The Live Companion is an AI that participates in a meeting while it's happening — transcribing, distinguishing speakers, tracking the agenda, and offering the host small interventions that raise the quality of the dialogue.
What it does today
- Real-time transcription with speaker diarization. Tested with multiple people on a single mic — it can still tell voices apart.
- Intention tracking. It picks up what each speaker is trying to do (e.g. "intends to participate in testing and understanding the tools"), not just what they said.
- Agenda awareness. Ticks off items as they get covered: "real-time transcription — done."
- Suggestions to the host. "Address technical issues with API limits." "You've spent 40 minutes on question 1 of 5."
Why this matters
Investor feedback on early demos lands on the same point: an AI companion that actively prompts participants during a meeting to upgrade dialogue quality is a massive value-add. It's the difference between a note-taker (passive, post-hoc) and a facilitator (active, in-the-moment).
Where this goes next
- Per-participant agents. Each person in a meeting gets their own private nudge. "Reiner, you've been silent 5 minutes — maybe bring a creative thought."
- Post-meeting dojo. Legitimate team recordings become private learning material — each participant replays their own contribution and practices alternatives.
- Role-specific modes. Chairperson gets decision-tracking. Secretary gets "decisions still vague." Everyone gets a personalized summary.
Differentiation
Zoom, Teams, Notion are all moving into this space. Our edge isn't the transcription — it's the art-of-dialogue model underneath, built from years of facilitation practice. The companion is opinionated about what a good conversation looks like.
Open questions
- Recording etiquette. Many calls shouldn't be recorded without consent — we need patterns like "Chatham House mode" where speakers are anonymized by default.
- Attention competition. If the host is reading the companion's suggestions, they're not fully in the conversation. Interface design has to keep the human in the room.