AI meeting summaries are one of those things we can’t imagine going back from — and yet we don’t fully trust them.
While the summaries they generate are often good enough for a quick recap, anyone who relies on them regularly is likely to tell you the same thing: the output doesn’t always reflect what actually mattered. Key decisions can be softened, buried, or missed entirely.
That’s because relevance depends on invisible context — shared assumptions, prior decisions, and intent — that never makes it into a transcript.
Where current AI works well — and where it falls short
Most AI note-takers record everything, transcribe everything, and then decide what matters after the meeting is over. It relies on inference to make decisions: repetition, phrasing, speaker turns, and keyword frequency. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t, because decisions are frequently brief and unceremonious; commitments are buried in passing remarks. A casual “let’s go with that” can matter more than ten minutes of discussion leading up to it.
Humans recognise these moments instantly. AI, working from a transcript alone, has to make a best guess based on the information on hand. Often, the clues are not there.
The usual fix? Human correction, of course. Users skim transcripts, highlight key lines, tweak summaries, or regenerate them with better prompts. The problem is that this happens after the fact, when its importance has diminished in your mind, and the context is fuzzier. It’s slower, requires more mental effort, and is often skipped entirely because more urgent matters take precedence. The result is a summary that looks polished but may miss the critical points.
And this is the gap that Plaud is trying to bridge.
Plaud provides an easier way to intervene earlier
Plaud frames its idea as “real-time human–AI alignment”. Strip away the language, and the idea is straightforward. The AI still does the heavy lifting — it still transcribes, structures, and summarises. The difference is that it no longer has to work out what mattered later.
During a conversation, a short press on the Plaud Note Pro marks a moment as significant, and that indicator is time-locked to the recording. This requires little to no effort from users yet provides the AI with valuable context as it processes the transcript.
The goal isn’t perfection, but fewer missed decisions and clearer action items — precisely where AI summaries tend to fall short.
Why software gets in the way — and why hardware matters
While most major AI note-taking tools support real-time highlighting, it’s often implemented via software. And that means looking at a screen, locating a button, or typing a command at the exact moment you’re meant to be listening. It’s distracting, and you can miss important information when a lot is going on. A button press is effortless and can be done without multitasking or breaking conversational flow.
This is where Plaud’s hardware-first approach changes the equation. A physical button press is effortless. It can be done without multitasking, without looking away, and without breaking conversational flow — which makes it far more likely to be used when it actually counts.
Hardware is more complex to build and scale, which is why this solution feels obvious in hindsight and yet remains rare in practice.
Canny design that closes the gap, not overselling a fix
For phones with Magsafe compatibility, the included case lets you easily carry the Plaud Note Pro at all times.
The Plaud Note Pro is designed to sit quietly in the background of a conversation. Built around studio-grade audio capture using four MEMS microphones with AI beamforming, it’s capable of picking up voices up to five metres away. Portability is also its calling card: pocket-thin at just under 3mm and weighing only 30g, the internal battery supports up to 50 hours of continuous recording on a single charge.
The device also supports dual-mode recording for phone calls or an in-person meeting. It feeds everything into Plaud Intelligence — a software layer that draws on multiple AI models (OpenAI, Anthropic and Google) to turn conversations into structured summaries, mind maps, and action items.
Plaud isn’t claiming to have solved AI summarisation, and nor is it trying to replace human judgement. Its angle is more pragmatic: give users a near-zero-effort way to tell the AI what is essential, before it has a chance to guess wrong. In a category where trust is not easily earned, that may well be the most practical improvement of all.
Plaud Note Pro is priced at SGD 259. It is available via Plaud’s official website, as well as major IT retailers including Challenger, Best Denki, Courts, Harvey Norman, and Metapod, and online through platforms such as Amazon, Lazada, Shopee, and KrisShop.
You do not need a subscription to use the Plaud Note Pro. Every unit includes a free Starter plan with 300 minutes of transcription per month and access to basic AI features. Plaud also offers optional paid subscriptions: Pro plans cost USD 100 (roughly SGD 140) per year, and Unlimited plans cost USD 240 (roughly SGD 310) per year, depending on the billing cycle and promotions. More details here.
