Second Chair: Claude sat in on my client meeting

IThe film

IIThe jobs, by what they add

In a meeting you're limited in five ways: what you can remember, what you can look up while talking, what you can work out while listening, how much you can track at once, and how far you can step back. Each family below removes one of those limits. I've left out what a standard note-taker already does: transcripts, summaries, action lists, who said what. The examples are illustrative.

Memory and perspective help me experience the meeting better. Conduct helps me behave better. Reach, calculation, anticipation and decisions help me perform better. Reach and calculation are new: the trial never searched the web or ran a number live, and they're now part of the standard version.

IIITen examples from the meeting

Ten of those jobs as they happened. The examples are illustrative: each is based on a real note, with the details changed so nobody in the room would recognise it.

IVWhat I learnt

• The best notes changed how I saw the meeting. Context the deck didn't have, a different angle on a chart, the question coming next. That's a colleague's job, not a note-taker's.
• Much of it came from the project, not the meeting. Interviews from last month, analysis from a week before, the promises from the last call. None of it was in the deck. All of it was in the project folder, and Claude went and got it when it was needed.
• It works as a colleague in a friendly meeting. Our team presenting, a client we're working with, everyone trying to get somewhere together. The useful notes helped the conversation along. None of it was about winning.
• It was too much to read. Twenty-eight notes in 45 minutes is one every 96 seconds while other people are talking. I read them all, and didn't say any of them aloud.
• The set-up was the weak point. I only thought of it once the meeting had started, and Claude then spent a few minutes finding a way to read the transcript. All of that can happen before the meeting.

VThe standard version

So I've made it a standard part of my set-up, and given it a name. The name comes from courtrooms, where the second chair sits beside the lead lawyer, knows the file, has the exhibits ready and passes a note at the right moment. In most of these meetings I'm the second chair, so this is the second chair's second chair.

1. Thirty minutes before: a one-page brief in a file. The version of the deck the other side has, with page numbers. The decisions the meeting should take, in order. Who's there and what they asked last time. What I promised. Where the older work, the data and the model live, so it can rerun a number.
2. Check the feed first. A test read of the transcript before anyone joins.
3. Silence by default. A note only when one of the eighteen jobs fires, with a headline readable in two seconds, the page number, and a source for anything from outside the room.
4. Ten to fifteen notes an hour, not 28 in 45 minutes.
5. For later goes in a log, not the chat: actions, promises, questions left hanging.
6. A minute after the end: the decisions, the open questions and my actions.

VIMore to try

Beyond the eighteen, a few more I want to test.

1. Who's who: name and role the first time each person speaks.
2. Scope watch: a flag when anyone commits to work, price or dates outside what's agreed.
3. Airtime: who hasn't spoken, especially the quiet senior person.
4. Draft the follow-up email while the meeting runs.
5. A line for the presenter, not just for me.
6. A jargon decoder for a meeting in someone else's field.
7. Translate a side remark in another language.
8. In a research interview, the follow-up question worth asking now.
9. On a sales call, the buying signals, objections and price anchors.
10. The debrief coach: what I could have said, and which question I dodged.

VIIWhat others have built

I looked at what others have built. Four lessons.

• The cheating pitch is the least interesting part. Cluely launched in 2025 with the slogan “cheat on everything”, interviews included, drew a backlash and a rival tool built to detect it, and has since repositioned as an ordinary meeting assistant. The private whisper is the smallest use of the idea.
• The big platforms are putting it in the room. Microsoft has announced that its Facilitator agent in Teams will spot a question nobody answered, look it up and post the answer in the meeting chat. Otter's meeting agent answers questions put to it during the call, drawing on this and earlier meetings. Once it's in the room, everyone reads it, so the rules about what it may say matter more than the clever bits.
• Joining a call as a participant can be done today, with some setting up. Open-source projects (AgentCall, joinly, Attendee) and paid services such as Recall.ai send an agent into Google Meet, Zoom or Teams, where it can read the conversation and post in the chat.
• Telling people isn't the same as their agreeing. The etiquette guides say: put it in the invite, say it at the start, post a notice in the chat for latecomers, switch it off for confidential items, and switch it off if anyone objects.

Sources: Cluely (Wikipedia) · TechCrunch on Cluely · Microsoft: agents in Teams · Microsoft: Facilitator in Teams · VentureBeat on Otter's meeting agent · Microsoft: Facilitator roadmap · AgentCall · joinly · Recall.ai Meet bots · Attendee · Granola on consent · Fellow on etiquette

VIIINext: Claude in the room

This week I'll test the public version. Claude has its own work email address, and I want to see whether it can join a Google Meet as itself and post its observations in the meeting chat as we go. Nothing is built yet. That needs a different brief, because everything it writes is read by everyone:

• Written for the room, not for me: suited to the team, the meeting and the people in it.
• Only what everyone may know. Nothing from my private files, my other clients or work I've helped someone with that others in the meeting haven't seen. When in doubt, it stays out.
• Announced. In the invite, and in its first message: who it is, what it will do, and how to tell it to stop.
• Useful, not noisy. Context, a figure with its source, a question worth asking, a summary of what was just agreed. A few messages an hour.
• Never the last word. It adds material. People decide.

IXSet up your own

You need a Claude that can read a live transcript of the meeting as it's written. Mine used a small script to read Otter's; some meeting tools now offer a live transcript an assistant can read. Give it the first prompt half an hour before, and the second when the meeting starts.

I have a meeting at [time] about [topic]. I'm [my role]; [name] presents.

Build me a one-page brief in a file:
* the version of the deck or document the other side has (the one they were sent, not our newest), with page numbers;
* the decisions the meeting should take, in order, and when it ends;
* who will be there and what each asked or cared about last time;
* anything I promised on earlier calls;
* anything I must NOT say in the room, and why;
* where in my files the older work, the interview notes, the data and any model or spreadsheet live, so you can look things up and rerun a number during the meeting.

Then check you can read the live transcript from [tool]. If you can't, tell me now, not during the meeting. Copy

The meeting has started. Read the live transcript every minute and pass me notes here, using the brief. Think of yourself as a colleague on our team in a friendly meeting with a client.

Stay silent unless something is worth saying. When you write, start with a tag and a bold headline I can read in two seconds, then at most three short lines, with page numbers. Aim for ten to fifteen notes an hour. The tags:
* MEMORY: what the deck doesn't have, from my files; or what was asked or promised last time.
* WEB: something our research doesn't cover, or a claim to check, searched now, with sources.
* NUMBER: a new scenario rerun on our data or model, or a figure put in proportion. Show the working in one line.
* ANGLE: another way to see a point, a vivid example from the files, or a link between two things said.
* THEIR QUESTION / NEXT QUESTION: the answer with the page, or the question coming next.
* YOUR MOMENT / BACK ON COURSE / MOVE ON: when to chip in; a gentle way back that contradicts no one; when to move on.
* OPTIONS / LOOSE END / REFRAME / READ BACK: options and a way through; what's unsettled; how our suggestions should shift; one sentence confirming what was agreed.

A line for me to say goes in a quote, 30 words at most. Anything I don't need in the next five minutes goes into a log file for afterwards, not the chat. If the transcript is unclear, wait rather than guess. Never send anything to anyone.

Within a minute of the end, give me: what was decided, what's still open and with whom, and what I committed to. Copy

Tell me how yours goes, especially the jobs it takes on that you didn't ask for. Email me at david@steadman.ai.