This guide uses Harlyn, an AI delegate, for the concrete steps, but the checklist applies to any tool that joins meetings on someone's behalf. If a product cannot do one of these steps, that tells you which kind of product it is.
Not every meeting needs the same level of representation, so pick the posture first.
Just need the record? An attendee-mode bot (a note-taker) joins quietly, answers only if directly spoken to, and brings back the summary, transcript, and action items. This is the right call for meetings where you are optional but want to stay informed.
Need to be represented? Delegate mode is for meetings where your absence has a cost: your update matters, questions will come up about your accounts, decisions touch your work. The delegate speaks your update, answers questions from your briefing and your connected tools, and routes everything else back to you.
In Harlyn these are per-meeting settings, and a calendar auto-join defaults to the quiet attendee mode, so nothing speaks for you unless you chose that.
The zero-effort path is connecting your Google or Outlook calendar once. After that, the delegate simply shows up to the meetings you tell it to cover, whether that is a Zoom call, a Microsoft Teams meeting, or a Google Meet. For a one-off, paste the meeting link and it joins that call only.
Two platform notes worth knowing regardless of vendor. An AI note taker for Zoom meetings joins as a visible participant, so meeting hosts with waiting rooms will need to admit it like anyone else. And an AI meeting assistant for Microsoft Teams behaves the same way: it appears on the roster under its own name, which is exactly what you want, because a stand-in that could be mistaken for a silent human is a problem, not a feature.
The briefing is the difference between a delegate and a recorder that occasionally talks. A good briefing has three distinct layers, and Harlyn's briefing editor separates them explicitly:
Harlyn can draft this briefing for you from your CRM, your calendar, and your past meetings with the same people, and you edit it before the meeting. Whatever tool you use, insist on the share-versus-internal split. A delegate with one undifferentiated context blob will eventually say something that was for its ears only.
This is the etiquette section, and it is not optional. Sending an AI to represent you works when nobody feels tricked and fails instantly when someone does.
Before the meeting, a one-line message to the organizer is enough: "I'm double-booked Tuesday, so I'm sending my AI delegate. It has my update, it can answer questions about my accounts, and anything it can't answer comes straight to me." You are asking for the same courtesy people already extend to note-taker bots, plus a little more, and in our experience the "anything it can't answer comes to me" line is what makes people comfortable.
During the meeting, the tool should carry the disclosure itself, three ways. Harlyn shows up on the roster as exactly what it is, for example "Harlyn (AI delegate for Nick)". It posts a one-time notice in the meeting chat explaining what it will and will not do. And when it first speaks, it introduces itself as an AI. If the tool you are evaluating only discloses through its display name, the burden falls back on you every single meeting.
One norm to hold yourself to: send a delegate for legitimate conflicts, the double-booking, the client commitment, the sick day, the trip. It exists so a real absence does not cost you your seat at the table.
Here is the counterintuitive part: the best delegate experience involves you for about thirty seconds. When the room asks something only you can answer, Harlyn messages you in Slack. Reply, and it speaks your answer into the meeting, attributed to you. In live testing that loop runs about nine seconds end to end when the owner answers promptly. Ignore the ping, and the question simply lands in your recap instead, so there is no penalty for being truly unreachable. But if you are merely in another meeting, a glance at Slack lets you be in two rooms at once, which is the entire point.
When the meeting ends you get the recap: summary, searchable transcript, your questions with their captured answers, action items, commitments made on both sides, and anything the delegate deferred. Action items that touch your systems, a CRM update, a task to create, arrive staged and waiting. Approve them with a click and they execute; ignore them and nothing happens. Nothing writes to your tools without your yes.
Then do the one human thing no tool can: skim the recap and send the organizer a line about anything that needs you personally. The delegate held your seat. Holding the relationship is still your job.
Harlyn is in private beta and free, and it covers Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet. If your calendar already has next week's conflict sitting in it, that meeting is the best possible test.