Practical: AI & Business News Redefining Meeting Efficiency with Richard White
Oct 21, 2025
Richard White, the Founder and CEO of Fathom, dives into the transformative power of AI in meetings, sharing his journey from painful note-taking experiences to revolutionizing productivity. He discusses the evolution from manual highlights to automated AI notes, and how Fathom customizes summaries and action items. Surprising user insights reveal AI summaries serve as effective memory aids. Richard also addresses the social dynamics of bot attendance, the future of AI agents in meetings, and innovative features like an AI coach that enhances collaboration.
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Daily Meeting Pain Sparked Fathom
- Richard White describes doing 20 Zoom user-research meetings a day and struggling to take useful notes while talking.
- That daily pain drove him to build Fathom to capture and preserve memorable quotes and action items.
Capture Reliability Beats Early AI
- Early technical work focused on reliably capturing meetings, not on AI summarization.
- Speed mattered: getting transcripts within ~30 seconds made the product feel instant compared to manual notes.
Make AI Notes Customizable And High-Quality
- Invest heavily in AI quality and QA processes because generative outputs require nuanced evaluation.
- Let users customize summaries and teach the model what structure they prefer for better accuracy.