How to turn a meeting recording into minutes and action items

The slow part of minutes is listening again. With Ears the assistant reads the transcript instead, and then does what assistants are good at: structuring it. You get decisions, action items with owners and a follow-up email in a couple of minutes.

1. Connect Ears once

Ears is a remote MCP server, so there is nothing to install. Add this address to your assistant:

https://useears.com/mcp

Claude (claude.ai, Desktop, Cowork): Settings, Connectors, Add custom connector. Name it Ears, paste the address, press Connect and choose Create a free account. Save the recovery key you are shown.
Claude Code: run claude mcp add --transport http ears https://useears.com/mcp, then /mcp to sign in.
ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Codex: add a custom MCP server with the same address. The docs have the exact steps for each.

New accounts get 30 free credits, enough for 30 minutes of audio. No card is needed.

2. Get the recording to a direct link

Zoom, Teams and Meet usually keep recordings behind a login, and Ears cannot open those pages. Download the file instead and either let the assistant send it from your computer (Claude Code and Cowork ask Ears for a one-time upload link and run the command for you) or put it somewhere that serves the file directly, such as your own storage. The file can be up to 25 MB.

3. Ask for what you need

Be specific about the output. Three prompts that work well:

Transcribe https://example.com/standup.mp3 and write the minutes: topics, decisions, and action items with owner and deadline.

From that transcript, list the questions nobody answered and who could answer each.

Write a short follow-up email to the attendees with the decisions and who does what.

Because the assistant keeps the transcript in the conversation, you can keep asking: a summary for someone who missed the meeting, a list of risks, the exact words of a decision.

Long meetings and cost

Processing takes about 15 seconds for every minute of audio. For anything longer than about 10 minutes, cut the audio into 5-minute parts with ffmpeg (the first guide has the command) and ask for the parts in order. A 45-minute meeting costs 45 credits, which is €0.45. The 30 free credits cover your first test.

Before you record people

Tell the attendees the meeting is recorded and transcribed.
Ears does not store the audio or the transcript, but the text then lives in your conversation with the assistant, so your assistant provider’s rules apply to it.
The transcript can get names, numbers and overlapping voices wrong. Check them before you circulate the minutes.