I attended an awesome conference the last week of February in Austin.

It was about newsletters!

Hosted by my friend Matt McGarry of Newsletter Operator. The one who got me hooked on becoming a spammer! 🤣

Yeah, newsletter conferences are for a special kind of geek like me, someone who obsesses about open and click-through rates, email subjects, and deliverability.

I got to see some real rockstars in that industry—Sam Parr, founder of the Hustle and My First Million Podcast, Alex Lieberman co-founder of the Morning Brew, and many others.

There was so much amazing information I wanted to capture and I was struggling with how to keep up with and capture everything.

Then I had an idea—I started a chat with ChatGPT to capture everything: video and audio clips, pictures, and quick notes.

Then I used it to create a recap and an action plan for follow-ups that I could digest or share with my admin afterwards. It worked like a charm.

This method also works for meetings, classes, or even corporate off-sites—as long as privacy isn’t a concern.

So take this tip along to whatever conference you are geeky about and I bet you’ll find it an effective way to take notes and capture what’s important to you.

ChatGPT for Conference Notes

ChatGPT for capturing organizing, and summarizing key insights from sessions, talks, and networking chats

Has this happened to you? You attend a conference, inspired by brilliant speakers and insightful panel discussions. But by the time you get back to your desk, your notes are scattered, business cards are jumbled, and key points are forgotten, and that game-changing insight? 

Gone.💨

Traditional note-taking is messy, inefficient, and incomplete—it’s hard to keep up, and it doesn’t capture visuals from presentations.

But there is a better way.

Capturing rich meeting data and turning it into a concise summary is now easier with AI. The ChatGPT mobile app can serve as your on-the-go meeting assistant – recording key details, transcribing conversations, and generating clear summaries.

This guide provides a step-by-step workflow for using ChatGPT to document meetings, plus multiple use cases and practical tips. We’ll cover how to optimize data capture (audio recordings, photos of whiteboards or slides, written notes), integrate helpful third-party tools, and refine AI-generated summaries for maximum clarity.

We’ll also discuss scenarios across different meeting types and industries, and how to handle common issues or sensitive information.

ChatGPT as Your AI Conference Companion

Start with the ChatGPT Mobile App.

With the ChatGPT mobile app, you can:

• Record talks & discussions

• Snap pictures of slides & whiteboards

• Capture & transcribe business cards

• Jot down quick notes—without switching apps

• Instantly summarize everything into a structured recap
  

This means no more lost ideas, half-written notes, or scrambling to remember details from a keynote speaker’s talk. AI handles it, so you can focus on networking and learning.

How to Use ChatGPT to Capture & Summarize Conferences

Step 1: Pre-Conference Setup

Before heading to the conference, set up ChatGPT and supporting tools to ensure smooth data capture. Download and install the ChatGPT mobile app (Android, Apple), ensuring you have access to GPT-4 for more advanced summaries.

Grant microphone and camera access so you can use voice input and image recognition seamlessly. Enable chat history to retain all your captured insights in one place for easy reference.

Step 2: Capturing Insights in Real-Time

Once the conference begins, it’s time to capture valuable insights as they happen. If permitted, record talks and panel discussions using ChatGPT’s voice input or an external recorder for higher-quality audio. Position your device centrally to capture clear sound, and if the session is long, break the recording into smaller segments for easier processing later.

For visual content, take high-quality photos of slides, whiteboards, and key visuals using your phone’s camera. Upload these images to ChatGPT and prompt it to extract and summarize important points. You won’t need to use any fancy OCR software to do this ChatGPT can do this on its own.

To ensure clarity in your summaries, dictate quick notes and takeaways into ChatGPT after each session. For example, you can say: “Summarize the main takeaways from the session on AI ethics with Dr. Smith, focusing on key challenges and best practices.” By capturing this information in real-time, you can ensure nothing gets lost or misremembered.

Or you can create quick notes like I did. And then instruct ChatGPT to summarize things at the end.

Step 3: Generating a Structured Summary

Once you’ve collected all your notes, recordings, and images, it’s time to turn them into a structured and actionable summary. Open ChatGPT and input the collected content, instructing the AI with a clear prompt such as: “Summarize my conference notes into key takeaways, decisions made, and action items.” This will help produce a well-organized document.

If the initial summary is too dense or missing details, refine the output by prompting ChatGPT to format the summary more clearly. You can ask for bullet points for readability, headings for different sessions, or clear action items with deadlines and owners to make them more actionable.

If you’re planning to share your summary with your team, request a more formal structure: “Format this summary into an executive report with key insights and next steps.” 

The more specific you are, the better the results.

For example, at the conference I attended, James Altucher, shared some great insights. I might have added, “Be sure to include James Altucher’s top three things he learned from sharing his knowledge on the internet.“ Or,” Look for common themes from the conference and make sure that you include them as part of the key takeaways in your summary.”

Automate Your Post-Conference Reports

Instead of spending hours compiling notes, let ChatGPT do the heavy lifting. You can turn your notes into valuable content by asking ChatGPT to generate a blog post, draft follow-up emails to new connections, create a 30-day action plan based on your key takeaways, or even convert insights into a slide presentation. These small automations help you retain the value of the conference long after it’s over.

For example, if you want to publish a LinkedIn post about the event, ask ChatGPT: “Summarize my takeaways in a LinkedIn post with three key insights and a call to action for engagement.” This way, you can share knowledge with your network effortlessly.

An Example of How I Used ChatGPT for My Conference

Here’s exactly how I used ChatGPT at the conference I attended.

First, I started with the ChatGPT App and started the chat with this prompt:

This chat is a overview of what I am learning at https://newslettermarketingsummit.com/#scroll-agenda

I wanted to give ChatGPT context. When I submitted the prompt I clicked the web search option in the prompt box in ChatGPT to force it to look at the agenda.

Next, I gave it the following prompt telling it why I was sharing the pictures and and notes and what I expected at the end.

Since the conference had so much content each day, I created a separate ChatGPT conversation for Day 1 and Day 2, I added this prompt to the end of my chat:

Now create a comprehensive brief of all of today’s talks and create an actionable list of things to follow up on. 

I also liked the web search feature—it pulled in extra insights on the speaker and the topics he mentioned. The output looked something like this:

The report was something I could then share by sharing a chat with my team. Or cutting and pasting into my journal or Notion for posterity.

Bonus Tip: Create a Contact Card from a Picture

One of the things I’ve often done is take pictures of business cards, then after the event go back and transcribe them into my contacts database. This is tedious.

What I do know is to take a picture of a business card. Then upload it to ChatGPT and use the following prompt:

Analyze this business card image and create a vCard file with the following details: Name: [Full Name, Phone Number: [Number, Email: [Email Address, Company: [Company Name, and Title: [Job Title].

Here’s an example of the dialogue where it extracts the data and then writes a Python script to create a VCF file that you can download and import into your address book.

Final Takeaway

Instead of feeling overwhelmed by conference overload, let ChatGPT be your AI-powered assistant.

With its ability to capture, transcribe, and summarize insights on the go, you can ensure you walk away from every event with structured and valuable information.

Next time you attend a conference, ditch the stress of manual note-taking and let AI handle the documentation. Install the ChatGPT mobile app, set up your workflow, and focus on what truly matters—learning, networking, and taking action on your insights.

📩 If you use this tactic, hit reply and tell me— how this helped you at your latest conference.

I appreciate your support.