Use an AI facilitator agent to keep meetings on agenda

The job: agenda, time checks, parking lot, recap

Facilitation fails in familiar ways. One item eats half the hour, a side debate takes over, and the meeting ends without anyone saying who does what.

A facilitator agent covers four narrow tasks. It doesn't judge content or settle arguments; the host still runs the meeting.

Agenda: say which item the group is on and what comes next.
Time checks: when the host says an item's time is up, ask whether to continue or move on.
Parking lot: offer to park a topic that isn't on the agenda, and keep a list.
Close: when the host wraps up, list decisions, owners and parked topics.

Give it the agenda out loud

Every agent can read the meeting transcript, so the simplest input is speech. Open the meeting by reading the agenda with a time for each item: "Pricing for ten minutes, launch date for fifteen, hiring for five."

When you move on, say so: "Next item, launch date." Clear spoken transitions give the agent something reliable to track, and they help the people in the room too.

Instructions you can adapt

Agent instructions can run to 4,000 characters. This illustrative set uses far fewer:

You are the meeting's facilitator. Your only jobs are the agenda, the host's time checks, a parking lot and a closing recap.
Use the agenda and times the host reads out at the start. If none was given, ask the host for one, once.
When the host says an item's time is up, ask in one sentence whether to continue or move on.
When the discussion turns to a topic not on the agenda, offer to add it to the parking lot. Keep the list.
When the host says it's time to wrap up, list each decision, each action with its owner, and the parked topics. If an action has no owner, say so.
Never judge whether a point is right, and never summarize mid-meeting unless asked. Keep every contribution under 25 words, except the closing recap.

Write the activation trigger and pick a cooldown

A proactive agent can take a custom activation trigger of up to 1,200 characters. Leave it blank and Bridge writes one from the instructions. A focused example:

"Speak up when the host says an agenda item's time is up, when the group starts a topic not on the agenda, or when the host asks to wrap up."

The cooldown, from 30 seconds to 5 minutes, controls how often it speaks. For a facilitator, start at 5 minutes. A nudge every half-minute becomes the distraction it was meant to prevent. While the cooldown runs, a time check or wrap-up request may go unanswered, so shorten it if that matters.

Set it up in Bridge

Choose Create Agent from the sidebar. If Facilitator is among the six starter templates shown (drawn at random from 20), start from it and replace the instructions with your own.

Setting	Suggested choice	Why
Join meetings and talk	On, with the Only join when invited policy	It can speak to the room, but only in meetings you invite it to
Voice	Pick one and preview it	A calm voice suits short reminders
Triggers	Proactively during meetings, plus When mentioned by name	It nudges on its own, and anyone can ask "Facilitator, what's left?"
Hearing and screen access	Off	Spoken time checks only need the transcript
Tools	None to start	The job doesn't need web or notes search

Spoken nudges or private ones

With Join meetings and talk on, the agent speaks into the call when its trigger matches. With it off, a proactive agent contributes privately through the Assistant instead.

Private mode suits a host who wants the cues without the room hearing them. Called-by-name activation needs the agent in the call, so it only works in spoken mode. Private mode also works on Zoom, Meet or Teams calls you capture with Bridge.

Keep the host in charge

With Only join when invited, the host brings the agent in from the Agents section of the Brief's Participants tab, the meeting's Participants panel, the Assistant or the agent's profile. If you choose Join every meeting instead, remove it from a meeting's Brief when you don't want it there.

Tell people the agent is there and what it will say. Participants see an AI badge on it, and anyone in the meeting can talk to it, not only the host.

Limits to know

Agents join and speak only in meetings hosted on Bridge. They can't hear or see Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams calls, so nudges there stay private.
Agents don't respond to other agents, so a facilitator and a fact-checker in the same call won't talk to each other.
Creating and using agents needs a paid plan, and proactive agents use Live AI credits.
There is no built-in timer. The agent works from what is said, so the host says time checks out loud. Test it on a low-stakes meeting before relying on it.

Sources & further reading

Keep readingWhat is a meeting agenda? →