Challenge
Collecting accurate, shareable insights from hundreds of daily meetings
Like most operators working at high-growth fintechs, Lloyd Cilliers, Head of IT at Brex, spends his days in back-to-back meetings. Each call contains essential info. But capturing and sharing it all? That became a heavier lift over time.
Lloyd wasn't alone. Employees across departments, from sales and engineering to support, also felt the sting. Most were already using AI transcription tools to streamline meeting notes. However, not every solution could reliably generate digestible recaps, and many couldn't transcribe external meetings at all. As a result, meeting hosts ended up relying more on manual note-taking to pull takeaways and share follow-ups.
As this burden slowed collaboration and created knowledge silos across teams, Lloyd decided it was time to adopt a new solution. His checklist was clear:
- Customizable notes for every internal and external call — On a given day, a Brex employee might move between standups, 1:1s, multiple procurement calls with vendors, the list goes on and on. Beyond requiring a solution that could transcribe internal and external calls, Lloyd also needed meeting-specific templates that would eliminate context fatigue and capture every nuance on autopilot.
- Easy shareability — Lloyd's ideal solution wouldn't just enable the sharing of meeting recaps. It would also compile each transcript into a searchable knowledge base that teams could keep returning to. This single source of truth for conversation data would give them the visibility to make informed, aligned decisions.
- Enterprise-grade data protection — Operating in a highly regulated financial environment means security and compliance are non-negotiable. That's why Lloyd sought a solution that had airtight SOC 2 Type 2 compliance, delivered SSO and SCIM as standard, and wouldn't train public models on Brex's data.
Ultimately, user-led adoption spoke louder than research. When Lloyd discovered how many Brex employees were already using Granola for meetings, he knew he had to formalize the rollout.
Solution
Amplifying team intelligence with a powerful AI notepad
With Granola, Brex has a collective "second brain" to streamline meeting note-taking and knowledge sharing across its entire organization.
Implementation started with a trial run on the Business plan, where select Brex teams introduced Granola to their meeting flows. After seeing how it captures audio directly from the host's device without joining as a bot or requiring external integrations, Lloyd was impressed. And within weeks, Brex was live with Granola Enterprise, getting not only streamlined note-taking flows, but the comprehensive security controls needed to ensure productivity never comes at the expense of security.
Now, Granola's AI Notepad is the go-to scribe for most Brex meetings. To use it, hosts can either let the transcript speak for itself or jot down their own thoughts; then, Granola will spin every input into a clean recap.
For the most productive notes, Lloyd and his colleagues use specialized templates for every meeting type. They have templates for interviews, standups, 1:1s, incident post-mortems, and sales calls — each tailored to the unique content of the conversation. For instance, the interview template systematically summarizes how a candidate fits Brex's values and the job rubric, backing up every observation with supporting quotes.
Even better? If a meeting doesn't go as expected, Lloyd can instantly reformat the notes in a more appropriate template. Granola adjusts to every ebb and flow, ensuring notes are always authentic to the conversation without sacrificing coherence. "Knowing Granola's catching everything takes the pressure off," Lloyd says. "Instead of documenting every detail, I can actually be present in meetings."
Once a meeting has been recorded, Granola makes sharing easy. Thanks to a robust Slack integration, meeting summaries are automatically posted to designated channels. And for access to a living repository of all past conversations, users can consult shared folders. With Granola's chat function, they can even query folders to drill down on specific transcript lines or surface high-level patterns across meetings.
Lloyd says these comprehensive meeting notes have improved visibility and collaboration across Brex. For instance, with Granola:
- Lloyd updates leadership on vendor calls to align on procurement priorities
- Engineers share standup meeting takeaways with their teams to keep everyone up to date on key decisions and initiatives
- Sales loops engineering and support into prospect meetings to manage customer expectations, spot common pain points, and align on feature requests
- Managers share one-on-one notes with their direct reports to track accountability and prepare for quarterly check-ins
Granola is a trusted hub for knowledge that supports decision-making at Brex.
Results
Super-human note-taking, enhanced meeting productivity, and better team collaboration
With Granola, Brex transformed the chronic, manual burden of meeting note-taking into a streamlined process that powers decision-making across its entire organization. Employees now capture curated meeting insights, experience minimal context fatigue, and work 100% in sync.
- Over 50% adoption rate across knowledge workers in 6 months
- 25k+ hours saved since adopting Granola
- 427 hours saved per week
What's next? Since Granola's meeting templates were such a hit, Lloyd and his colleagues are now developing several highly customized templates, including a special procurement summary to collect key info during vendor calls and negotiations. He's confident these custom templates will make it even easier to evaluate vendors and make informed implementation decisions.