5 Best AI Note Taker Apps for Meetings in 2026 — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Okay, so I got called out on a Slack
2. 0:01thread last week. Someone referenced a
3. 0:04decision that I apparently made on a
4. 0:06call. They had the timestamps and
5. 0:08everything and I had zero memory of it.
6. 0:10I sat there staring at my screen like a
7. 0:12person who just got tagged in a photo
8. 0:14they don't remember taking. The most
9. 0:15embarrassing part is I was on the call
10. 0:17taking notes the entire time, just
11. 0:19apparently not the right ones. This is
12. 0:21the real problem with meetings. You walk
13. 0:23out feeling productive, but then later
14. 0:25someone sends a follow-up referencing a
15. 0:28thing you have absolutely no record of.
16. 0:30Your brain is quietly dropped like 60%
17. 0:33of the conversation. That's just how
18. 0:34brains work, unfortunately. AI tools fix
19. 0:37this now, but they all fix it in very
20. 0:39different ways. And the difference will
21. 0:42determine whether your co-workers trust
22. 0:44you or secretly think you're recording
23. 0:46them like some corporate spy. I've
24. 0:48tested five of them for you today. I'll
25. 0:50tell you exactly which one is built for
26. 0:51you and which ones aren't. Tool number
27. 0:54four completely changed how I think
28. 0:55about meeting notes. It's really not
29. 0:57what you'd expect. Let's get into it.
30. 0:58First on our list, Otter is one you
31. 1:00probably know. Their unique feature is
32. 1:02your entire team sees the same notes
33. 1:05building live while the call is still
34. 1:07happening. Someone highlights a line,
35. 1:09adds a comment, tags a teammate. All
36. 1:11that happens in real time in the call.
37. 1:13It even auto captures slide screenshots
38. 1:16and drops them right into the notes.
39. 1:18Super useful. Their AI autopilot auto
40. 1:20joins from your calendar, handles
41. 1:23speaker labeling, and generates action
42. 1:25items within minutes of the call ending.
43. 1:27Now, there are two things that you
44. 1:28should know first before you pick this
45. 1:30one. First, Otter uses a bot. A visible
46. 1:33AI participant joins your call and
47. 1:35everyone sees it. Some people will not
48. 1:37care. Some people will feel super
49. 1:39self-conscious. How you feel about that
50. 1:40is going to shape which of these five
51. 1:42tools you actually end up using. Second,
52. 1:44Otter only supports five languages.
53. 1:47English US, English UK, Japanese,
54. 1:50Spanish, and French. If your team or
55. 1:52clients speak anything else, this won't
56. 1:54work for you. For English-speaking teams
57. 1:56that don't mind the bot and like to
58. 1:58collaborate, Otter is a decent choice.
59. 2:01But if that bot thing made you feel
60. 2:03uncomfortable, the next tool figured out
61. 2:05how to give you full meeting notes
62. 2:06without anyone feeling awkward. The
63. 2:08partner of this video, Jamie, doesn't do
64. 2:10any of that. Zero bot, no meeting
65. 2:12notifications. If you like, you can send
66. 2:15the participants of the meeting a heads
67. 2:17up email beforehand, or you can just
68. 2:19tell them yourself. Either way, nobody
69. 2:20sees a bot join the call. Now, watch
70. 2:23this. I'm on a call and Jaime's running
71. 2:24in the background, silently working its
72. 2:27magic. After the call, you get formatted
73. 2:29notes, action items, and a full
74. 2:31transcript with speaker recognition. And
75. 2:33it works everywhere. Zoom, Google Meet,
76. 2:36Microsoft Teams, Slack, and you can use
77. 2:38it for in-person meetings, too, with
78. 2:40your laptop open or through their mobile
79. 2:42app. Another significant gap between our
80. 2:44last tool, Otter and Jamie, is that
81. 2:46Jaime works with over a 100 languages
82. 2:49when Otter only supports five. If that
83. 2:51applies to you, it's a really important
84. 2:52detail. Now, here's the thing. The
85. 2:54note-taking is only the surface level
86. 2:56benefit. What happens 2 weeks later when
87. 2:58you're writing a proposal and you can't
88. 3:00remember the numbers you gave your
89. 3:02client? Now, you can just ask Jamie and
90. 3:04it pulls the answer from the actual
91. 3:06transcript, not a summary, but the exact
92. 3:08conversation where the decision was
93. 3:10made. You can search across your entire
94. 3:11meeting history, draft emails, even
95. 3:14generate task lists and Slack messages,
96. 3:16all from the real transcript data. This
97. 3:18is where it stops being a noteaker and
98. 3:20starts being a second brain for every
99. 3:22conversation that you've ever had. Now,
100. 3:24most of these tools store your meetings
101. 3:26on US servers. Some use your data to
102. 3:29train their models, and you have to dig
103. 3:30through settings to find the opt out
104. 3:33button, if there is one. Jamie doesn't
105. 3:34do that. They use private EU servers in
106. 3:37Germany. Your audio is permanently
107. 3:39deleted after transcription and they
108. 3:41never use your data for training.
109. 3:43Privacy is included by default as it
110. 3:46should be, right? If you're in
111. 3:47consulting, legal, finance, or maybe
112. 3:49you're in a client-f facing role where
113. 3:51their privacy is really important and
114. 3:53maybe they expect it. If that's the
115. 3:55case, this is the only tool on the list
116. 3:56that you should be using. They even
117. 3:58collaborated with a German law firm to
118. 4:00ensure compliant use of the software.
119. 4:02So, you're covered. Now, for pricing,
120. 4:04the free tier gives you 10 meetings per
121. 4:06month with a 30 minute limit. Their plus
122. 4:08plan is about $27 a month. Pro about $50
123. 4:12a month for unlimited. No bot, 100 plus
124. 4:14languages, and your audio gets deleted
125. 4:16after processing. If privacy matters to
126. 4:18you, that's a pretty easy sale. Finally,
127. 4:20Jamie works everywhere, Mac, Windows,
128. 4:23and iOS, so anyone can use it. If you do
129. 4:26want to try it, use the link in the
130. 4:27description to get started for free. So,
131. 4:28Jamie gets you incredible notes and
132. 4:31privacy. But some of you don't want
133. 4:33privacy. You want to know why your team
134. 4:35keeps losing deals. That's a completely
135. 4:37different problem, right? Fireflies is
136. 4:39really built for people who manage
137. 4:41teams. Every other tool on this list
138. 4:43gives you notes from a single meeting.
139. 4:45Fireflies gives you patterns across all
140. 4:47the meetings. Talk to listen ratios,
141. 4:49sentiment analysis, topic tracking
142. 4:51across every call your team takes. If
143. 4:53you manage 10 sales reps, you can see
144. 4:56who's talking too much, who's not asking
145. 4:58enough questions, and how those patterns
146. 5:00correlate to close rates across hundreds
147. 5:03of calls. This is a bot-based tool, so
148. 5:05everyone does see it join. But how it
149. 5:07uses the data after is what makes it
150. 5:09worth considering. They also just
151. 5:11partnered with Perplexity to add
152. 5:12real-time web search inside your
153. 5:14meetings. So, let's say someone throws
154. 5:16out a stat mid call, you can ask
155. 5:18Fireflies to fact check it, and it pulls
156. 5:20up the answer without you ever having to
157. 5:21leave the meeting. That's a nice bonus
158. 5:23on top of their core analytics features.
159. 5:25The free plan gives you unlimited
160. 5:27transcription with 800 minutes of
161. 5:29storage. Pro starts at $10 a month. One
162. 5:31thing you should know about the free
163. 5:32tier is that after 800 minutes of
164. 5:34storage, old recordings do get removed.
165. 5:36And just overall, the platform is pretty
166. 5:38feature heavy. If you're a solo
167. 5:40entrepreneur or whatever and you just
168. 5:42want some clean meeting notes, Fireflies
169. 5:44is going to feel like way more than you
170. 5:46need. Okay, now number four, Granola is
171. 5:48the most unique tool on our list. Let me
172. 5:51explain why. Instead of just giving you
173. 5:53a full meeting summary, Granola first
174. 5:55expects you to write your own notes
175. 5:58during the call and then it improves
176. 6:00your notes with AI. Let me show you the
177. 6:02before and after. Here's what I typed
178. 6:04during a test call. And then here's the
179. 6:07notes I got back from Granola. Granola
180. 6:09is betting that you want to take notes.
181. 6:10You just want help making them complete
182. 6:12and ensure you don't miss anything
183. 6:14important. For some people, maybe a lot
184. 6:16of people, that's the right bet. Granola
185. 6:18is bought free like Jamie. $14 a month
186. 6:21for unlimited meeting notes. And they
187. 6:23have this feature called recipes that
188. 6:25lets you use prompts on your meeting
189. 6:27notes. Basically, you can use these
190. 6:29recipes to turn your meetings into
191. 6:31anything like emails or presentations.
192. 6:33They do have a free tier with unlimited
193. 6:35meetings, but your meeting history only
194. 6:37goes back 30 days. So, your notes will
195. 6:39vanish unless you pay. And there's no
196. 6:41audio playback. So, if you need to
197. 6:42relisten to a specific moment, you
198. 6:44literally can't. Granola is for people
199. 6:46who want to stay engaged in the meeting,
200. 6:48taking notes here and there and then
201. 6:49getting a great end result. If that
202. 6:51sounds like you, this is a great option.
203. 6:53But now, I know a lot of you, you don't
204. 6:54want to take notes at all. You want
205. 6:56something that handles everything.
206. 6:58Number five, Fathom gives you unlimited
207. 7:00recordings, unlimited transcription, and
208. 7:03unlimited storage for free. Pretty dang
209. 7:05good deal, honestly. But there is a
210. 7:06catch. The AI summaries that turn your
211. 7:08transcripts into actual usable notes are
212. 7:10capped at five per month. If you do a
213. 7:12good amount of meetings, you'll burn
214. 7:14through those in your first week. So,
215. 7:15it's really free to record everything,
216. 7:17but then you have to pay to actually
217. 7:18understand it. Now, even without the AI
218. 7:20features, the raw transcript could be
219. 7:22useful on its own. And when you do
220. 7:24upgrade, the summaries are super fast. A
221. 7:27call ends and within like 30 seconds,
222. 7:28you get a full summary with action
223. 7:31items. If you're already using HubSpot,
224. 7:33ASA, Salesforce, Fathom plugs directly
225. 7:36into those tools and you can search
226. 7:38across all your past meetings like a
227. 7:39knowledge base, which is really nice.
228. 7:41The paid plans on Fathom start at about
229. 7:43$16 a month. Fathom does use a bot,
230. 7:46though they recently announced that a
231. 7:48bot free local recording option is
232. 7:50coming, so it may be out when you watch
233. 7:51this video. It supports 38 languages
234. 7:53right now, which is decent, but less
235. 7:55than half of what Jamie and other tools
236. 7:57offer. They have lots of upgrades
237. 7:59planned, and I've checked out the road
238. 8:00map, and it looks really promising. So,
239. 8:02it's definitely worth checking out and
240. 8:03considering. Okay, so you've seen all
241. 8:05five. Now, let me tell you what I'd
242. 8:07actually pick depending on your
243. 8:09situation. If I'm on a client call,
244. 8:10maybe with someone I'm meeting with for
245. 8:12the first time, I'm definitely choosing
246. 8:15Jamie for my privacy and theirs. Both
247. 8:18Jaime and Granola are bot-free, but
248. 8:20Jaime is the one I'd pick if privacy is
249. 8:23the priority. Granola is the one if I
250. 8:25still want to take notes by hand. If I'm
251. 8:26running a sales team and I need to
252. 8:28understand patterns across dozens of
253. 8:31calls, I'd pick Fireflies. Nothing else
254. 8:33comes close in terms of analytics. But
255. 8:35if I'm a solo person who just wants to
256. 8:36record everything for free and deal with
257. 8:38the AI later, I'd go with Fathom. It's
258. 8:41hard to argue with Unlimited. And then
259. 8:43the first one, Otter, is a solid option
260. 8:44for English-speaking teams that want to
261. 8:46collaborate. If you want to learn more
262. 8:48about AI tools, check out these videos
263. 8:49that I made. Like and subscribe if this
264. 8:51video was helpful. I hope it was. Thank
265. 8:53you guys for watching all the way to the
266. 8:54end. I really appreciate it. I'll see
267. 8:56you guys in the next