If you work as a municipal clerk or as an administrative staffer supporting public meetings, you’ve probably noticed that AI has started showing up whether you asked for it or not.
That usually happens on top of everything else you’re already juggling. Meetings that run late. Motions that get amended three times before anyone agrees on what actually passed. Deadlines that don’t move just because the meeting went off the rails. Plus all the usual work that happens after the meeting: cleaning up meeting notes, tracking action items, figuring out next steps, and making sure everything ends up in the right place in Google Drive or Google Docs.
So when people talk about AI tools helping with minutes, the appeal is obvious. If a tool can take a meeting transcript from Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or an offline recording, transcribe it automatically, and turn it into a clean draft in minutes, that sounds like a gift. Especially if you’ve ever found yourself finalizing minutes late at night, cross-checking vote counts with tired eyes, and still needing to send follow up messages through Gmail the next morning.
Google Gemini sits right in the middle of that conversation. It’s part of the broader Google apps ecosystem, and it promises AI-powered functionality like real-time note taking, summarization, and automated drafts. On paper, it sounds like it should handle meeting notes, action items, and follow ups with very little effort.
And to be fair, Gemini can help with some of that. It can read a meeting transcript, generate AI notes, and organize information quickly. But it still needs structure, context, and guardrails. And even then, it still needs a clerk who understands procedure, accuracy, and what actually counts as an official record.
This guide walks through what using Gemini for meeting minutes looks like in practice. Not the marketing version. The real, step-by-step process clerks are actually using today, including where things tend to go wrong and what still requires human judgment.
If you can use email, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Gmail, you can follow this guide.
And since we’re talking about AI, it’s worth saying out loud. Yes, AI tools were used to help draft parts of this guide about AI. Meta, I know. But if an AI-powered tool can explain its own limitations this clearly, it might be able to help with your minutes too as long as you know what it can and can’t automate.
What Gemini can do for meeting minutes today
Before getting into the mechanics, it helps to slow down and be clear about what Google Gemini actually is.
Gemini is Google’s general-purpose AI assistant. At its core, it works on a simple input-output model. You give it text, and it gives you organized text back. It doesn’t know anything about your municipality, your charter, your bylaws, or your meeting rules unless you explicitly provide that information.
For meeting minutes, Gemini is best understood as a very fast drafting assistant.
You give it an agenda, an attendance list, and a transcript or notes. It reads through that material and produces a structured summary that resembles minutes. With strong models, it can handle long discussions, multiple speakers, and fairly dense content without completely losing the thread.
Most clerks encounter Gemini in one of three places. Some use it directly in a browser with a Google account. Others have access through Google Workspace as a writing assistant inside Docs. Some offices upgrade to Gemini Advanced to get access to stronger models that can handle longer inputs.
For minutes, that distinction matters. The free version often struggles with long transcripts and complex procedural language. Clerks who use Gemini regularly for minutes usually move to the paid tier, which starts at $19.99 per month, so they can work with larger files and avoid mid-draft cutoffs.
When it works well, Gemini can save time on the first draft. It can take a transcript that would normally take hours to sift through and turn it into something readable much faster.
What it does not do is understand what makes minutes compliant, complete, or publish-ready. That judgment still sits entirely with you.
What Gemini can’t do well
Even with the newest models, Gemini has consistent blind spots.
The most important ones are worth spelling out clearly.
Gemini fills in gaps when it’s unsure.
If the transcript is unclear, missing, or garbled, Gemini sometimes guesses instead of stopping. That might look like confidently stating that a motion passed unanimously when no vote was recorded, or summarizing an action that was never formally taken.
Gemini rewrites formal language by default.
Its job is to make text sound clearer and more readable. That’s helpful for emails and reports. It’s dangerous for ordinances, resolutions, and procedural language that must remain exact. Unless you explicitly tell Gemini not to paraphrase, it often will.
Gemini can drop or blend agenda items.
It doesn’t instinctively understand where one item ends and the next begins. Discussion from one section can bleed into another, or an item can disappear entirely if it wasn’t discussed clearly.
It struggles with layered motions and amendments.
Motions to amend, motions to table, withdrawals, and reintroduced motions are especially hard for Gemini to track unless you walk it through the structure step by step.
Gemini does not keep an audit trail.
There’s no built-in version history showing what changed, when, or why. If you need that record, you have to manage it manually.
Gemini does not know your local procedures.
It doesn’t know your templates, your statutes, your formatting rules, or your publication requirements. You have to teach those every single time.
Gemini brings speed and organization. You still bring judgment, accuracy, and compliance.
Before you start: what you’ll need
Before opening Gemini, it helps to gather the same materials you would normally use when writing minutes by hand.
That’s because Gemini can only work with what you give it. If you provide partial information, it starts guessing, and guessing is where problems begin.
At a minimum, you’ll want to have a numbered agenda ready. This anchors the entire document and gives Gemini a clear structure to follow. Without it, the output tends to wander.
You’ll also need a complete attendance list. That should include board or council members, staff, presenters, and any late arrivals or early departures. Gemini will invent participants if this isn’t clearly spelled out.
A transcript, audio notes, or detailed written notes are essential. Gemini can summarize almost anything, but it cannot invent what wasn’t recorded. The clearer the source material, the better the draft.
Motions and votes should be documented clearly somewhere. These are the details that must be correct. If they’re vague or missing, Gemini will either skip them or make assumptions.
Public comment notes, even brief ones, help prevent overly generic summaries that lose meaning.
Finally, if your municipality uses a specific minutes format, have that ready. Gemini doesn’t know your style unless you show it. Uploading example minutes or templates helps more than most people expect.
How to generate minutes in Gemini: the complete, detailed workflow
This is the full workflow clerks are using right now. It’s detailed on purpose. Skipping steps is how small errors turn into messy rewrites and cleanup jobs later.
Step 1: Choose the right Gemini model
Claude needs to understand the structure of the meeting before it reads the discussion. Otherwise, it will try to infer agenda items based on topic similarities, which can cause blending.
Once the model is selected, start by slowing the system down. A simple setup instruction helps prevent premature drafting:
I will be using this conversation to draft formal meeting minutes.Do not generate minutes yet.Wait for the agenda, attendance list, transcript, and formatting rules.Reply “OK” when ready.
This tells Gemini to listen before acting.
Step 2: Provide the agenda first
The agenda is the backbone of your minutes. Paste or upload it before anything else, with explicit prompt instructions:
Here is the agenda for this meeting.Follow this order exactly.Do not add, remove, rename, or reorder any items.Confirm you understand.
This reduces invented agenda items, reordered discussions, and missing sections later on.
Step 3: Add attendance with guardrails
Gemini is surprisingly eager to invent attendees. Shut that down early. Paste the attendance list and include rules such as:
Use names and titles exactly as written.Do not create additional attendees.If someone’s role is unclear, ask before assuming.
This keeps names, titles, and roles accurate.
Step 4: Upload the transcript carefully
If the transcript is short, you can upload it in one piece. If it’s long, break it into labeled parts.
Before uploading, reset expectations:
I will upload the transcript in multiple parts.
Do not summarize yet.
After each upload, reply only with “Received Part X.”
Wait for “All parts uploaded” before taking action.
Upload each part one at a time. After the final section, include a prompt like this.
All parts uploaded. Confirm you have the full transcript and wait.
This prevents partial summaries and dropped content.
Step 5: Define the minutes structure explicitly
Gemini does not know what your minutes should look like. If you have a template, paste it. If not, define a standard structure and add firm rules in your prompt.
Use this structure exactly.Do not paraphrase legal or procedural language.Quote ordinances and resolutions exactly as stated.Separate discussion from action.Clearly record motions, seconders, and vote results.
Step 6: Generate the first draft
Now you’re ready to ask for the draft with a prompt like this:
Using the agenda, attendance list, and transcript provided, draft formal meeting minutes.Follow the agenda order exactly.Record every motion, amendment, seconder, and vote as stated.If information is unclear, write “The transcript does not specify.”Do not add details that are not present.Keep the tone neutral and factual.
This produces the best possible first pass.
Step 7: Revise with containment
Expect errors. When you find one, copy only the affected section and say:
This section contains an error.Here is the corrected information: [insert correction].Update this section only.Do not revise any other part of the minutes.
Step 8: Final formatting and compliance check
Gemini does not understand municipal formatting requirements. Before publishing, review spacing, headings, motion formatting, names, vote tallies, and ADA-friendly structure. This is where human judgment takes over.
Real-world Gemini use cases for municipal meetings
Gemini’s usefulness changes a lot depending on the type of meeting you’re working with. Some meetings are fairly forgiving. Others expose the limits of a general purpose AI tool quickly.
Understanding these differences upfront helps set realistic expectations before you rely on Gemini for anything that becomes part of the public record.
City Council meetings
City council meetings are the most difficult meetings for Gemini to handle well. These meetings tend to include layered motions, amendments, withdrawals, and procedural back-and-forth that unfolds over long stretches of discussion. When a motion is introduced, amended, tabled, and later revisited, Gemini can easily lose track of the sequence unless you provide very strict instructions and carefully review the output.
Common problems include listing a motion before the discussion that led to it, declaring a motion “approved” without a recorded vote, or collapsing multiple amendments into a single action.
Gemini can draft city council minutes, but only if you are prepared to supervise every motion and vote closely.
Planning and zoning meetings
Planning and zoning meetings present a different challenge. These meetings often involve legal descriptions, parcel numbers, zoning classifications, and highly specific land-use terminology.
Gemini tends to simplify or paraphrase technical language unless you explicitly tell it not to. That can result in shortened descriptions, altered terminology, or blended summaries that lose important distinctions between staff recommendations, applicant statements, and public testimony.
When using Gemini for planning and zoning minutes, it’s critical to instruct the model to quote technical and legal language exactly as it appears in the transcript.
Committee meetings
Committee meetings are usually shorter and less procedurally complex, which means Gemini performs better overall. That said, it still has a tendency to infer decisions where none were formally made. Informal discussion can be turned into implied agreement if the language sounds action-oriented.
Even in these simpler meetings, clerks still need to review whether a decision was actually taken or whether the discussion simply ended without action.
Meetings with heavy public comments
Meetings with heavy public comment require special care. Gemini’s default behavior is to condense information, which can unintentionally change the meaning or tone of public remarks. Multiple speakers may be blended together, emotionally charged language may be softened, or concerns may be summarized too vaguely.
If public comment is part of the official record, Gemini must be instructed to summarize each speaker separately and preserve the substance of what was said.
This is also the area where human judgment matters most, since public trust depends on accurate representation.
Compliance and risk considerations
Using Gemini for meeting minutes does not change the legal responsibilities attached to those records. Open meeting laws still apply. Minutes still need to reflect what actually happened. And clerks are still responsible for ensuring accuracy, completeness, and compliance.
One of the biggest risks is hallucinated actions. If Gemini fills in missing information with something that sounds reasonable, that error becomes a compliance problem. A fabricated vote or misstated motion can create confusion or legal exposure later.
Gemini also does not provide an audit trail. There is no built-in version history showing how a document evolved, what was changed, or who approved it. If your municipality requires that level of documentation, you must manage it outside the tool.
Formatting consistency is another manual responsibility. Gemini does not enforce municipal formatting standards, numbering conventions, or ADA-friendly structure. A final human review is still required to ensure readability, accessibility, and consistency with past minutes.
How ClerkMinutes simplifies all of this
If the Gemini AI workflow feels like a timesuck, that’s because it is. Gemini is a capable general purpose tool, but it wasn’t designed for municipal meetings, and it doesn’t understand what clerks are responsible for at the end of the process. It doesn’t know your agenda rules, your formatting standards, or how precise motions and votes need to be when they become part of the public record.That means a lot of the work still falls on you.
ClerkMinutes was built specifically for clerks, which is why many of the problems you have to manage manually with Gemini simply don’t show up in the first place.
Here’s what that looks like in reality.
The biggest benefit is time.
Instead of managing prompts, correcting AI assumptions, and rebuilding structure, you start with a solid draft and focus on reviewing and confirming accuracy. ClerkMinutes takes the repetitive groundwork off your plate so you can spend your energy on the parts of the job that actually require human judgment.
It handles the structure automatically.
You don’t have to paste templates, explain agenda order, or correct sections that drift out of place. When you upload your agenda and meeting recording, the minutes are organized the way municipal minutes are expected to be organized. Call to order, roll call, discussion, motions, votes land where it should without you having to coach the system.
It treats motions and votes as first-class information.
This is where general AI tools struggle the most. ClerkMinutes doesn’t guess, reword, or summarize actions in a way that changes their meaning. Motions, seconders, amendments, and vote outcomes are captured clearly and in sequence, without invented decisions or softened language.
Formatting stays consistent every time.
Headings don’t shift. Numbering doesn’t break. Spacing doesn’t need to be fixed before publication. ADA-friendly structure is applied automatically, so you’re not reworking the same layout issues meeting after meeting. Whether one person drafts the minutes or several people collaborate, the final output looks the same.
Your work is saved and tracked.
Edits are preserved. Versions are kept. You can always see what changed and when, which matters when minutes are reviewed, revised, or referenced later. That kind of record simply doesn’t exist in Gemini.
Most importantly, ClerkMinutes is built around how clerks actually work. You can tailor templates to match your municipality’s style. You can invite coworkers to review drafts. You can prepare minutes for publication without exporting files or juggling multiple tools. It removes the small, repetitive tasks that quietly eat up your time.
How to generate minutes in ClerkMinutes
As we alluded to above, ClerkMinutes is designed for municipal workflows, so you don’t need to train it, supervise it, or explain what minutes are supposed to look like. The process is intentionally simple.
Step 1
Upload Your Agenda
Upload your agenda file and move on. You don’t need to paste it into a chat window or instruct the system to follow it exactly. ClerkMinutes reads the agenda automatically and uses it to create the structure of your minutes.
Step 2
Upload your meeting recording or transcript
Upload the audio or video from your meeting, whether it came from Zoom, YouTube, etc. If you already have a transcript, you can upload that instead. There’s no need to split files into parts or label them carefully. Long meetings are handled in one pass.
Step 3
Confirm speakers
ClerkMinutes generates a clean transcript and identifies speakers for you. You can quickly confirm names and roles, and if anything is mislabeled, it’s easy to fix. You’re not fighting a system that doesn’t recognize who your council members are.
Step 4
Review and finalize the minutes
With the agenda, recording, and speakers in place, ClerkMinutes generates a full draft of your minutes. They arrive already organized, aligned to the agenda, and formatted the way municipal minutes should be formatted.
From there, you can make targeted edits. Clarify a motion. Add context where needed. Highlight key decisions. Refine public comment summaries. Use built-in tools to adjust language without rewriting entire sections.
Plus, the editor is designed for clerks, when everything looks right, download the minutes as a Word document or PDF, or prepare them for publication.
So when should you use Gemini vs ClerkMinutes?
By this point, you’ve seen that Gemini can help with meeting minutes, especially if you’re comfortable giving it very specific instructions and reviewing everything it produces. For some situations, that’s enough.
Gemini tends to work best when you’re looking for quick help or to do research. For example, it’s useful for getting a rough summary when you just need the general sense of a meeting, experimenting with AI to see what it can do, or drafting notes from small, informal meetings where a minor wording issue won’t cause problems later.
If you like having full control and don’t mind spending time setting things up, correcting mistakes, and double-checking the details, the DIY Gemini approach can get you there eventually.
But for most clerks, your workday isn’t built around extra time. Minutes aren’t optional, and they aren’t forgiving. They have to be accurate, consistent, and ready to stand up as official records. That’s where ClerkMinutes comes in.
ClerkMinutes is a better fit when accuracy matters and you can’t risk missing a motion, confusing an amendment, or mixing up a vote. It’s also a better choice when your formatting needs to stay consistent from meeting to meeting, when your municipality has specific rules you must follow, or when you simply don’t want to recheck every detail line by line.
It’s especially helpful for long or complicated meetings that are difficult to summarize manually and time-consuming to manage with a general AI tool.
If you prefer hands-on control and don’t mind supervising every step, Gemini can work. But if you want a tool that handles the heavy lifting, keeps everything organized, and reduces the risk of mistakes, ClerkMinutes is designed to make your job easier. Upload your first meeting for free with a 14-day free trial here.
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