You come out of an important meeting and you know the feeling: three pages of notes, and somewhere in the middle of them the decision your colleague will ask about tomorrow. Write the recap? That is another twenty minutes gone.
Microsoft Teams tackled this problem with Intelligent Recap. But in 2026 Microsoft added two features that fundamentally change the recap workflow: Video Recap and custom AI templates.
In this post I show you what these two features can do and how to build them into your working day, step by step.
What is Video Recap?
Video Recap has been generally available since the end of April 2026. Copilot automatically creates a short, narrated video highlight from your meeting recording. The result is a compact overview you can watch in five to ten minutes. 📹
Requirements: a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, a recorded meeting and Teams desktop or web. Currently available only for English-language meetings.
Step 1: record the meeting
Both features need a recording. Here is how you switch it on. 🎬
- During the meeting, click the three dots in the meeting control menu.
- Choose Record and transcribe and then Start recording.
- Teams confirms the recording. All participants are notified.
- After the meeting, the recording is saved to OneDrive/SharePoint.
Tip: in the meeting options you can turn on automatic recording.
Step 2: watch the Video Recap
Here is how you find Video Recap. 🗂️
- Open the Teams calendar and click the meeting that has taken place.
- Select the Recap tab.
- Click Play video recap.
The video contains an AI voice covering the key points, together with matching clips. You can pause and skip forward. 🌍
Step 3: set up custom AI templates
Microsoft offers two ready-made templates plus your own instructions. 📋
Speaker Summary: summarises each participant's contributions separately.
Executive Report: condenses the meeting down to outcomes and next steps.
Your own template: you give Copilot free-form instructions.
Here is how you set up a template. ⚙️
- Open the recap of a meeting that has finished.
- Click Customise summary.
- Choose Speaker Summary, Executive Report or Custom.
- For Custom: type your instruction, for example «Summarise the decisions in 5 bullet points».
- Click Apply. 🔄
Step 4: share the recap
Here is how you share the recap. 🔗
- In the recap, click Share at the top right.
- Send it as a Teams message or copy the text.
Practical tip: build a template library
For every meeting type, write down one template instruction that has proven itself. For client meetings, list client requests and next steps. For weeklies, summarise projects and responsibilities. 💡
Conclusion
Teams Video Recap and custom AI templates are the biggest practical improvements to Intelligent Recap since it launched. Try it now: record your next meeting and test both features. 🚀
