Can we use ChatGPT or Claude for board minutes?

Yes, with three conditions. Use an account that doesn't train on what you paste in. Give it the secretary's notes, not a recording of the whole meeting. And have the secretary check the draft line by line before the board sees it. Whatever account you use, leave out executive session and anything involving your lawyer.

This is general information for nonprofit boards, not legal advice.

Start with the account you are using

The same assistant treats your content differently depending on the plan. This is what each company's own policy pages said when we read them on 11 November 2026. They change, so check before you rely on this list.

• ChatGPT personal plans: used to train models by default, unless you opt out in the privacy settings. Temporary Chats are not used for training.
• ChatGPT business plans and the API: not used for training by default.
• Claude Free, Pro and Max: your choice, in Privacy Settings. If you allow it, Anthropic keeps the chats for up to five years. If you don't, 30 days.
• Claude Team, Enterprise and the API: not used for training, unless you send feedback on a chat or opt in.

For a board, that means a personal account with training left on is the wrong place for minutes. Either turn training off or use a business plan.

Give it notes, not a recording

Minutes record what the board decided. A recording captures everything anyone said.

Lawyers at Skadden wrote in June 2026 that recordings, transcripts and AI-drafted minutes would likely have to be handed over in a lawsuit, and that a conversation with an AI tool is generally not protected by attorney-client privilege even when the topic is legal. Debevoise & Plimpton, writing for nonprofits in 2025, added that some states require everyone's consent before a meeting is recorded, and that participants should be told when a transcript or summary is being made.

So the lower-risk route is the old one: the secretary takes notes that capture motions, votes and action items, and the assistant turns those notes into minutes. If your board does record, decide in advance how long the recording and transcript are kept and who can see them.

Step by step

1. The secretary takes notes during the meeting. For each motion: who moved, who seconded, the wording, and the count for, against and abstaining.
2. Remove anything from executive session before the notes go anywhere.
3. Paste in the notes, the agenda and the attendance list, with a prompt like the one below.
4. Check every name, motion and vote count in the draft against the notes. Assistants do get these wrong.
5. The secretary edits the draft and sends it to the board. The board approves the minutes at its next meeting, as it always has.
6. Delete the chat once the minutes are approved, unless your retention policy or a pending dispute says to keep it.

A prompt you can copy:

Draft formal board meeting minutes from the notes below. Record actions and decisions, not discussion. For each motion give the mover, the seconder, the exact wording and the vote count. List the action items with owner and due date. Do not add anything that is not in the notes. If something is unclear or missing, list it at the end under "To confirm" instead of guessing.

Keep the last two sentences. They stop the assistant from filling gaps with guesses.

What to keep out

• Executive session discussion
• Personnel matters and the executive director's review
• Anything your lawyer told the board, and any discussion of a dispute or lawsuit
• Donors' personal details
• A full recording, when notes would do

Tell the board

Put one line in the minutes or in a short policy: who may use an AI tool for board work, on which account, and that a named person reviews everything before it becomes a record. Debevoise's advice is that someone who attended the meeting, usually the secretary, should review the output and adopt it as accurate.

How Karma Compass handles this

On the Pro plan, Karma Compass drafts minutes from the secretary's notes, or from a transcript if your board has decided to keep one. The draft lists who attended and whether there was quorum, each motion and how the vote went, and the action items with owners. Each item points back to the line in the notes it came from, which makes checking the draft faster.

In Compass the draft stays a draft until the secretary adopts it, and that is saved with their name and the time. The board still approves the minutes by motion at its next meeting.

We don't use your board's records to train AI models. Requests go only to model endpoints that keep no copy of what we send. The one exception is that Google may hold a request its safety systems flag as possible abuse for up to 90 days, as our security page explains.

If a director connects their own Claude or ChatGPT to Compass, what that assistant reads is handled under that company's terms. The list above applies to them too.

See how minutes work in Karma Compass

Sources

• How your data is used to improve model performance: OpenAI's policy on training for personal and business plans, updated 13 March 2026.
• Updates to Consumer Terms and Privacy Policy: Anthropic on the training choice and retention periods for Claude Free, Pro and Max.
• How do you use personal data in model training?: Anthropic on Claude Team, Enterprise and the API.
• AI Drafting Board Minutes? Hold Up, Wait a Minute. It's Complicated: Skadden lawyers on discovery and privilege, June 2026.
• AI Meeting Tools for Not-for-Profit Organizations: Debevoise & Plimpton on consent to record and who should review the output, August 2025.