How to Write Great Financial Planning Meeting Notes in the Age of AI

There’s a growing belief that AI can “handle” the financial planning meeting notes process.

Between transcription tools, automated summaries, and CRM integrations, documenting client meetings for planning needs and compliance is covered… right?

Not necessarily. The real value of meeting notes has never been transcription or recaps. The value is understanding, judgment, and translation.

Great financial planners don’t just capture what was said in a meeting. They capture what matters, and that distinction is becoming more important, not less, in the age of AI.

Meeting notes aren’t clerical work. They’re a foundational planning competency and they’re also important from a compliance POV. How you approach them will shape your confidence, your client relationships, and your long-term effectiveness as a planner. That’s why we’re arguing that meeting note-taking isn’t irrelevant. It might just be more important than ever!

The Mistake New Planners Make About Meeting Notes

Many new planners underestimate meeting notes because they misunderstand what the task actually is. Common assumptions sound like this:

Meeting notes are about writing fast or writing everything down.
Meeting notes exist mainly for compliance.
Meeting notes are something AI can fully replace.

When notes are treated this way, they become factual but hollow. You end up with a list of numbers, a recap of topics, and very little insight into what actually happened in the room.

What gets missed?

Key decision points
Client hesitation or uncertainty
Trends or patterns that show you what a client values
Why a decision was made (or deferred)
What changed since the last meeting
What’s coming up for a client/on the horizon

You’d be surprised what AI meeting note takers can miss or what they “hallucinate.” When those pieces are absent, notes lose their usefulness as you try to create their plan. Plus, if clients move between advisors, paraplanners, or team members in your firm, the context disappears entirely.

Missing context forces guesswork later, and erodes confidence for our planners, teams, and clients.

What Meeting Notes Actually Do (Beyond Documentation)

Well-written meeting notes do far more than satisfy documentation requirements. They play three critical roles in the planning process.

1. They Anchor the Client Relationship

Strong meeting notes tell the story of the client over time.

They document where the client started, the decisions they faced, and why they chose a particular path. Anyone on the team should be able to read past notes and understand:

Who this client is
What matters to them
How their plan has evolved
Facts about the client that create points of connection (“I hear you love the Broncos…”)

This is what allows planners to grow their book of business or for firms to scale without sacrificing the client experience. When notes preserve meaning and context, continuity doesn’t depend on one person’s memory.

2. They Create Confidence (for Advisors and Teams)

Meeting notes eliminate those uneasy moments of, “Did we already talk about this?” or “I think they said…” They provide clarity when planning software outputs don’t quite line up with expectations.

When there’s a discrepancy, strong planners go back to the notes — not assumptions.

Good meeting notes reduce errors, speed up decision-making, and allow advisors to show up more present in meetings instead of mentally tracking everything.

3. They Connect Conversation to Action

The most overlooked role of meeting notes is translation. Notes turn conversations into action items, follow-up emails, and planning software updates. They bridge the gap between what was discussed and what actually happens next. This translation skill (not just raw technical knowledge) is what separates strong planners from average ones.

Why AI Can’t Replace Good Meeting Notes

Let’s be clear: AI can be a useful tool. It can summarize meetings, transcribe conversations, format notes neatly, and so on.But AI cannot do the most important parts of your role as a financial planner:

It can’t judge what matters.
It can’t interpret emotional cues.
It can’t understand why a client hesitated.
It can’t decide what context needs to be preserved for future decisions.

And sometimes, it gets basic facts wrong.

At Hannah’s firm, Guiding Wealth, the team tested a very popular AI meeting tool. Not only did it misstate client asset numbers, but it also claimed the firm’s paraplanner was pregnant and getting divorced. None of which was discussed in the meeting (and none of it is true).

If you don’t remember what happened in your meetings or pay attention yourself, AI output won’t help you. You won’t know what to trust, what to correct, or what to preserve.

This reframes the conversation entirely: AI is a tool, not a skill. Writing meeting notes is a skill. And developing it strengthens critical thinking, pattern recognition, client judgment, planning intuition, and your ability to identify clear next steps.

Your Differentiator in the Age of AI

Great meeting notes are written from a planning lens, not as a recap. They intentionally capture client motivations, values, hesitations, tradeoffs, and what’s most important to your clients in that moment.

They include context when it matters: short client stories, the “why” behind decisions, and emotional signals that affect follow-through. This is where the human side of financial planning lives. When you can do this well, you don’t just future-proof your role. You make yourself more valuable to clients, teams, and firms.

What “Good” Meeting Notes Actually Include

Strong meeting notes don’t need to be long. They need to be intentional.

Clear Action Items

Put these at the top of your meeting notes after you review everything from your meeting, so they don’t get buried. Notes should clearly state who is responsible, what needs to happen, and what the next meeting depends on.

Client Context

Include background that affects decisions, such as career details, family dynamics, money history, recent events, upcoming events, etc. This explains why recommendations matter, not just what they are.

Decision Drivers

Document what the client is prioritizing, what tradeoffs were discussed, and where values or personal wishes showed up. These details explain direction changes later.

Key Financial Facts

Capture the numbers that shape decisions to update plans accurately and understand changes over time. More than anything, we’ve found this is where current AI notetakers fall short: They often get the numbers wrong!

Signals to Watch

Note hesitation, stress points, motivation, readiness for change, and upcoming life events like marriage, children, or retirement. These signals guide thoughtful follow-up instead of generic check-ins.

Timing Matters: When to Write Meeting Notes

Meeting notes should be taken during the meeting, then reviewed and cleaned up as soon after the meeting as possible. Details fade quickly,and emotional nuance disappears first. Waiting doesn’t just reduce efficiency — it reduces quality. Insight turns into vague memory, and subtle client signals are lost. So try to build in time between meetings or block off time after meetings to catch up on notes or review what your AI notetaker provided against the notes you scribbled down during the meeting.

Want to Learn to Write Better Meeting Notes?

Strong meeting notes improve client trust, compliance confidence, team handoffs, planning accuracy, and advisor confidence. For new planners, especially, this skill accelerates growth faster than most technical knowledge. If you can do one thing well early in your career, learn how to write exceptional meeting notes — and how to use that skill to work with AI. Inside CORE+, you can watch real client meetings, write your own notes, and then compare them to how Hannah’s team documents the same conversations. Plus, after submitting your meeting notes, you’ll receive real feedback from Hannah’s planning team.

It’s a way to build this skill intentionally, and to develop judgment that no AI can replace.