While I was in Portugal, my AI was in meetings… and did a better job than me

Not all heroes wear capes. Some just join your Zoom calls and text you on WhatsApp when things get urgent.

I’ve just wrapped up a coast-to-coast trip across Portugal and while the views were stunning, what really stuck with me was realizing how many meetings I didn’t attend. And more importantly, how much I didn’t miss them.

Because let’s face it: meetings are probably one of the biggest energy drains in our workday. And most of the time, we don’t even need to be there. What we need are the outcomes. So I started asking myself: what if there was a way to get the value of the meeting… without actually being in it?

Enter one of my favorite AI tools. Well, not just a tool. An agent.

You’ve probably already heard of note-takers. Those bots that join your calls, take notes, send you a transcript, maybe a quick recap. Useful, sure. But passive.

What we built instead is an AI agent that goes way beyond that.

It’s active, it’s connected, and it knows what to do next.

Here’s how it works: the agent joins the call on my behalf. But before that, I trained it, just like you would train a new team member. I showed it how I like to manage meetings, what kind of follow-ups I usually expect, which tasks I typically delegate, and where I store all my knowledge (ClickUp, Gmail, WhatsApp, Drive… you know the drill).

Now when the agent joins a meeting, it understands the context, picks up on what matters, and is connected to all my platforms. If something urgent comes up, it doesn’t wait, it just sends me a WhatsApp message in real time. “Hey Giovanni, quick heads-up: they’re discussing X, and it needs your attention.”

Even better, once the meeting ends, the agent automatically creates tasks in my project management tool, sends me a short and clear recap (bullet points, deadlines, owners) and lets me keep moving.

No fluff. No hour-long recordings. No digging through transcripts to figure out what happened. Just the info I need, where I need it.

This changed everything during my trip. I could enjoy Portugal, stay aligned with my team, and still make decisions, without drowning in calls or emails.

And no, it wasn’t some six-month project with ten engineers. My team at #Groow had it up and running in just a few hours.

So if you’re still spending half your week in calls where you speak for five minutes (or not at all), maybe it’s time to rethink what “being present” really means.

Spoiler: sometimes, it’s a bot with your name in the call.