Need Help?
View answers to questions frequently asked by users, or contact Support if you have additional questions.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do I need in place to use AI Generated Minutes?
AI Generated Minutes requires a few things to work:
Your organization must have the feature enabled.
The meeting’s agenda must already be published to the Public Portal.
That same meeting’s event must have a closed caption (VTT or SRT) or Zoom transcript file available in the Events module.
You can manually upload closed caption files or order them through CivicPlus Media’s Event Media Services. You can also download transcripts from Zoom and upload them yourself.
AI Generated Minutes also requires setup at the meeting-type level. AI Generated Minutes must be enabled for the meeting type, and a reference example should be selected for it.
Once everything is in place, you can generate AI summaries, make edits, and finalize the minutes.
Who can access AI Generated Minutes?
Availability depends on organization-level enablement and the user's minutes, agenda file, and publishing permissions.
Is a video or audio recording required?
No. A closed caption or Zoom transcript file is required, but video and audio recordings are optional.
Does my AI reference example affect what shows up in my summaries?
Your reference example shapes how your summaries are written, not what they contain. Every summary is still built entirely from the meeting you’re generating minutes for. What changes based on your reference example is the level of detail. A reference example that names speakers and spells out their concerns will produce summaries with that same kind of attributed detail. A reference example that keeps each item brief, with no names, will produce shorter, outcome-focused summaries instead. In both cases, every agenda item is still covered, and the result stays concise.
Because results can shift slightly between generations, always review and edit your summaries before finalizing your minutes.
Why did my closed caption or transcript upload not produce usable results?
Closed caption and transcript quality and formatting affect output. Timestamp formatting issues or incomplete content can reduce mapping accuracy.
What if minutes generation fails?
If the AI Generated Minutes status banner shows an error state, confirm that the agenda is published and that a valid transcript source is attached. If the issue continues, contact Support with the meeting details.
Why don't I see a new AI Summary after I regenerate one?
A new AI summary only appears after regeneration if there is at least one AI summary that has not been merged into an AI summary and discussion field. If every AI summary for an agenda item has already been merged, regeneration will not create a new one.
To generate a new AI summary for that agenda item, click “Reset Changes” (arrow icon) first.
How long does it take for AI summaries to generate?
Generation usually takes 2 to 5 minutes for every 60 minutes of meeting length. For example, a 2-hour meeting may take about 4 to 10 minutes to generate summaries. A "Generating discussion summaries" banner is shown while this is in progress.
What if meeting content is missing or placed under the wrong item?
Sometimes a conversation can't be matched to an agenda item. When this happens, it appears as an unmatched conversation so it can still be reviewed, not dropped.
To fix this:
First, review unmatched conversations. Review the closed caption or transcript segment, then assign it to the correct agenda section or item, or dismiss it if it should not be included in the official record.
If content was mapped to the wrong section or item, reassign it to the correct one.
If content still appears to be missing, escalate the issue to Support for investigation.
This helps make sure real content gets reviewed by a person, even when the system can't place it on its own. For more information about unmatched conversations, see the Important Note in step 9 of the Review and Edit an AI Minutes Draft article.
Can I delete multiple AI summaries at once?
Yes. The Bulk Select tool lets you select and delete several AI summary cards across your agenda at the same time, or clear all draft summaries at once, rather than removing them one by one.
Bulk deletion only removes AI summary cards that have not yet been consolidated. Any content already merged into the discussion field, or manually added as discussion notes, is not affected. Deleting an AI summary also does not remove the agenda item itself, only the AI-generated draft text under it.
This tool is only available while minutes are in the “In Progress” draft state. Once minutes have been finalized, the AI summaries are merged, and you can no longer bulk delete them.
If you only need to remove a single AI summary, you can use the Trash icon on that summary card instead of using Bulk Select. For more information about bulk deleting, see the Note in step 11 of the Review and Edit an AI Minutes Draft article.
How does AI Generated Minutes identify speakers?
AI Generated Minutes does not use voice prints, biometric voice recognition, or stored voice profiles to identify meeting participants. Instead, the AI uses available meeting context to determine who is speaking when possible. This context includes speaker labels provided by the transcript or caption source, names and roles referenced during the meeting, agenda information, and other contextual cues in the discussion. Because speaker identification depends on the quality and context of the source transcript, attribution may not always be available or completely accurate. Clerks remain in control and can review and edit AI-generated content before it becomes part of the official meeting record.
Will AI Generated Minutes recognize verbal motions, seconds, and votes?
No. AI Generated Minutes purposefully instructs the AI LLM to not provide the results of motions, seconds, how elected officials voted, and if the agenda item passed or failed. Instead, users should continue to leverage this functionality in the Minutes Summary page and applicable Minutes Snippets for the display of this information in the discussion field. The result is that clerks do not need to depend on elected officials clearly voicing this information or question if the AI LLM misidentifies these results and incorrectly registers them in minutes, which is an official public record.
Why does the AI make mistakes, and how are they caught?
AI Generated Minutes works from closed caption or Zoom transcript files and is trained on your municipality's minutes style using Customer-Defined Style Matching. Like a human drafter, it can make mistakes. This is why the AI Minutes view shows transcript context alongside AI content: clerks verify everything against the evidence before approving it. The review step is not optional; it is built in. This is clerk-controlled governance.
Some situations where the AI might struggle include:
Identifying a speaker marked as “not present” during roll call. The AI uses roll call to identify who is in the meeting and speaking, so if someone is marked absent, it will have trouble matching output to that person.
People's pronouns.
Spelling of names.
Dollar amounts, such as "14 million" instead of "$14,045,010.91," or "million" instead of "trillion" if the speaker did not clearly pronounce the amount.
Dates, which may have been said differently than what is in documentation, or said incorrectly and then corrected.