Asynchronous video is supposed to save time. In practice it produces a recording that nobody watches, a transcript nobody reads, and a frustrated recorder who shrugs and falls back to writing a paragraph in Slack. The 8-minute walkthrough you made on Tuesday gets opened by three of seven people, and only two of those three make it past the four-minute mark. The other four assume the recording said what they expected and they were wrong about half the time.

An AI agent for Loom video summary closes the gap. The recorder hits stop, the transcript becomes available, the agent reads it, and a digest lands wherever the team works. Decisions, action items, and a three-sentence preview at the top. The team gets the value of the recording in 90 seconds, and the people who need the full context still have the recording.

What this agent does

The agent listens for the Loom new-recording webhook. When a video is finished and the transcript is ready, it pulls the transcript via the Loom API. It runs three extraction passes: a 3-sentence overview, a decisions list with timestamps, and an action-items list with proposed owners. It assembles a draft summary in the recorder's preferred format and posts it as a draft to the configured destination, tagged with the recorder.

What the agent does not do: it does not publish the summary to the team without the recorder's click, does not delete the Loom, does not change the Loom's permissions, does not transcribe videos that lack a Loom-generated transcript. For the broader pattern, see AI agent newsletter from notes, which sits in the same write-from-transcript family.

Sources of truth

The agent does not browse Slack history, calendars, or company docs. The transcript is the unit. For more on scope discipline, see how to limit agent actions.

What goes in a good summary

The summary is not "a transcript with bullets". It has four sections, and short videos collapse the last two.

  1. Three-sentence overview at the top. What the video covers, who it is for, why it matters. The viewer reads three sentences and decides whether to commit to the rest.
  2. Decisions section. Every decision named in the video with its timestamp. "We will ship the dark mode feature in May (2:14). We will skip the Android variant for v1 (4:48)." Each one clickable to jump to the moment.
  3. Action items section. Each follow-up with a proposed owner and a proposed due date. If the recorder said "Sarah, can you handle the legal review by Friday?" the action becomes "Legal review (owner: Sarah, due: Friday, video timestamp 6:21)".
  4. Sectioned walkthrough (long videos only). If the video is over 15 minutes, the agent splits it into 3 to 5 sections, each with a one-sentence summary and a jump-to timestamp.

The summary is markdown by default. For Slack, it renders to Slack's mrkdwn. For Notion, it inserts as a structured block. For email, it renders to HTML with the standard inlined styles. The destination determines the format; the content is the same.

Routing the summary

The recorder configures one destination per workspace (not per video) so the routing is stable.

Draft post. The agent posts the draft in the destination, addressed to the recorder. The recorder gets a notification, opens the draft, edits if needed, and clicks share.

Share action. The agent expands the audience: posts in the team channel for Slack, makes the Notion doc visible to the workspace, sends the email to the configured distribution list. The Loom link is included.

Action-item routing. When the recorder shares, the action items optionally become tasks in the team's task tool (Linear, Asana, Notion). This step requires the recorder to enable the connector; otherwise the action items live in the summary only. For more on agent monitoring patterns, see how to monitor agent activity.

Guardrails

For the broader safety philosophy, see AI agent safety and guardrails.

Common mistakes

Frequently asked questions

Can an AI agent summarise a Loom video?

Yes. The agent reads the Loom transcript (Loom provides one automatically a minute or two after recording), extracts decisions and action items, and posts a digest into the channel the recorder configured. The summary includes a 3-sentence overview, the timestamps of each decision, and an action-items list with proposed owners. The recorder reviews and shares; the digest never auto-publishes to the team without that step.

Does the agent watch the video?

No, it reads the transcript. Loom transcribes automatically and exposes the text via the API. The agent does not run video analysis, does not look at the screen recording, and does not OCR slides. The transcript is the unit. Videos with no transcript available (very rare) are skipped with a note.

Where does the summary go?

Wherever the recorder configured. Most teams route to Slack, Notion, or email. The summary lands in a draft state with one-click share buttons. The recorder edits if needed and clicks share. The agent never posts the summary publicly without that approval, because async-video summaries can include casual asides that the recorder did not realise would be quoted in a digest.

How does it handle a 90-minute Loom?

Long Looms get a sectioned summary. The agent identifies natural breakpoints in the transcript (long pauses, topic transitions, screen-shared file changes) and produces a multi-section digest. Most teams would rather watch a 90-minute Loom in 3-minute summaries than commit to the full hour and a half. Each section is independently navigable to its timestamp.

Does the agent need workspace admin access?

Read access on the workspace videos and a webhook subscription on the new-recording event. That is it. It does not need permission to delete videos, change permissions, or modify recordings. The blast radius is bounded to producing summaries, which are drafts the recorder approves.

Three takeaways before you close this tab

Sources