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Meeting transcript retention policy template

A copyable retention policy for AI meeting transcripts, summaries, recordings, action items, and shared links in small teams.

Published: Jun 14, 2026 Last reviewed: Jun 14, 2026 Audience: Small-team founders, operations leads, sales leaders, recruiting leads, customer success owners, workspace admins, and data owners setting AI meeting transcript retention rules Risk: Medium Evidence: Zoom meeting summary admin controls, Fireflies security and retention documentation, Otter privacy/security and enterprise admin controls, FTC data security guidance, NIST Privacy Framework, and Cybergiz meeting-bot playbooks

Bottom line

Do not keep AI meeting transcripts forever by default. A meeting transcript can include customer problems, buying intent, candidate answers, employee issues, pricing, roadmap plans, security incidents, screen-share text, and private chat context. Keep it only while there is a real business reason, restrict who can read it, and delete or archive it on a schedule.

Use this default:

Raw transcripts: 30-90 days.
AI summaries: 90-180 days if they support customer, project, or hiring work.
Recordings: off by default unless a meeting category explicitly needs them.
Sensitive meetings: delete or restrict faster, unless legal or business owners require retention.

Before approving a transcript retention rule, run the AI Tool Risk Checker and record the final policy in the Small Team AI Security Checklist. If your team has not decided where transcripts live, start with where AI meeting transcripts should be stored.

Retention policy template

Copy this into your handbook, wiki, or security tracker.

AI meeting transcript retention policy

Purpose:
We use approved AI meeting assistants only for approved meeting categories. Meeting outputs are retained only while they support a documented business need.

Covered records:
- Audio and video recordings
- Raw transcripts
- AI summaries
- Action items
- Meeting chat used by the AI assistant
- Screen-share text used by the AI assistant
- Shared links and exported files

Default retention:
- Recordings: off by default, or delete within 30 days unless approved
- Raw transcripts: delete within 30-90 days
- AI summaries: retain for 90-180 days when needed for customer, project, or hiring work
- Action items: move to the task system and follow that system's retention rule
- Shared links: expire within 7-30 days

Restricted meetings:
Legal, HR, finance, board, fundraising, acquisition, security incident, regulated-data, health, payment, child, government, and highly sensitive customer meetings are not approved for normal AI transcription. If approved by the responsible owner, retention must be documented before the meeting.

Access:
Raw transcripts are private to the meeting owner and approved business owners by default. External sharing requires meeting owner approval.

Deletion:
The workspace admin or meeting owner deletes transcripts and summaries at the scheduled date, during offboarding, or after a restricted-data capture.

Review:
The retention policy is reviewed quarterly and after any vendor, integration, meeting category, or incident change.

Retention schedule

Use this as the starting schedule, then adjust for your contracts, laws, and business process.

Record type	Default retention	Owner	Notes
Audio/video recording	Off by default or 30 days	Meeting owner	Keep longer only when training, compliance, or customer agreement requires it.
Raw transcript	30-90 days	Workspace admin and meeting owner	Treat as the most sensitive meeting output because it preserves unreviewed detail.
AI summary	90-180 days	Business owner	Keep summaries longer than raw transcripts only when they are reviewed and useful.
Action items	Follow task-system rule	Functional owner	Move actions to Jira, Linear, Asana, CRM, or the project system.
CRM call note	Follow CRM account rule	Sales or customer owner	Do not attach raw transcripts unless explicitly approved.
Hiring interview summary	30-180 days	Recruiting or hiring owner	Align with candidate data rules and ATS policy.
Shared transcript link	7-30 days	Meeting owner	Require password or authenticated access when available.
Restricted meeting output	Delete or legal hold	Qualified owner	Do not let employees decide case by case.

The FTC’s data security guidance supports keeping sensitive data only while there is a business reason and using a written retention policy. For meeting transcripts, that means the team should define the business reason before the bot joins.

Meeting category rules

Meeting category	Retention default	Sharing default	Approval note
Internal team meeting	Transcript 30-60 days, summary 90 days	Team only	Allow if employees know the bot is active.
Sales discovery call	Transcript 60-90 days, summary 180 days	Account team only	CRM sync needs separate approval.
Customer success call	Transcript 60-90 days, summary 180 days	Account and support owners	Block broad workspace sharing.
Product research interview	Transcript 30-90 days	Research team only	Remove identifiers when possible.
Hiring interview	Transcript 30-90 days, summary per ATS rule	Hiring team only	Candidate notice and ATS policy required.
Board, legal, HR, finance, fundraising, M&A	Block normal retention	Qualified owner only	Escalate before transcription.
Security incident or abuse report	Block normal retention	Incident owner only	Use the incident record system, not the meeting bot, as source of truth.

If a meeting category does not appear here, treat it as unapproved until an owner adds it.

Deletion checklist

Run this checklist monthly or quarterly, depending on volume.

Deletion should not depend on each employee remembering their own transcripts. Where the tool supports admin retention, use it.

Exception register

Use an exception register when a transcript needs to be kept longer than default.

Transcript retention exception

Meeting title:
Meeting date:
Meeting owner:
Business owner:
Tool:
Record type: recording / raw transcript / AI summary / shared link / export
Meeting category:
Reason to keep longer:
Sensitive data present:
Approved retention date:
Access limited to:
Deletion owner:
Legal, contract, or customer requirement:
Approval date:
Review date:
Notes:

If the reason is vague, do not approve the exception. “May need later” is not a retention policy.

Vendor settings to verify

Before rollout, check whether your selected tool can enforce the policy.

Setting	Why it matters
Auto-start recording or summary	Prevent surprise transcription in meetings that were never approved.
Auto-delete transcript or summary	Makes retention a system rule instead of a memory task.
External sharing restriction	Prevents transcript links from leaving the organization by default.
Email summary content	Avoid sending transcript or summary text into inboxes unnecessarily.
Admin visibility and deletion	Lets the workspace owner clean up records after offboarding or mistakes.
Link expiration and password protection	Reduces long-lived exposure from shared transcript links.
CRM, Slack, Drive, calendar, email, or ATS sync	Creates additional copies with separate retention rules.
Screen-share OCR and chat inclusion	Can pull more sensitive content into the summary than people expect.

Zoom supports account, group, and user controls for meeting summaries, including automatic sharing choices, external sharing restrictions, authenticated links, auto-delete settings, chat and screen-share controls, and admin locks. Otter Enterprise documents custom data retention and centralized conversation management. Fireflies documents retention governance, Rules Engine, private storage options, and external link controls. Verify the exact plan before relying on any control.

Rollout plan

Phase	Action	Exit criteria
Day 0	Choose one approved meeting category.	Owner, retention, sharing, and deletion rules are written.
Day 1	Configure vendor settings.	Auto-start, sharing, email, links, and deletion match the policy.
Week 1	Pilot 3-5 low-risk meetings.	Records are private, findable, and deletable by the owner.
Week 2	Delete or expire pilot records on schedule.	The team proves deletion works before expansion.
Month 1	Add one more meeting category.	Each category has a separate retention rule and owner.
Quarterly	Review records, exceptions, integrations, and offboarding.	No orphaned transcripts, stale links, or unmanaged personal accounts.

Evidence checked

FAQ

Should raw transcripts and AI summaries have the same retention period?

Usually no. Raw transcripts often contain more sensitive, unreviewed detail. Keep raw transcripts shorter and retain reviewed summaries only when they support customer, project, hiring, or operational work.

Is 30 days always enough?

No. It is a useful default for low-risk raw transcripts, but customer calls, sales notes, research interviews, and hiring workflows may need a different period. The point is to write the reason and owner before keeping the transcript longer.

Can we rely on the vendor’s retention controls?

Use vendor controls when they exist, but keep your policy outside the vendor. Also remember that CRM notes, email summaries, Slack shares, Drive exports, and ATS copies may have their own retention rules.

What should happen during employee offboarding?

Remove the employee from the meeting-bot workspace, transfer business-owned records if needed, delete personal or orphaned transcript copies, and expire shared links. Do the same for connected calendar, CRM, Drive, Slack, email, and ATS access.

Do we need legal review?

Use legal, compliance, HR, finance, security, or account-owner review when meetings include regulated data, employment decisions, contracts, legal advice, incidents, payment data, health data, or customer commitments. This template is an operations policy, not legal advice.

Recommended next step

Pick one AI meeting assistant and one meeting category. Fill in the retention policy template, configure the vendor settings, and test deletion on a low-risk meeting before allowing the bot into customer, hiring, or sensitive internal calls.