Theo Live

Theo Live turns the passive meeting notetaker into an interactive voice agent that participates in your Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams calls. Say "Hey Theo" during any meeting and ask questions, run searches, send emails, or create projects — all hands-free, right in the call.

How It Works

  1. Open the Meetings page and click Record Meeting.
  2. Toggle Live Theo on in the start modal.
  3. Paste your meeting URL and click Start Recording.
  4. The bot joins with a neon-green Theo avatar. Participants hear a greeting: "Hi everyone — Theo is taking notes and can answer questions when you say 'Hey Theo'."
  5. Say "Hey Theo" followed by your question. Theo answers out loud, keeps listening for follow-up questions, and goes back to sleep after ~10 seconds of silence.
When Live Theo is off, the bot still records and produces AI-powered meeting notes, summaries, and action items — exactly like before. Live mode is purely additive.

Wake Word & Mute Behavior

Theo Live is muted by default— it doesn't respond to every utterance. It only activates when it hears the wake phrase.

Wake phrase

"Hey Theo" (case-insensitive; "Hi Theo" and "Okay Theo" work too, and common mishearings are tolerated). While awake, Theo keeps the conversation going for several follow-up questions — and saying "Hey Theo" again at any point gives you a fresh budget.

Auto-mute

After ~10 seconds of silence, once the follow-up budget is spent (right after Theo's final answer — never mid-question), or when you say "thanks Theo" / "that's all", the agent goes back to sleep so it never talks over your meeting. It keeps hearing the conversation for context but won't speak until woken again.

Ask Theo in the Meeting Chat

Don't want to interrupt the conversation? Mention @theo(or just "theo") in the meeting's regular text chat and Theo replies inline in the chat within a few seconds — with live web search behind it, so answers about news, people, and prices are current.

  • The moment you mention Theo, he posts a quick acknowledgement ("On it — give me a moment…") so you can see he's working while the answer is prepared.
  • Works on Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams (Teams requires the meeting chat to be open to guests; channel meetings aren't supported).
  • Theo only replies when addressed — general chat between participants is never answered.
  • Replies are short plain text; links are pasted directly so everyone can click them.
  • Voice answers that contain links or lists are also posted to chat automatically, so nothing gets lost when the call ends.
  • If something goes wrong on Theo's side, he says so in chat instead of leaving the mention unanswered.

What You Can Ask

Theo Live has access to the same tools as the browser voice mode and text chat, plus meeting-specific chat actions. Anything time-sensitive is answered from a live web search — never from stale training data.

Web Search

"Hey Theo, who won the game last night?" — time-sensitive questions are always answered from a live search, never stale memory.

Send Email

"Hey Theo, email Jordan the action items." Theo reads back the recipient and a one-line summary, then sends only after you say yes.

Meeting Chat

"Hey Theo, send a message to the meeting saying I'll share the deck after the call." Long answers with links also land in chat automatically.

Chat Replies

Type @theo in the meeting's text chat and Theo answers right there — no voice needed.

Create Anything

"Hey Theo, create notes from what we just discussed." Notes, flowcharts, slide decks, documents, whiteboards, and tables.

Manage Projects

"Hey Theo, star that project" — list, rename, and star projects or check your plan and credits, hands-free.

Save to Memory

"Hey Theo, remember that the client prefers weekly check-ins."

Deep Research

"Hey Theo, research the latest GDPR compliance changes."

Supported Platforms

Google Meet
Zoom
Microsoft Teams
Webex
Slack Huddles(passive only)
GoTo Meeting(passive only)

Slack Huddles and GoTo Meeting don't support two-way audio bots. Theo will still join as a passive notetaker on these platforms.

Reliability & Fallback

Live mode depends on the OpenAI Realtime service. Theo handles transient failures so a single hiccup never breaks your meeting:

  • Model fallback chain. Theo tries a tiered list of Realtime models on every session and advances automatically when one is unavailable on your account.
  • Auto-retry.If the session can't be established immediately, the bot retries with backoff (1s → 3s → 7s) before giving up.
  • Graceful fallback to passive notetaker.If Live truly can't start (account misconfiguration, OpenAI outage, etc.), the bot automatically reverts to passive mode so the meeting is still recorded and summarised — you'll see a banner explaining the downgrade.
  • Liveness pill.The bot's camera tile shows a small status pill in the corner: Connecting…, Online, Reconnecting, or Passive notetaker. Participants can see at a glance whether Theo is interactive.
  • Online greeting. When Theo connects, he speaks a short “Theo is online and listening” so participants know the agent is ready before the first wake word.

Safety & Privacy

Consent banner: When the bot joins, it sends a chat message notifying all participants that Theo is recording and can respond to voice commands.

Blocked write actions: Destructive actions — deleting projects and deleting folders — are blocked during live meetings. Theo will say so out loud and you can do them from chat after the call.

Email requires spoken confirmation:Theo can send email from your connected Gmail/Outlook account during a call, but he always reads back the recipient and a one-line summary first and waits for a verbal "yes" before anything is sent.

Opt-in per meeting:the "Live Theo" toggle in the Record Meeting modal is the explicit opt-in for that call. The Settings preference only controls whether the toggle defaults to on.

Mid-meeting kill switch: The meeting owner can disable Live Theo mid-call, reverting the bot to passive notetaker mode instantly.

Credits & Cost

Live Theo uses premium infrastructure for two-way voice interaction. This costs more than the passive notetaker.

  • AI credits are consumed per tool call (same rates as voice mode).
  • OpenAI Realtime audio is billed per minute of active conversation (~$0.30/min combined I/O).
  • The meeting recording, transcript, and AI summary are included at no extra cost beyond the standard meeting credits.

How to Enable

  1. Flip the Live Theo toggle in the Record Meeting modal when starting a recording — that's it.
  2. Optional: turn on Settings → Preferences → Meetings → Theo Live to make the toggle default to on for every meeting.
  3. If Live can't start (unsupported platform, temporary outage), you'll see a toast explaining why and Theo joins as a passive notetaker instead.

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