> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.stenoai.co/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Ask your meetings

> Query any saved meeting note in plain English. Steno answers from your local transcript and summary -- no data leaves your Mac.

Every meeting note in Steno has an inline ask bar. Type a question in plain English and Steno answers from the saved transcript, summary, and key topics using the local language model.

## How to use it

1. Open a saved note from the sidebar
2. Click the **Ask** bar at the bottom of the pane
3. Type your question and press Return

Steno reads the saved `.md` files for that meeting -- the summary, key topics, and full transcript -- and passes them with your question to the local model. The answer streams inline below the ask bar.

## What you can ask

The ask bar is useful for questions you would ask a colleague who was in the meeting:

* "What decisions were made?"
* "What did we agree to do about the pricing change?"
* "Who is responsible for the API migration?"
* "Summarize this in three bullet points."
* "What were the concerns raised about the timeline?"
* "Was there anything about \[client name]?"

Questions that reference specific details from the meeting work best. Vague questions ("what happened?") return less useful answers than specific ones ("what was the outcome of the budget discussion?").

## What Steno reads

When you ask a question, Steno reads three sources from the saved note:

| Source | Content |
| - | - |
| Summary | The AI-generated paragraph summary of the meeting |
| Key topics | The structured list of topics identified during summarization |
| Full transcript | The verbatim transcript with timestamps and speaker labels |

The full transcript is included, bounded by the active model's context window. Very long meetings can exceed that window; switching to a model with a larger context window (see [Summarization models](/models/summarization-models)) helps if a question about the end of a long meeting gets a weaker answer.

## Privacy

All queries are processed by the local model on your Mac. Your questions and the meeting content are not sent to any external server unless you have configured a cloud model in Settings.

***

<Accordion title="Can I ask questions across multiple meetings?">
  Yes. Alongside the inline ask bar for a single note, Steno supports library-wide chat across all of your meetings, so you can ask questions that span your whole meeting history.
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="The answers are not very accurate -- what should I try?">
  Larger models produce better answers. In **Settings → AI**, switch to `qwen3.5:9b` or `gemma4:12b-it-qat`. Also check that the full transcript was saved -- if transcription failed or was skipped, the model only has the summary to work from.
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="Can I ask in a language other than English?">
  Yes. The ask bar passes your question directly to the language model, which supports multilingual input. Results may vary by model and language.
</Accordion>


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