Question 1

How is this different from just using ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini?

Accepted Answer

ClerkMinutes® is purpose-built for municipal meetings, and it handles the whole record instead of one step of it. It reads your agenda, tells your speakers apart, and recognizes motions, seconds, roll calls, and votes, then applies clerk-approved formatting automatically. From there it carries the meeting the rest of the way: the agenda, the agenda packet, the minutes, publishing to your website, and notifying your residents. A general-purpose chatbot hands you a block of text and leaves the rest to you, and it does not come with a team that knows municipal clerking.

Question 2

How is this different from Otter, Zoom, or Microsoft Copilot?

Accepted Answer

Those tools stop at a transcript. Compare the whole job instead: agenda context, speaker assignment, motions and votes, municipal formatting, editing, exports, publishing, permissions, and support. ClerkMinutes turns the recording into formatted, publish-ready minutes that match your municipality’s structure, and it tags motions, seconds, votes, and attendees as it goes.

Question 3

What happens if the AI gets a motion, vote, speaker, or name wrong?

Accepted Answer

You correct it in place, and you never start over. Confirm or fix a speaker once and ClerkMinutes remembers that voice for every meeting after it, edit any line of the transcript, and regenerate a single section instead of the whole document. The recording stays beside the text, so you can check the record against the audio before you approve it.

Question 4

Does ClerkMinutes produce the final legal record, or a draft for the clerk to approve?

Accepted Answer

A draft. ClerkMinutes delivers a complete, formatted set of draft minutes within minutes of the meeting, and you review, edit, and approve it the same way you do today. Your municipality stays responsible for reviewing and approving its official record, and nothing is published until you say so.

Question 5

Is our meeting data used to train AI models?

Accepted Answer

No. Your recordings, agendas, and minutes are never used to train AI models. ClerkMinutes reaches its AI providers over their APIs, and data sent to those APIs is excluded from model training by default. You can read it from the source: Anthropic’s policy and OpenAI’s data controls.

Question 6

Will ClerkMinutes work with the recording system we already use?

Accepted Answer

Almost certainly. Upload a file straight from your computer, or bring the recording in from Zoom, YouTube, or Vimeo. Every common audio and video format is accepted, so a handheld recorder, a laptop, a soundboard, or a livestream all work. There is no new hardware to buy and no special setup.

Question 7

Can it distinguish who’s speaking?

Accepted Answer

Yes. ClerkMinutes automatically identifies and labels each speaker during the meeting, even suggesting names based on your board roster. Simply confirm or correct them once, and ClerkMinutes will remember for every meeting going forward.

Question 8

Can it really understand government terminology?

Accepted Answer

Yes. ClerkMinutes has been trained specifically on municipal meeting data, agendas, and minutes templates from hundreds of towns. It recognizes terms like “motion carried,” “roll call,” “adjourned”, and “consent agenda.”

Question 9

How accurate are the transcriptions?

Accepted Answer

Accuracy depends on audio quality, but ClerkMinutes uses advanced speech models tuned for council chambers and multiple speakers. You can review, correct, and reprocess segments easily before finalizing.

Question 10

What if we don’t have great audio quality?

Accepted Answer

We’ve built tools to handle less-than-perfect recordings. You can reprocess segments or upload cleaner audio for best results.

Question 11

Can multiple staff members collaborate?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Team members can upload files, review drafts, and edit collaboratively within the same secure workspace. To support different team sizes, choose the plan that best fits your needs. The Starter plan includes up to 3 users and departments, while the Growth plan supports up to 10 users and departments.

Question 12

What support and training are included?

Accepted Answer

Setup is intuitive and self-guided: more than 500 clerks have onboarded themselves without a single call, and most finish their first meeting minutes the same day they sign up. When you want a person, we hold open office hours every Thursday at 10:00 and 10:30 a.m. CST, and you can email us any time at sales@ClerkMinutes.com.

AI-Powered Meeting Minutes for Municipal Clerks. Finish your Minutes in Minutes!®

Watch ClerkMinutes in Action

How ClerkMinutes® Works

Upload Your Agenda

Upload the
Meeting Recording

Assign Speakers
to the Dialog

Generate Minutes
& Customize

How ClerkMinutes® Works

Upload Your Agenda

Upload the
Meeting Recording

Assign Speakers
to the Dialog

Generate Minutes
& Customize

Why ClerkMinutes is right for your municipality

Amazing AI-Powered Transcription and Minutes Creation

Save Time and Resources

Download free guide on how to best do your municipal meeting minutes

Customizable Minute Formats

Intelligent Speaker and Motion Tracking

Integrates with

Frequently Asked Questions

Watch ClerkMinutes in Action

How ClerkMinutes® Works

Upload Your Agenda

Upload theMeeting Recording

Assign Speakersto the Dialog

Generate Minutes& Customize

How ClerkMinutes® Works

Upload Your Agenda

Upload theMeeting Recording

Assign Speakersto the Dialog

Generate Minutes& Customize

Why ClerkMinutes is right for your municipality

Amazing AI-Powered Transcription and Minutes Creation

Save Time and Resources

Download free guide on how to best do your municipal meeting minutes

Customizable Minute Formats

Intelligent Speaker and Motion Tracking

Integrates with

Frequently Asked Questions

Upload the
Meeting Recording

Assign Speakers
to the Dialog

Generate Minutes
& Customize

Upload the
Meeting Recording

Assign Speakers
to the Dialog

Generate Minutes
& Customize