Recording, NDAs, and AI: what you can and can’t do
An AI notetaker joining a call is not really a new problem. It is an old problem wearing a new interface. The old problem is recording a conversation, and the rules around that predate AI by decades.
Most people reach for an AI meeting assistant without asking the question they would ask before setting a tape recorder on the table. The AI version does not look or feel like recording anything. It is recording something anyway, and here is what that means once AI is the reason the recording exists.
The recording question comes before the AI question
Strip away the transcript, the summary, and the follow-up email it drafts. An AI notetaker is a microphone with a very good stenographer attached. Every rule that applies to recording a conversation applies to it the same way it would apply to a handheld recorder. The AI layer changes what happens to the recording afterward. It does not change whether you were allowed to make it in the first place.
That distinction matters because the legal question here has nothing to do with artificial intelligence. It is about consent to record, and in most states that question already has a clear answer. What the AI tool does with the recording afterward is a second, separate layer on top of that.
One-party consent and all-party consent are not the same rule
In a one-party consent state, only one person on the call needs to know it is being recorded. That person can be you. In an all-party consent state, sometimes called two-party consent, everyone on the call has to agree before recording starts. Get this backward and the recording itself can be the violation, regardless of what was said on it.
Florida is an all-party consent state. Everyone on the call needs to agree before you record, and that includes a client who joined your Teams call five minutes late. Georgia, where a lot of Florida businesses also have clients or offices, is a one-party state. The rule genuinely changes depending on which side of the state line the other person is sitting on.
| State | Consent required | In practice |
|---|---|---|
| Florida | All parties | Announce and get agreement before every recording |
| Georgia | One party | Your own participation is enough |
We treat every call at our own company as if the strictest state involved applies, since most businesses take calls across state lines without thinking about it. A call between a one-party state and an all-party state generally has to follow the all-party rule. Confirm the specifics for your situation with an attorney rather than a blog post. This is exactly the kind of question where the details of your state and your industry actually matter.
Disclosure is not just a legal checkbox anymore
Even in a one-party state, where you are not legally required to say anything, we still recommend saying it out loud. A growing number of people react differently to AI processing their words than they do to a human notetaker, whether or not that reaction is fully rational. Finding out after the fact tends to land worse than finding out at the start.
Saying it costs one sentence. “We use an AI notetaker for these calls, is that alright with you?” That takes five seconds. It heads off the conversation you do not want to have later, the one where a client feels like something happened to their words without their knowledge.
Check what your client agreements already say
Some client contracts and NDAs, especially newer ones, now include specific language about AI. A confidentiality agreement written five years ago never anticipated an AI notetaker generating a searchable transcript. Plenty of agreements written this year restrict it explicitly. If you regularly sign NDAs, it is worth a pass through your active agreements looking specifically for AI-related language. Do not assume an older agreement is silent on something that did not exist when it was written.
If a client’s agreement does restrict AI use and you want to keep using a notetaker, that is usually a conversation worth having directly. Businesses update agreements more often than people expect, once the actual concern gets explained instead of assumed.
The recording you keep is the recording that gets discovered
Here is the part that surprises most people. A recording or transcript your business holds does not stay private just because nobody outside the company has heard it. If your business ends up in a lawsuit for any reason, even one unrelated to that specific call, recordings and transcripts you are holding are generally discoverable. The other side’s attorney can request them, and you may have to produce them.
That cuts against the instinct to keep everything just in case. An AI notetaker that saves a searchable transcript of every call, indefinitely, by default, turns years of casual conversation into a permanent record. Someone can request that record later, often about a topic nobody thought was sensitive at the time.
The fix is not avoiding recordings altogether. It is deciding on purpose how long you keep them, and actually enforcing that, instead of letting every AI transcript pile up forever because deleting things never felt urgent.
A short checklist before your next AI-transcribed call
- Confirm whether your state requires one-party or all-party consent, and check the other participant’s state if the call crosses state lines.
- Say out loud that an AI notetaker is being used, even in a one-party state where it is not strictly required.
- Check active NDAs and client agreements for AI-specific language before assuming an older agreement is silent on it.
- Set an actual retention period for AI transcripts and recordings, and delete them on that schedule instead of by default forever.
- Ask your attorney about your specific situation before treating any of this as settled, especially if your calls regularly cross state lines.
Common questions
Not legally, in a one-party consent state. Practically, we would still say announce it. It costs almost nothing and avoids the awkward conversation that happens when someone finds out later that an AI tool was processing their words without them knowing.
Consent laws generally apply to any recorded conversation, internal or external, though the practical stakes usually feel higher with clients and prospects. Internal meetings carry their own version of the disclosure question. Employees tend to have strong opinions about AI listening to internal discussions, and getting ahead of that with a clear internal policy avoids a trust problem later.
Review what you have and set a retention policy now rather than treating the backlog as unsolvable. Decide how long transcripts actually need to be kept for legitimate business reasons. Delete what is past that window, and apply the same schedule going forward so the pile does not grow back the same way.
Related but distinct. The never list covers what a person types into an AI tool. This covers what an AI tool records on its own during a live conversation, a separate set of consent and retention questions the never list does not touch.
That is one option, but it is usually more than the situation calls for. Confirming your state’s consent rule, saying the one sentence about AI being present, and setting a retention schedule covers most of the real risk. All three together take less time than the meeting the notetaker was hired to summarize.
Where to start
Confirm your state’s consent rule this week. If your calls regularly cross state lines, treat the strictest rule involved as the default. Add one sentence to your call opening about AI being present, and set a retention period for transcripts that you actually enforce, not just write down.
None of this requires giving up AI notetakers. It requires treating them like what they are: a recording, with everything that comes with one. We deal with this exact question when we set up AI tools for clients. We are happy to walk through what it looks like for your specific states and contracts.
