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Vinyl + Zapier: Use AI to classify your meetings (client / internal / private)

Add an AI step to your Zap that reads the Vinyl meeting summary and automatically decides whether it was a client meeting, an internal meeting, or a private meeting — then routes the automation accordingly.

Why classify meetings before automating?

Not every meeting should trigger the same action. A client review should log notes to your practice management tool. An internal team catch-up should post to a staff channel. A personal or private call shouldn't be logged anywhere.

By adding an AI classification step to your Zap, you can teach it to tell the difference — and then use Zapier Paths to send each type of meeting down a different automation branch, all in a single Zap.

This article assumes you've already completed Vinyl + Zapier: Getting started with email triggers. Pick up from where your Email by Zapier trigger is set up and tested.

Step 1: Add an AI step to your Zap

After your Email by Zapier trigger, add a new step and search for one of the following:

  • AI by Zapier — available on paid Zapier plans. Native Zapier AI step, no extra accounts needed.

  • ChatGPT (by OpenAI) — free tier available if you connect your own OpenAI or ChatGPT account. Choose the action Send Message.

Either option works — the setup is nearly identical.

Step 2: Write the classification prompt

Vinyl summary emails have a consistent structure: an Overview paragraph, Key Discussion Points, and an Action Items section. You can use this to write a reliable classification prompt.

Paste the following as your prompt, then insert the Body Plain field from the email trigger where indicated:

You are classifying a meeting based on its Vinyl summary email.The email contains an Overview, Key Discussion Points, and Action Items. Use the attendee list and the Overview to determine the meeting type.Choose exactly one of these three categories:
- CLIENT — a meeting with a client or external party (someone outside your firm attended)
- INTERNAL — a meeting with team members only (all attendees are from your firm)
- PRIVATE — a personal meeting with no business relevanceReply with exactly one word: CLIENT, INTERNAL, or PRIVATE.Vinyl meeting summary:
[insert Body Plain field here]

The AI will output a single word: CLIENT, INTERNAL, or PRIVATE.

Step 3: Add a Paths step

After the AI step, click the + button and choose Paths by Zapier. This lets you create separate branches for each outcome.

Set up three paths:

  • Path A — Client: Condition: AI output Contains CLIENT

  • Path B — Internal: Condition: AI output Contains INTERNAL

  • Path C — Private: Condition: AI output Contains PRIVATE (you can leave this path empty, or add a step to archive the email)

Note: Paths is available on Zapier's paid plans. If you're on the free plan, you can use a single path for CLIENT meetings only and skip the branching for now.

Step 4: Build out each path

Now each path can have its own actions. For example:

  • Path A (Client) → Log notes to Karbon, TaxDome, or your practice management tool; create an Ignition proposal if services were discussed; create tasks from Action Items

  • Path B (Internal) → Post the summary to a Microsoft Teams staff channel; create internal tasks from Action Items

  • Path C (Private) → Do nothing (or mark the email as read and archive)

The articles in this series walk through the actions for each path in detail.

Tips for better classification

  • If a meeting is often misclassified, add more context to the prompt. For example: "Our firm's internal email domain is @ourfirm.com.au — treat any meeting where all attendees share this domain as INTERNAL."

  • If you want to also extract the client name in the same step, you can ask the AI to return it alongside the classification (e.g. "Reply in this format: CLIENT | Smith & Associates"). Then use Zapier's Formatter → Text → Extract Pattern to split the response into two separate fields.

  • The Attendees section of the Vinyl email lists all participants by name. If the meeting included both internal staff and an external client, the AI will correctly classify it as CLIENT.

What's next?

Once your classification and Paths are set up, you're ready to build out the client path. The next articles in this series cover each accounting tool in detail:

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