A Wave of AI Tools Is Set to Transform Work Meetings

Dan Siroker knows how to pivot. He once had an education startup that morphed into a successful online analytics company called Optimizely. More recently he created an AI company called Scribe.ai, dedicated to capturing data from apps like Zoom, then reintroduced it as a MacOS app called Rewind designed to be “a search engine for your life.” That wasn’t clicking, so this week he changed the name of the company again to Limitless and introduced a spiffy wearable. It’s a $99 clip or pendant that can record all your conversations so you can use generative AI to refresh your memories or analyze your interactions with other people.

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Siroker also has some good ideas about privacy: One feature prevents the recording of someone’s voice unless they verbally grant permission. But he also understands that while his long-term vision encompasses a deep, lifelong record, Limitless needs to solve a problem today to win its initial customers. Siroker’s initial target is the tedium of unproductive meetings. “It’s a real problem that technology can make meaningfully better,” says Siroker.

Siroker sees AI as a way to transform the endless procession of meetings, in-person or remote, scheduled or ad hoc, that professionals suffer through daily. He’s got lots of competition. Productivity companies like Microsoft, meeting apps like Zoom, and transcription startups like Otter are also layering AI on top of our meetings. We should watch what happens closely, because the way AI transforms this slice of the working life is an indicator of the future of work in an AI-powered world.

The AI meeting singularity has started benignly, with the seemingly innocuous step of transcription and summarizing. It’s the automation of a task once routinely assigned to secretaries. Even that change subtly alters the dynamic of conversations, because now all meetings have a paper trail, stripping deniability from every stupid remark that slips from someone’s mouth. Or the AI-generated transcript can lay bare which team members haven’t uttered a