Automated Pre-Meeting Research with Perplexity

Generate instant pre-call briefs on any person or company by connecting Perplexity to your Google Calendar. You’ll create a workflow that finds upcoming meetings and produces a prep memo with recent news, conversation starters, and smart questions, so you do not have to scramble 10 minutes before every meeting.

  • Beginner
  • 4 steps
  • By The Rundown University

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Step by step 4 steps

  1. Step 1 of 4

    Set up the Google Calendar connector

    • Log in to Perplexity.ai.
    • In the bottom left, click Account → Connectors.
    • Enable Gmail with Calendar.
    01_google_connector_toggle

  2. Step 2 of 4

    Create a dummy event

    • Create an upcoming call in your Google Calendar.
    • Put the person’s full name in the title and add their work email as a guest.
    • For testing, you can pick a random CEO or public figure and click “Don’t send invite” when you create the call.

  3. Step 3 of 4

    Run your first research

    • Go back to Perplexity and paste in this prompt.
    It is [current time + today’s date]. Look at my Google Calendar and prep a pre-call memo in the following format:
    
    1. What the company does, in one sentence
    2. Recent news or funding in the last 6 months
    3. Key things to know about this person, including background, interests, and posts
    4. Personal icebreakers that are obviously public and wouldn’t make the person feel creeped out if I knew it
    5. 2–3 smart questions I could ask them

    Perplexity should find your meeting and write the report.

    02_example_prompt

  4. Step 4 of 4

    Create a reusable Call Prep Space

    • Click “Spaces” on the left side of your Perplexity dashboard.
    • Create a new “Call Prep” Space and paste these custom instructions in:
    You will write short call prep memos for me based on my upcoming calls on my calendar and save them as PDFs. Here's what you need to cover:
    
    1. What the company does, in one sentence
    2. Recent news or funding in the last 6 months
    3. Key things to know about this person, including background, interests, and posts
    4. 2–3 smart questions I could ask them
    5. Give me 3 links to scan on the company and the person
    6. Be concise and use bullets so it is easily scannable
    7. Give 3 bullets on the biggest recent news stories and/or social posts the person and company were mentioned in
    8. Include 3–5 bullets of personal but easily accessible info about the person, like sports teams, hobbies, side projects, or businesses — something that won’t creep them out if I know it but will break the ice
    06_going_further_spaces
    • Anytime you have a call coming up, navigate to this Space and say: “Prep for my next call.”

That's the whole workflow

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Background and context

Who This Is Useful For

  • Anyone with lots of intro calls on their calendar
  • People without a call prep routine
  • People who want to try out Perplexity

What You Will Build

You will build a reusable pre-meeting research workflow that turns Google Calendar events into concise call prep memos.

  • A Perplexity prompt for generating a first pre-call memo from your calendar
  • A call prep format that includes company context, recent news, person-specific background, public icebreakers, and smart questions
  • A reusable “Call Prep” Space with custom instructions for future calls and PDF-ready memos
01_what_you_will_build-1

What You Need

  • Perplexity account; free is fine
  • Gmail and Google Calendar

Going Further

  • After your first memo, you can reuse the workflow by creating a dedicated “Call Prep” Space in Perplexity. The Space can generate short call prep memos from upcoming calendar events, save them as PDFs, and respond whenever you ask it to prep for your next call.