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API key required. Summaries are generated by your configured AI provider. Set one up in Settings > AI Setup.

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How Summaries Work

After a meeting recording is transcribed, Vowen sends the transcript to your configured AI provider to generate a structured summary. With the default Meeting Notes template, the summary includes:
  • Key discussion points
  • Decisions made
  • Action items with owners (when speakers are identified)
  • Follow-up items
The structure above is just what the default template produces. You can switch to a different template before each recording (or create your own) to get a summary shaped for the kind of meeting you’re in. A stand-up doesn’t need the same structure as a customer discovery call. See Custom Templates below for ready-to-use examples.

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Viewing Summaries

  1. Go to the Notes section in the Vowen app
  2. Click on any meeting note
  3. The summary appears under the Summary tab; switch to Transcript to see the full transcript

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Regenerating Summaries

If a summary isn’t quite right, you can regenerate it from the right sidebar of the meeting note:
  1. Open the meeting note from the Notes list
  2. Open the Regenerate Summary panel in the right sidebar
  3. Pick a different AI provider, model, or template
  4. Click Regenerate Summary. The current summary is replaced with the new one
This is useful when:
  • You want a more capable AI model for better quality
  • You want to apply a different template (for example, switching from the default Meeting Notes template to your Daily Stand-up template)
  • The first attempt was cut short or off-target

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Custom Templates

Custom templates and per-note custom instructions are Pro features. The free plan ships with a built-in Meeting Notes template that covers most cases.
On Pro you can create your own templates from Settings > Meeting Notes and switch between them before each recording. A template has these fields:
  • Name: shown in the template picker (for example, “Daily Stand-up”)
  • Description: a short hint that appears under the name in the picker
  • Prompt: the instructions sent to the AI along with the transcript. Always start your prompt with TITLE: [title] so Vowen can auto-extract a clean title for the note
  • Generate AI summary: a toggle (on by default). Turn it off to make this a transcript-only template — recordings using it save just the transcript and skip the AI summary entirely (no AI provider call is made). The prompt field is hidden while it’s off. You can still generate a summary manually on any such note afterward, and templates with this turned off show a “Transcript only — no AI summary” hint in the picker.
Below are three templates you can copy directly into the template editor.

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Daily Stand-up

Description: Yesterday, today, and blockers for each person on the team. Prompt: 
Summarize this daily stand-up meeting.

Your response MUST start with:
TITLE: [4-8 word title describing the date or theme of the stand-up]

## Yesterday
- [Person]: [what they completed]

## Today
- [Person]: [what they plan to work on]

## Blockers
- [Person]: [blocker, or omit if none]

## Follow-ups
- [Decisions, pairing needs, or items requiring offline discussion]

Keep each bullet to one line. If a person did not speak, skip them entirely.

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Client Discovery Call

Description: Pain points, requirements, and next steps from a customer discovery call. Prompt: 
Summarize this client discovery call. Focus on the prospect's business context, pain points, and what would make them buy.

Your response MUST start with:
TITLE: [Company name and call type, e.g., "Acme Corp Discovery Call"]

## Prospect
- Company, industry, team size, attendee roles

## Current Situation
- Tools and workflows they use today
- What's working, what's broken

## Pain Points
- Specific problems mentioned, with quantified impact where stated

## Requirements
- Must-haves
- Nice-to-haves

## Next Steps
- Action items with owners and dates
- Any commitments made by either side

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1:1 Sync

Description: Wins, challenges, feedback, and action items from a manager and direct report. Prompt: 
Summarize this 1:1 meeting between a manager and a direct report.

Your response MUST start with:
TITLE: [Direct report's name and date, e.g., "1:1 with Priya - May 12"]

## What's Going Well
- Wins, momentum, things the report is energized by

## Challenges & Blockers
- What they are stuck on or frustrated by

## Feedback Exchanged
- Feedback given to the report
- Feedback the report gave back

## Career & Growth
- Growth conversations, goals, development asks

## Action Items
- [ ] [Owner]: [what and by when]
Pro tip: Save one template per recurring meeting type you have. Picking the right template before you click Start Taking Notes matters more than tweaking the model afterwards.

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Editing a Summary

The summary is fully editable — click into it and type. The editor is a rich block editor, so you can structure the note as you go:
  • Type / anywhere to open a block menu and insert a block: Text, Heading 1/2/3, bulleted list, numbered list, to-do (checkbox) list, quote, code block, or a divider. The menu filters as you type and is keyboard-drivable (arrows, Enter, Tab).
  • Insert an image from the / menu — embed one by URL, or pick, drag, or paste a local image file. Local images are copied into Vowen’s storage so they stay with the note.
Edits save automatically.

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Meeting Notes Storage

Meeting notes are stored locally at:
  • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/vowen/meeting-notes.json
  • Windows: %APPDATA%/vowen/meeting-notes.json
Each note includes:
  • Title and description
  • Start time and duration
  • Full transcript
  • AI summary
  • Audio file reference
  • Speaker labels (if diarization was used)

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Retrying Failed Notes

If a meeting note fails during transcription or summarization:
  • The audio recording is always preserved in Documents/Vowen Recordings
  • Open the meeting note from the Notes list; failed transcripts and summaries each show a retry option in the right sidebar
  • For transcription failures, switch to a more accurate cloud model (for example, Deepgram Nova 3 or AssemblyAI Universal)
  • For summarization failures, switch to a more capable AI model or a simpler template