Who Let Them In? Online Meetings and Team Chat in nex-meet

This post introduces online meetings and the team chat app in nex-meet, Nexcubator's app for talking to each other. For the whole picture, read What Is Nexcubator?

Who let that stranger into your client call? And where is the password somebody pasted into the team chat last week?

It is Thursday, ten past ten. The link went round in an email, got forwarded, and now there is a name on the screen that nobody recognises. Afterwards, three people have notes in three places, the tasks are in nobody's list, and the supplier's portal password still sits in a channel. Nobody did anything wrong. The meeting had no real door, the notes had no owner, and the chat had no way to say "read this once, then forget it".

The solution: online meetings with a door, and a team chat app that keeps a secret

nex-meet puts video meetings in the browser and team chat side by side, next to the rest of your work: video conferencing for a small business that meets clients as often as it meets itself.

• Every meeting has a waiting room. You choose who comes straight in (nobody, your organisation, invited guests too, or everyone with the link) and can change it mid-meeting. Guests need no account.
• Nothing is recorded. No video, no sound, and the meeting's own chat is never saved.
• AI meeting notes, only if you invite Genie. Everyone is told first, you approve the tasks, and nothing becomes work until you press the button.
• A team chat app beside your work: channels, direct messages, threads, virus-checked files, voice notes and a call in one click.
• Secure messages open once and disappear, and chat is encrypted with your organisation's own key when stored. That is not end-to-end encryption, and we say so.

About the visuals: there are no product screenshots in this post. The diagrams are illustrations that explain the ideas; they are not product screens. The companies, the people and the conversations in them are invented.

Why meetings and chat leak, and what it costs

A meeting link is a key that anybody can copy, and a chat message is a note that nobody ever throws away.

A week at Harbour Works: an illustrative case study

Harbour Works is an invented design agency, and Northwind Bakery its invented client. Nora Byrne, Emily Hart, David Wilson and Liam Farrell are invented people at Harbour Works; Aoife Byrne is invented too, and works at Northwind.

On Monday, Emily opens Your meetings to set up the Harbour Works weekly. She types what it is about and, under Who comes straight in, picks My organisation and invited guests. Her colleagues will walk straight in. So will Aoife from Northwind Bakery, who has her own invitation, as long as she confirms it is really her.

Aoife needs no account. She opens her personal invitation, confirms her email with a short code, and is in.

Then two more people knock. One came by the shared meeting link; the other skipped the email check, so the door marks them "not confirmed". Emily opens People, reads the tags, lets in the one she was expecting and turns the other away. Neither got in before she said so.

Halfway through, Emily presses Genie to bring in her AI assistant to take notes. Before it hears a word, everybody is shown a notice: it is an AI, not a person; the transcript is deleted once the notes are written; and anybody can ask Emily to switch it off, or leave. Each person must choose before they go on.

Genie keeps running notes that everyone can see: what was decided, the tasks and what is still open. Each task has a tick and a cross. Emily approves "David: book the stand and send the invoice to finance, Friday", and everybody sees that she did.

After the call, Emily gets "Notes ready to check" in her bell. The notes are a draft. She fixes a date, and under Action items chooses what each task becomes: a to-do for herself, an event in the Planner for everyone from the meeting, a task on the Northwind project for David. She presses Verify and create, and only then is anything made. The transcript has already gone.

Meanwhile, in Team chat, David tags Emily in the #northwind channel, and she answers in a thread. Liam needs the print supplier's portal login, so Nora sends it as a secure message. Liam opens it once, with his password and authenticator code, copies it, and it is gone.

The rest of this post explains the ideas underneath. First, a fair word about the tools most teams already use.

Why there are other video meeting and team chat tools, and what they miss

People buy a video-call app because it just works: send a link, and everybody is on screen in a minute. They add a chat app because email is too slow for "can you check this?", and a meeting-notes bot because nobody wants to type while they talk. Those are good reasons, and each tool is good at the one job it was built for.

The trouble is the gaps between them, and who has to close them.

• A video-call app often makes the waiting room a setting you have to remember, so the link becomes the key. In nex-meet every meeting has a door: out of the box, everybody but the organiser waits to be let in until the organiser (or your administrator's default) says otherwise, and invited guests confirm their email first.
• A meeting-notes bot tends to join and keep everything. nex-meet records nothing. Genie comes only when the organiser brings it in, everyone is told first, and the transcript is deleted once the notes are written.
• Notes in a shared document leave somebody copying tasks out by hand. In nex-meet, Action items turns each task into a to-do, a Planner event or a project task, and only when you press Verify and create.
• A chat app keeps a pasted password for as long as it keeps the chat. A secure message in nex-meet opens once, after a password and authenticator code, and all chat is sealed with your organisation's own key.
• Email for invites and files spreads one meeting over three places. In Team chat, Planner invitations arrive with Yes, Maybe and No, files are checked for viruses, and a call is one click.

None of these safeguards is a setting to remember. It is how nex-meet starts.

Concept 1: Every online meeting has a door

The idea: a meeting link names the room. It should not, by itself, let anybody in.

Meetings run in your browser, in a window of their own, with nothing to install. Everybody except the organiser arrives at a waiting room, unless the meeting's Who comes straight in setting lets them through.

Your administrator sets the default, and can take Everyone off the list. Only the organiser can change it, before or during the meeting. Opening the door wider lets in whoever is waiting and now qualifies; narrowing it never puts anybody back out.

• Guests confirm it is them. Each invitation is made for one guest, who confirms the invited email with a code or one press. Somebody holding a forwarded invitation cannot, so they wait at the door marked "not confirmed".
• The door tells you who is knocking: "email confirmed", "signed in", "via meeting link" or "not confirmed".
• Calls from Chat have no waiting room, because everybody in that conversation is already a colleague.

Concept 2: Nothing is recorded, and you can check

The idea: a meeting should leave behind only what someone chose to keep.

Nothing in a meeting is recorded: no video, no sound, no chat. The meeting's own chat goes when it ends, and a guest's name is deleted with the meeting. When you leave, the end screen shows your browser's own record that your camera, microphone and screen were let go, so you do not have to take our word for it.

Concept 3: AI meeting notes a person checks

The idea: an assistant can listen and draft, but a person decides what the meeting agreed.

Genie is never in a meeting by default. Only the organiser can bring it in, with a Genie seat, and only after the meeting has started.

• Everyone is told first. Each person must answer the notice before they go on, late arrivals included, and switching Genie off and on again asks everybody again.
• Anyone can say no. Anyone can ask the organiser to switch it off at any time, or leave.
• It answers only when asked. Say its name, or start a message in the meeting chat with "@Genie".
• The organiser approves the tasks. Each one has a tick or a cross, and everybody sees which.
• The transcript does not last. It is deleted when the notes are written, and within 24 hours whatever happens. Notes never contain a transcript.

Afterwards the notes are a draft until you check them. Action items asks what each task should become (a to-do, a reminder, an event in the Planner, a task in a nex-orbit project, or extra work in Time), for whom and when. "Nothing is made until you press the button."

You can also write your own notes, with no AI at all. Either way, meeting notes are yours alone, encrypted with your organisation's key.

Concept 4: A team chat app where the work already is

The idea: talking to your team should sit beside the work, not in yet another tool.

• Channels for a team or a project, open or private, and direct messages for two to nine people.
• Threads, mentions and reactions, so a side discussion stays off the main channel.
• Files and pictures, each checked for viruses before anybody can open it. Programs and scripts are refused.
• Voice notes of up to five minutes.
• A call in one click, ringing colleagues wherever they are in Nexcubator.
• Meetings booked in the Planner arrive as cards with Yes, Maybe and No.
• The docked chat keeps small chat windows at the foot of the screen while you work.
• Search looks only inside your own conversations.
• Unread emails: a direct message or mention you have not read is emailed to you once, usually after ten minutes, unless you muted it or are on Do not disturb.

Concept 5: Secure team messaging: secrets that open once

The idea: some messages should be read, not kept.

A secure message carries a password, a code or one file. Each person it is for opens it once, after proving it is them with their Nexcubator password and authenticator code. It shows for five minutes, then it is gone from their screen. It is deleted for good once everyone has read it, when its time is up (ten minutes, an hour, a day or seven days), or when you withdraw it.

The conversation itself only ever holds a locked card. Previews, lists and the bell say "Secure message", never the words, and five wrong tries lock it for 15 minutes.

Secure messages need a Nexcubator password sign-in.

Concept 6: Encrypted chat, plainly: what is protected and what is not

The idea: say exactly what is protected, and what is not.

What you write in chat, file names, channel names and topics are encrypted with your organisation's own key before they are stored, and travel encrypted. Meeting notes are encrypted the same way. Anybody reading the stored data directly, such as from a backup, sees only scrambled text.

This is not end-to-end encryption, and we do not call it that. It protects what is stored. Some things are left readable because the product needs them to work: who is in a conversation, when messages were sent, reactions and counts.

Each conversation's details say "Encrypted with your organisation's own key", so nobody has to guess. Only the people in a conversation can read it, not administrators outside it. Chat is kept for twelve months, then deleted, and everybody agrees to a short notice saying so before their first message.

The principle underneath: a room with a door

• The organiser decides who comes in, and can see why each person is at the door.
• Nothing is recorded. What stays is what someone chose to keep.
• AI is invited, never assumed. Everyone in the meeting is told before Genie hears anything, anyone can ask for it to go, and a person approves what it drafts.
• Notes and chat are about the work, never a way of watching people.
• Encryption is described as it is, not as something it is not.

You can see more on the Meetings page and how it fits the rest of Nexcubator in How it works.

Frequently asked questions

Related reading

• What Is Nexcubator?: the ideas behind Nexcubator and all its apps.
• Meetings: the meetings and team chat feature page.
• The Calendar That Understands You: how nex-cal plans your week around your meetings.

Where it stands

Meetings and Team chat are part of nex-meet, and are being tested now with organisations the Nexcubator team has authorised. Team chat is an add-on. While in testing, a meeting usually runs for 30 minutes, or until its booked end, can be extended once by 15 minutes, and holds up to 25 people.

If your client calls run on a forwarded link and your passwords live in a chat channel, this is the conversation we want to have.

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Nexcubator is business software by Aitina Tech. Request early access and tell us who you would like at the door.