Microsoft Teams has built-in tools for meeting notes, but the fully automatic AI version — the one that summarises the meeting, captures decisions and extracts action items — requires Microsoft 365 Copilot, which is a paid add-on.
What each tier gets you
- Teams Essentials / Business Basic: manual meeting notes in the in-meeting Notes panel; no automatic transcription.
- Teams Business / Teams Essentials with Transcription: live captions and meeting transcripts (VTT/DOCX) available for recorded meetings.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot: AI-powered intelligent recap — automatic summary, speaker-separated transcript, action items, and follow-up suggestions. Requires Microsoft 365 E3/E5 + Copilot add-on.
Using Teams Transcription without Copilot
If your plan includes transcription but not Copilot, you can enable live transcription during a meeting (More Actions → Start Transcription) and download the transcript after. The transcript is available in the meeting recording in OneDrive or SharePoint. It is raw — no AI summary — but serviceable for generating your own minutes.
Local alternatives for Teams meetings
If you do not have Copilot access, you can transcribe Teams recordings locally with a tool like Ledgeur. Download the recording from OneDrive or SharePoint (MP4 format), then open it in Ledgeur for on-device transcription and summarisation. The audio never leaves your device — no Copilot license needed.
Notification requirements
When you start a recording in Teams, all participants see a notification banner and can object. Meeting transcription in Teams also sends a notification. If participants are in a state with two-party consent laws (California, Illinois, etc.), participants' explicit consent is required before recording or transcribing.