update the contact's email in Tern to match what they use for calendar invites.
Will the notetaker join every meeting on my calendar? It will join every meeting that matches your configured rules and includes a Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams link. This includes meetings you declined or didn't attend. If you don't want the notetaker to join a specific meeting, remove the video conference link from the event or temporarily adjust your settings.
Can I change the name the notetaker uses when it joins? The notetaker's display name is set in your Business Settings. Update your agency's notetaker name there to change how it appears to meeting participants.
Does the Zoom account I’m signed into affect whether the AI Notetaker joins? No, the Tern AI Notetaker uses the meeting link to join as an independent, non-signed-in participant. It does not rely on your Zoom credentials, and the account you are logged into has no impact on its ability to join meetings.
Troubleshooting
The notetaker isn't joining my meetings. Start here:
Confirm your calendar is connected. Go to Email & Scheduling settings and check that a Google or Microsoft calendar is connected and active.
Check that your meeting rules are configured. At least one meeting type must be selected for the notetaker to join any calls.
Confirm the meeting includes a Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams link. Meetings without a video conference link are ignored.
If all of the above are in place and the notetaker still isn't joining, contact Tern support.
If the meeting organizer requires participants to be signed in, the notetaker may get stuck in the waiting room and time out. The organizer must allow non-signed-in participants for the notetaker to join.