Your Notetaking App Just Killed My Vibe
Photo by Luke Southern on Unsplash
I thought the meeting was ok. The “weekly sync” where 90% of attendees sit in silence with their mics and cameras turned off.
The daily meetings don’t offer anything except existential dread. Yet with the advent of AI something new is happening. Your note-taking app is stealing my vibes.
The Story
When I join a meeting I’m invariably early, because I’m one of the few who still respect others time and think that punctuality is valuable.
People slowly show up. Some might even have cameras on. If we are very lucky someone might even smile.
Suddenly everyone in the group gets the message.
“Tom’s Note-taking App would like to join the meeting”
We don’t have a good expression in the language for this. Things are moving fast enough that there are real problems.
If I had to describe this I would probably explain it with the following.
second-hand embarrassment
digital intrusion
and the exact feeling you got when someone in 2001 wouldn’t take off their Bluetooth earpiece
You feel it instantly. The vibe is gone. The meeting is now…recorded. Observed. Slightly performative.
It’s like HR is in the room and might fire you at any time. You might lose your position at any possible point, so you need to be careful and not reveal your real feelings or opinions.
We should be asking the real question. What is happening.
“Why is this here?”
The productivity illusion
We know that meetings are inefficient. There is so much evidence around this that it’s not even funny anymore.
We have identified the problem, so tech is doing what tech does. Making a tool on top of a problem rather than look at the root cause. It’s 2026 so the solution was always going to use non deterministic AI in the process.
We have
bad meetings (now with added transcripts)
action items nobody reads
Which is the same as it has always been, just more.
Which is where we are with the implementation of AI everywhere. We are building more.
More code
More meetings
More recordings
More summaries of conversations nobody needed to have
It’s fine though, we can use AI to comb through all of the stuff we’ve generated with AI. It’s all becoming an AI code review to check code that has been written by AI. What could possibly go wrong?
The broken social contract
Here’s the real issue. It’s not the tool. It’s the announcement.
We are withdrawing the human parts of software as we march forwards through 2026.
What I mean by this, is the following.
Killing psychological safety
People stop speaking freely. You don’t say the slightly risky thing. You don’t challenge the idea properly.
Creates performative communication
Everyone starts talking like they’re writing minutes for a board meeting.
Forced productivity theater
“Is everyone okay with this being recorded?”
Nobody says no. Of course they don’t. You’ve already invited it.
Yet none of this is about productivity. It’s about delegating our responsibility that is causing a real problem. We all start thinking “The bot will remember” rather than actually getting things done ourselves, while being satisfied that nobody will read the notes anyway.
It’s the same stuff as usual. This is brought to you by the same people who brought you
people don’t listen in standups
the same update being repeated for days by software developers
those who think more tooling is the answer for every possible broken process
So it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. Yet I still feel rather shocked, and perhaps I shouldn’t.
So to be clear, I want something which will actually help software developers.
I want a tool that:
doesn’t announce itself
doesn’t visibly join
doesn’t interrupt the human flow of conversation
Something invisible. Assistive.
Like good software should be.
Instead we’ve built something that kicks the door down and introduces itself.
Much like the use of AI in software development itself.
Conclusion
If your meeting needs an AI assistant to be useful…
…it probably shouldn’t be a meeting.
About The Author
Professional Software Developer “The Secret Developer” can be found on Twitter @TheSDeveloper and regularly publishes articles through Medium.com
The Secret Developer still takes their own notes, like some kind of caveman.