Office Meetings Can Now Be More Productive: FirstAgenda

FirstAgenda is a SaaS-company that’s making meetings smarter for thousands of users around the globe. From 2015, the company was focused in fighting unproductive meetings by developing digital meeting software. Its solutions, Prepare and Assistant, optimizes all stages including preparing, organizing, and following up on meetings.

FirstAgenda’s solutions are known for its cutting-edge technology and intuitive interfaces that make it easy to use for both participants and administrators without special IT knowledge. Operating in Aarhus (Denmark) and Berlin (Germany) the company has supported more than 200,000 meetings and has more than 50,000 users from both the public and private sectors.

The Leading Provider of Business Meeting Solutions

People spend a lot of time in meetings (estimated to be 300 million meetings) every month in the U.S. causing the productivity to go down. The U.S. companies spend more than 37 billion dollars a year in meeting costs – which puts meetings on the top three list of reasons for companies wasted time and money.

Meetings are said to be the fuel that runs a business – and no doubt that they are important – but are they worth the money?

According to a Harvard study, more than half of all meetings are considered unproductive and studies show that 2 out of 3 meetings end without a decision. FirstAgenda is aiming to impact these numbers in a positive way by using cutting-edge technology like AI, Speech Recognition, and Machine Learning to rethink the way meetings are held today.

Driven by the mission to improve the meeting process so that productivity is not cut down, FirstAgenda feels that the timing is just right because various technologies are maturing and according to one of the leading research and advisory companies; 60% of meetings with three or more participants will involve a virtual assistant by 2020. Therefore, FirstAgenda created a solution through Assistant and Prepare.

Assistant By FirstAgenda

FirstAgenda’s latest solution is a mobile and web-based app for meetings called Assistant. Using AI, machine learning, and speech recognition, the app automates and optimizes the process of writing meeting minutes.

Assistant is an automatic and digital alternative to manually write meeting minutes. Before, during, and after meetings, Assistant helps users save time and increase productivity while providing a higher level of detail to the meeting minutes and ensuring that information is never lost.

The Procedure

With Assistant, meetings are automatically synched with the calendar. At the start of the meeting, a user activates the app with the push of a button. The app records the sound from the meeting and transmits it into the cloud. Once in the cloud it’s analyzed using AI and machine learning. When the minutes are created, participants receive an email that includes a link to the meeting minutes. Furthermore, the user can take photos of a whiteboard during the meeting from the app. These photos will be included in the meeting minutes for everyone to see.

Also, it is possible to create tasks using speech recognition. Later the task will automatically be sent to the personal task manager. In addition, the user will have the same options for the decisions made in the meeting. Now, this is where the magic really happens. Speech recognition and machine learning is utilized to create automatic keywords. When one presses “Capture Speech” at the beginning of a meeting, Assistant records everything. The keywords enable the brain to refresh and revisit the meeting from a bird’s eye view.

Considering User Behavior:

Memory-trigger: The user will be able to remember the last meeting more efficiently using 15 seconds to “scan” through keywords.

Execution: In the event that one forgets the color code for web designing and has to call the client to re-verify. That can be avoided through Assistant’s search option. Just look for the keyword “color code” and within a second the details of it is shown.

Benefits Of The Product

• Details galore: Time travel using Assistant and attain all the information that can be forgotten by the human mind.
• Better overview: Meeting minutes contain an overview of the meeting’s most important keywords. The minutes highlight gives details on decisions, tasks, and photos – as well as personal notes and bookmarks.
• Be present and participate: Assistant allows you to drop the notes and focus on the discussion during the meeting.

Tackling the Future Market

Considering the products FirstAgenda has today, the technology that is available to the company and the control they have over the market, FirstAgenda feels that it is definitely on the right path. Currently, the company is seeking office spaces to expand in the US.

FirstAgenda is currently working on an Insights platform designed to give you valuable business insights based on meetings held in the entire organization. The goal is to provide a better overview of the meetings across the entire organization and suggest ways to optimize them.

Captain of the Ship

Kasper Lyhr, CEO: Kasper joined FirstAgenda as the CEO in 2015 when it was established as a new company. He’s earned a proven track record of successfully building and growing businesses across different software products - as well as all major geographical markets. He is experienced in strategy, product management, recruitment, leading a highly educated workforce, and scaling businesses at a global level.

“Using AI, machine learning, and speech recognition, the app automates and optimizes the process of writing meeting minutes.”

Kepp in touch: firstagenda.com