AI note takers have made it easy to capture every call. That is useful. It also means a lot of people are now recording or transcribing conversations without thinking about whether the other side agreed. The short answer to “do I need to tell them?” is: yes, tell them. Here is why, and how.
Transcribing counts
It is tempting to think a transcript is different from a recording. For consent, treat them the same. Both capture what someone said, and in many places the law cares about capturing the conversation, not the file format you keep.
One-party and all-party consent
In the United States, federal law allows a conversation to be recorded when one party to it consents. If you are on the call and you agree, that can be enough under federal law.
Some states go further and require everyone on the call to consent. The states most often listed as all-party are California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington. A few others, such as Connecticut, Michigan, Oregon and Vermont, have rules that depend on the situation. Summaries like this one from Recording Law are a good starting point, but check the current law before relying on any list, including this one.
Calls across borders
When people join from different places, the safest habit is to follow the strictest rule that applies to anyone on the call. If one person is in an all-party state or another country with stricter rules, act as if everyone needs to agree.
Outside the US, rules vary a lot. In the EU and the UK, data protection law generally expects people to be told clearly that their words are being captured, why, and what happens to them, and to have a real chance to object. Several countries also have criminal laws against recording people without their knowledge.
What to actually say
Consent works best when it is short, early and normal. At the start of the call, before anything substantive:
“I use Stuart to take notes during calls. No bot joins the meeting.”
Adapt it to whatever tool you use. A few habits make it stick:
- Say it every time, not only on the first call with someone.
- Put it in the invite too for scheduled calls, so nobody is surprised.
- Make objecting easy. If anyone hesitates, stop, and delete what was captured.
- Say it again when someone new joins partway through.
Bots and no bots
A bot that joins the meeting at least shows up in the participant list. Tools that listen on your own computer, with no bot, are quieter, which people like. It also means nobody else can see that notes are being taken. The less visible the tool, the more it matters that you say so out loud.
How Stuart handles this
Stuart listens on your Mac and never joins the meeting, so the telling is up to you. It helps: it shows you the line above at the start of each call, can keep a note on your Mac of when you confirmed you said it, and if someone objects, it stops and deletes that call. It does not make recording legal on its own. That part is still a conversation between you and the people you talk to.
