Ask Your Recordings: How to Find Answers in Hours of Meetings and Lectures

Key Takeaways

• Keyword search finds words; Ask answers questions, even when you don't remember the exact words that were used.
• Every answer cites the moments it's based on, and each citation jumps to that point in the audio.
• You can ask about one recording, or with Premium across all recordings, a collection or a person.
• Good questions are specific: name the topic, the person or the decision you're looking for.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Search Finds Words, Ask Finds Answers
• How Ask Works in Voicerec
• Questions Worth Asking
• Tips for Better Answers
• Privacy and Control
• Conclusion

Introduction

Recording your meetings and lectures is easy. Finding something in them later is the hard part. An hour-long call becomes a 9,000-word transcript, and a semester of lectures becomes something you'll never read again. Most of the time you don't want the whole recording. You want one answer: what was decided, what someone promised or how a concept was explained.

That's what Ask in Voicerec is for. This guide explains how it works, what to ask and how to get answers you can trust.

Search Finds Words, Ask Finds Answers

Full-text search is great when you remember a word that was said: a name, a product or a number. Voicerec searches across all your transcripts for that.

But often you don't remember the words. You remember the meaning: "the part where we talked about moving the launch" or "when she explained why the first approach failed." Ask understands the question, reads the relevant parts of your transcripts and writes a short answer. You don't need to guess which words were used.

How Ask Works in Voicerec

• Pick a scope. Ask about the recording you're looking at, or, with Premium, across all your recordings, a collection or everything you've recorded with one person.
• Get a short answer with citations. Each answer cites the moments it's based on. Tap a citation to jump to that point in the audio and hear it for yourself.
• Keep going. Voicerec suggests follow-up questions, so you can dig deeper without starting over.
• Ask in your own language. You can ask in your own language, and recordings can be in any of the nearly 100 languages Voicerec transcribes.

On iPhone, tap the sparkles button on the home screen. On the Mac, click Ask, or use Ask Voicerec from the menu bar (⇧⌘A).

Questions Worth Asking

Meetings

• What did we decide about the launch date?
• What did I promise to send the client, and by when?
• Which questions were left open at the end?

Lectures and classes

• How did the professor define opportunity cost?
• Which topics did she say will be on the exam?
• What examples were used to explain recursion?

Interviews and research

• Where does the interviewee talk about her first job?
• What were the main complaints about the onboarding process?

Voice notes

• What were my ideas for the kitchen renovation?
• Which books did I want to read this year?

Tips for Better Answers

1. Be specific. "What did Sarah say about the budget?" works better than "budget?"
2. Choose the right scope. Asking inside one collection, like a course or a client, keeps unrelated recordings out of the answer.
3. Name your speakers. When speakers have names, questions about people get better answers. Naming them also builds your People list.
4. Check the citations. An answer is only as good as the transcript behind it. If something matters, tap the citation and listen to the moment.
5. Use follow-ups. Start broad ("what were the main topics?") and narrow down from there.

Privacy and Control

Ask works on your transcripts. Before Voicerec uses any AI feature, it asks for your consent: transcription is done by our speech-recognition provider, Deepgram, and summaries and Ask answers are created with Google Vertex AI. You can turn AI features off at any time in Settings. Your recordings are encrypted in transit and at rest.

Conclusion

The value of recording a meeting or a lecture is being able to find what was said when you need it. Ask turns your recordings into something you can question: short answers, linked to the exact moments, in your own language. Ask is included on the 3 recordings of the free plan, so you can try it today. Premium lets you ask across everything you've recorded.

Want better summaries too? Read our guide to summary templates, or learn how to prepare for a meeting in two minutes.

Frequently Asked Questions