Buying an AI note taker looks like a small decision and turns into three. First, how the thing gets into the meeting: a bot that joins as a participant, an app that listens on your own laptop, or the assistant built into Zoom, Teams or Meet. Second, what the meter counts, because 'free' can mean unlimited recordings at one vendor and five meetings for life at another. Third, what happens to a recording of your customers and colleagues once it leaves the call: where it is stored, which model provider reads it, and whether it ends up as training data. This ranking judges fourteen products on those points, using only what each vendor states on its own site as of September 2026. Summary quality is not scored here. We could not verify it, and a vendor's policy page tells a buyer more than a demo does.
Visibility in this ranking can be paid for. Payment moves a vendor's position within the
shortlist; it never adds a vendor, and it never changes a word of the review. The largest vendors in AI meeting assistants
cannot hold places 1 to 3. How it works: placement disclosure ·
editorial process.
How we ranked these
Setup: how the recorder gets into the room
Installation takes minutes for every product here; the real setup question is the capture method. A bot connects to your calendar and joins each call as a named participant, which works on any device but announces itself to clients and can be refused entry by a host. A desktop app or browser extension listens to your own machine's audio and never appears in the participant list, which shifts the duty to tell people onto you. A built-in assistant needs only a license and an admin policy, and works only on its own platform unless the vendor says otherwise. We looked at which methods each vendor documents, which meeting platforms and languages it names, and whether an administrator can set consent and auto-join rules centrally instead of trusting each employee's settings.
The real price: seats, minutes, notes and credits
Four meters are in use. Most vendors charge per seat and then limit something else: Otter counts transcription minutes, Jamie counts AI notes and meeting length, Tactiq counts AI credits, Fellow counts recordings on its first paid tier. Free plans differ more than paid ones. Fathom and tl;dv advertise unlimited recordings; Fellow gives five for the lifetime of the account; MeetGeek gives three hours a month and deletes free transcripts after three months. Annual billing often halves the monthly figure, so a posted price means little without its basis. We also noted which tier holds the feature that triggered the purchase, usually CRM sync, video playback or SSO, because that tier is the true entry price for a business.
Getting your data out: exports, and what the vendor does with recordings
Two separate questions. The first is whether transcripts and notes can leave: through export, a webhook or API, or by landing in a system you already own, as Google Meet does by writing a Google Doc to the organizer's Drive. The second matters more with AI involved: what the vendor does with what it hears. We read each privacy policy for three things. Is meeting content used to train models, and is that off by default, opt-out or opt-in. How long audio is kept, including the products that delete it after transcription. And where it is stored, since several state US hosting only while others offer the EU or a choice. Retention on free plans was checked separately, because a free archive that expires is not an archive.
Independence from the vendor: the meeting platform and the model behind the notes
A note taker sits on two dependencies. One is the meeting platform: an independent recorder follows you across Zoom, Teams and Meet, while a built-in assistant ties your notes to the suite you already rent. The other is less visible. Hardly any of these companies trains its own large language model; the summary is written by a model from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or another lab, and transcription may come from a further supplier. Six of the fourteen name outside model or speech providers on their own pages. A vendor that names them lets you check those suppliers' terms and tells you what changes if a supplier changes. We also credited stated options such as privately hosted AI, on-device transcription and customer-chosen storage regions.
Who it's for: note takers, sales teams and regulated firms are different buyers
A consultant who wants her own notes tidied needs a bot-free notepad and cares little about CRM sync. A sales team wants every call recorded, clipped and written into deal records, and will accept a visible bot. A company with a compliance officer wants consent workflows, retention rules and an administrator's view of who records what. A Microsoft or Google shop may need nothing new at all. The order below favors a small or mid-sized business buying for a mixed group: published prices, a free tier that survives a real trial, clear data terms and coverage of more than one meeting platform count for more than depth in any single use. Each entry says which of these buyers it suits and which it does not.
The 14 tools, reviewed
#1 tl;dv
Meeting recorder and note taker hosted in the EU · Germany · tldv.io
EU hosting Anthropic named No training on recordings
tl;dv answers the three questions a cautious buyer asks before any demo. Where does the recording sit: in the EU, in ISO 27001-certified data centers. Which model reads it: the company says it partners with Anthropic, and offers privately hosted AI on request. Is it used for training: the site says never. The Aachen company publishes an imprint with a register number and named directors, the free tier advertises unlimited recordings and transcriptions in over 30 languages, and both paid tiers carry a list price in euros. That combination of openness and a usable free tier is why it leads.
Where it falls short
The monthly Pro price of €29 per seat is well above what several rivals charge for their first paid tier, and the annual figure is quoted per year, so comparing takes a calculator. The platforms it names are Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams. The pages we read did not spell out what the free tier withholds, so test the limits on a real week of calls before rolling it out.
Wrong for
A company whose calls run on a platform outside the three tl;dv names, or one that wants a dollar invoice and a US contracting entity. MeetGeek lists more capture routes, and Fireflies publishes its prices in dollars.
Pricing: Free plan at €0 per seat; Pro is listed at €29 per seat per month or €216 per seat per year, Business at €39 per seat per month or €348 per seat per year. (free plan)
Visit tl;dv →
#2 Fathom
Free-forever call recorder with AI summaries · United States · fathom.ai
Free forever Bot or bot-free capture CRM sync on Business
Fathom's free plan is the one to beat for a single user: the pricing page lists unlimited recordings and transcriptions, instant AI call summaries, clips, playlists and search across calls at no charge, with a choice between a bot and bot-free capture that is still marked beta. It works with Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams and pushes notes to Salesforce, HubSpot, Notion and Asana. Team pricing is published, all paid plans carry a 90 day guarantee, and the privacy policy is unusually direct about which outside labs may not train on your calls.
Where it falls short
By default Fathom may build de-identified data from meeting content to train its in-house models; you can opt out in account settings, but someone has to remember to do it. The service is hosted in the United States with no regional choice stated. CRM field sync, the feature sales teams actually want, sits on Business at $34 per month, not on the Team tier.
Wrong for
A European firm that needs recordings kept in the EU, or any buyer who wants training off without touching a setting. tl;dv and Jamie both state EU hosting and no training on meeting content.
Pricing: Free individual plan; Premium is $20 per month or $16 on annual billing; Team (2 or more users) is $19 per month or $15 annual, Business $34 or $25 annual, Enterprise on quote. (free plan)
Visit Fathom →
#3 Fellow
Meeting notes with admin consent and access controls · Canada · fellow.ai
Consent workflows Botless option Never trains on meetings
Fellow treats recording as something an administrator governs. Admins can configure consent workflows by team or meeting type, users can pause and resume so an off-the-record aside stays off the record, and capture works through a bot, a botless desktop or mobile app, or in person. The company states it never uses recordings, transcripts or summaries to train its own or any third-party AI system, and its privacy policy lets administrators switch off transfers to AI subprocessors altogether. Pricing starts at $7 per user per month on annual billing, the lowest dollar entry price among the independents here.
Where it falls short
The free plan is a taster: 5 AI notes and 5 AI recordings per user for the lifetime of the account. The $7 Team tier is capped at 10 AI recordings per user per month, so anyone in daily meetings lands on Business at $15 billed annually. Salesforce and HubSpot are held for Business and above. The pages we fetched did not name the model providers behind the summaries.
Wrong for
A solo consultant who wants a free recorder indefinitely: five lifetime recordings will be gone in a week. Fathom or tl;dv fit that person. Buyers who insist on knowing the model vendor should look at Granola or Jamie.
Pricing: Free plan with 5 lifetime AI notes and recordings per user; Team is $7 per user per month billed annually or $11 monthly, Business $15 or $23, Enterprise $25 billed annually from 10 users. (free plan)
Visit Fellow →
#4 MeetGeek
AI notetaker with EU or US data residency · Romania · meetgeek.ai
EU or US storage Metered overage Bot, desktop and mobile
MeetGeek lets the customer pick the region: its pricing page offers storage in the EU or the US, and the terms name a separate contracting entity for each instance, one in Bucharest and one in Delaware. The site says customer data is never used to train foundation models on any tier. Capture runs through a joining bot, a desktop app for Mac and Windows that needs no bot, a phone app for in-person conversations, a browser extension or an uploaded file. The CRM list is long for the price, and extra transcription is billed at $0.50 per hour instead of locking the account.
Where it falls short
The free tier is small and it forgets: 3 hours of transcription a month, transcripts kept 3 months and audio 1 month. The pricing page advertises an annual discount of up to 40% without making clear which billing basis the listed prices use, so confirm at checkout. The site lists Claude and ChatGPT as integrations but does not say which models write its own summaries.
Wrong for
Anyone who expects a free plan to serve as an archive, since free transcripts expire after three months. Heavy free users are better served by Fathom; buyers who need a named model provider by tl;dv.
Pricing: Basic is free with 3 hours of transcription a month; Pro is listed at $15.99 per user per month with extra hours at $0.50 each, Business at $27 per user per month, Enterprise on quote. (free plan)
Visit MeetGeek →
#5 Fireflies.ai
Bot-based meeting transcription and search · United States · fireflies.ai
$10 entry tier No training on meetings Private storage on Enterprise
Fireflies publishes every paid price, including the Enterprise figure that most rivals hide behind a form. Pro at $10 per user per month on annual billing includes app and CRM integrations and places no monthly rate limit on the meeting bot or the Chrome extension. The privacy policy says personal information is not used for AI model training and that vendors are contractually barred from training on it, with meeting content not stored by any third-party vendor after processing. It states support for Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and more than ten platforms in all.
Where it falls short
Video recording, API access and analytics start on Business, so the $10 tier is audio and transcript only. Choosing where meeting data is stored is an Enterprise feature at $39 per user. English is described as the primary supported language, with more than 100 others in beta. The monthly Pro price is nearly double the annual one, and the vendor does not name its model providers on the pages we read.
Wrong for
A non-English-speaking team, given the vendor's own beta label on other languages, and buyers who need regional storage below Enterprise. MeetGeek offers EU or US storage on its public plans.
Pricing: Free plan; Pro is $10 per user per month billed annually or $18 monthly, Business $19 annually or $29 monthly, Enterprise $39 per user per month billed annually. (free plan)
Visit Fireflies.ai →
#6 Jamie
Bot-free note taker that deletes the audio · Germany · meetjamie.ai
No bot Audio deleted EU only
Jamie runs on the device and never appears in the participant list, which suits client meetings where a recorder bot would change the room. Its privacy policy is the most specific in this ranking about the AI supply chain: Soniox for speech recognition, Google Cloud for machine learning services and Modal Labs for inference, with processing primarily in the EU. The audio recording is deleted as soon as transcription completes, and the policy rules out using meeting content to train or fine-tune any model, its own or a provider's. Every plan is described as hosted in the EU.
Where it falls short
Pricing is metered by note count and meeting length: the free plan allows 10 AI notes a month with a 30 minute cap per meeting, and Plus at €21 still stops at 20 notes and two hours. Unlimited notes and the CRM integrations begin at Pro, €39 per user on annual billing. Because the audio is deleted, there is no recording to replay when a summary is disputed.
Wrong for
Sales managers who coach from call recordings, because there is nothing to play back. A team that wants video and clips should look at Fathom or tl;dv; one with more than 20 meetings a month should price Pro before trying Plus.
Pricing: Free plan with 10 AI notes a month; Plus is €21, Pro €39 and Team €33 per user on annual billing, Enterprise on quote. (free plan)
Visit Jamie →
#7 Granola
Bot-free AI notepad for back-to-back meetings · United States · granola.ai
No bot No audio stored OpenAI and Anthropic named
Granola is a notepad first. It captures audio on the device, transcribes in real time on macOS and Windows, and says it does not store the meeting audio at all; what it keeps are notes in a US-hosted AWS environment. The security page names its suppliers, Deepgram and Assembly for transcription and OpenAI and Anthropic for language models, and says those third parties may not train on your data. The free Basic plan includes AI notes and chat across meetings. Business at $14 per user per month removes the history limit, and an MCP connection to Claude or ChatGPT arrives at that tier.
Where it falls short
Granola itself trains on anonymized user data unless you opt out in settings; only Enterprise has training off by default, and only Enterprise covers HIPAA and Salesforce, at $35 per user per month. Free history is limited to 30 days. Notes are stored in the United States. The only street addresses we found were a Dover, Delaware address for the US entity, which reads as a registered-agent address, and a UK entity in St. Albans.
Wrong for
A regulated team that needs an audio record of what was said, or one that must keep data in the EU. Fellow keeps recordings under admin control, and Jamie pairs bot-free capture with EU hosting.
Pricing: Basic is free with 30 days of meeting history; Business is listed at $14 per user per month and Enterprise at $35 per user per month. (free plan)
Visit Granola →
#8 Krisp
Noise cancellation plus bot-free meeting notes · United States · krisp.ai
Audio-level capture On-device English Noise cancellation
Krisp sits between the microphone and whichever conferencing app is open, so one install covers Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and Slack Huddles without a bot joining any of them. English transcription can run on the device; fifteen other languages are transcribed on Krisp's servers. The pricing page states that meeting data is never used to train Krisp's models, and with noise cancellation alone no audio leaves the machine. Core at $8 per user on annual billing includes unlimited transcription, recording and AI notes with 10 GB of storage, which is a low price for an unmetered tier.
Where it falls short
There is no standing free plan on the pricing page, only a 7-day trial. Storage is capped at 10 GB on Core and 60 GB on Advanced. Salesforce needs Advanced, and fully on-device private transcription and recording, SSO and HIPAA are Enterprise items. The monthly prices are exactly double the annual ones. Krisp does not name the models behind its notes on the pages we fetched.
Wrong for
A team whose meetings are mostly in languages outside the sixteen Krisp lists, or a buyer who wants to evaluate for a month at no cost. Fathom and tl;dv both have free tiers with no stated expiry.
Pricing: 7-day free trial; Core is $16 per user monthly or $8 per user on annual billing, Advanced $30 monthly or $15 annual, Enterprise on quote. (free trial)
Visit Krisp →
#9 Read AI
Meeting notes with cross-tool search copilot · United States · read.ai
Opt-in training Claude and GPT in search Email and chat context
Read AI is built around search more than around the single meeting: it draws context from calendar, email, past meetings and CRM, and paid plans give direct access to Anthropic Claude and OpenAI GPT models inside its Search Copilot. The privacy position is the right way round. The policy says use of meeting information to improve the service rests on consent that a user may give or withdraw at any time, and the home page puts it as no training on your data by default. All four tiers carry a published price.
Where it falls short
The free plan covers 5 meeting transcripts a month. Pro gives unlimited transcripts but not audio and video playback, which arrives on Enterprise, a tier that requires 5 or more licenses. HIPAA, SAML and SCIM sit one step higher on Enterprise+. The home page describes capture by a bot that joins the call, so it is visible to every participant.
Wrong for
A two-person firm that wants to replay recordings, since playback needs a 5-license tier, and anyone whose clients object to a bot in the room. Granola, Jamie and Krisp capture from the device.
Pricing: Free plan with 5 meeting transcripts a month; Pro is $15 per user per month on annual billing or $19.75 monthly, Enterprise $22.50 or $29.75, Enterprise+ $29.75 or $39.75. (free plan)
Visit Read AI →
#10 Zoom
Built-in AI assistant for Zoom Workplace · United States · zoom.com
Unlimited summaries on Pro No training on content Native to Zoom
Zoom's assistant, which the product page now presents under the name ZoomMate, needs no extra vendor if the meeting is already on Zoom. The Pro plan lists unlimited meeting summaries and unlimited AI queries, and even the free Basic plan gets 3 summaries and 20 queries a month. Zoom states that it does not use customer audio, video, chat, screen sharing, attachments or other communications-like content to train its own or third-party AI models. The product page also lists AI note-taking for third-party meeting platforms, without naming them.
Where it falls short
The product page describes a paid ZoomMate tier with 2,200 AI credits a month, but the price did not come through on the pages we could read, so the credit meter's cost is unknown to us. Zoom says it shares relevant data with third-party model providers for features that use them, without naming those providers on the support page we fetched. That leaves a buyer unable to check those providers' terms from the public pages.
Wrong for
A company that holds most meetings on Microsoft Teams or Google Meet and would be buying Zoom only for notes. An independent recorder such as tl;dv or Fireflies covers all three platforms under one account.
Pricing: Workplace Basic is free with 3 meeting summaries a month; Pro is listed at $16.99 a month billed monthly or $14.16 on annual billing and includes unlimited meeting summaries; Business is $21.99 or $18.33, Enterprise on quote. (free plan)
Visit Zoom →
#11 Otter.ai
Minute-metered transcription and meeting notes · United States · otter.ai
Minute meter Trains on de-identified data AWS in the US
Otter's pricing page is the easiest to reason about because everything is a minute count. Basic gives 300 transcription minutes a month with 30 minutes per conversation; Pro gives 1,200 minutes and 90 per conversation; Business lists unlimited meetings with up to 4 hours each. A student discount is published. It joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet and connects to Salesforce and HubSpot. The vendor states that no customer data is used to train its outside AI providers' models, and that those providers do not store what is sent to them.
Where it falls short
Otter's privacy policy says it trains its proprietary AI on de-identified audio recordings and on transcriptions that may contain personal information, and the policy we read describes no opt-out. Data sits with Amazon Web Services in the United States. The free plan allows 3 file imports for the lifetime of the account. SSO requires Enterprise with a minimum 100-user license. Responsibility for telling participants rests with the user.
Wrong for
A law firm, clinic or consultancy discussing client matters that must not feed any model, de-identified or not. Fellow, Fireflies and MeetGeek each state that meeting content is not used for training.
Pricing: Basic is free with 300 monthly transcription minutes; Pro is $16.99 per user monthly or $8.33 on annual billing, Business $30 monthly or $19.99 annual, Enterprise on quote. (free plan)
Visit Otter.ai →
#12 Tactiq
Browser-extension live transcription without a bot · Australia · tactiq.io
Chrome extension Credit-metered AI OpenAI named
Tactiq takes the lightest route into a meeting: a Chrome extension reads the call and produces a live transcript with no bot in the participant list. It states plainly which model it uses, OpenAI's enterprise API, and quotes that provider's position that API data is not used to train its models. The privacy policy says any transcription belongs to the user, who controls where it is stored. Pro costs €6.67 a month on annual billing, and the Sydney company publishes a street address and business number.
Where it falls short
AI is rationed: one credit covers a single summary, action-item draft or question, and the free plan has 5 credits and 10 transcripts a month. Its own privacy policy does not say whether Tactiq uses customer data for training; only the OpenAI position is quoted. Team is limited to 20 users and Business starts at 20. A browser extension is of little use for in-person meetings.
Wrong for
Teams that need recordings, video clips or CRM field updates from every call. Tactiq is a transcript tool; Fathom or Fireflies cover the recorded-call workflow, and MeetGeek handles in-person capture by phone.
Pricing: Free plan with 10 transcripts and 5 AI credits a month; Pro is €6.67 a month on annual billing, Team €13.33, Business €25.50, Enterprise on quote. (free plan)
Visit Tactiq →
Bundled with Workspace Notes as Google Docs Eight languages
For a company already on Google Workspace Standard or higher, the note taker is simply there. Take notes for me writes a Google Doc with a quick summary tab and a full notes tab and files it in the organizer's Drive, in a folder per meeting, so the output is an ordinary document under the same sharing rules as everything else. Meet tells every participant that notes are being taken and shows an icon on their screens, which settles the notification question without a bot. Google states that Workspace does not use customer data to train models without the customer's prior permission or instruction.
Where it falls short
Google lists eight languages for the feature: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish. The help page describes the feature for Google Meet calls. The Starter plan is excluded, and Starter, Standard and Plus are capped at 300 users. The deliverable described is a document; the help page mentions no CRM sync of the kind the independent recorders sell.
Wrong for
A sales team that needs call notes written into Salesforce or HubSpot records, or a company whose customers schedule on Zoom and Teams. Fathom and Fireflies work across platforms and sync to CRMs.
Pricing: Included in Google Workspace Standard, Plus and Enterprise plans, which are sold per user per month; the Starter plan does not include Gemini in Meet. A 14-day Workspace trial is offered. (free trial)
Visit Google Meet →
#14 Microsoft Teams
Copilot for Teams meetings, licensed as an add-on · United States · microsoft.com
Add-on license Admin meeting policies EU Data Boundary
Microsoft gives administrators more levers than anyone else in this list. A meeting policy decides whether Copilot is on, whether a saved transcript is required, or whether it may run only during the meeting on temporary speech-to-text data that is not kept afterwards. Microsoft states that prompts, responses and data accessed through Microsoft Graph are not used to train foundation models, that EU traffic stays within the EU Data Boundary, and that it offers OpenAI and Anthropic models as subprocessors, which admins can choose to allow. For a tenant already run through Purview, that is a familiar control surface.
Where it falls short
It is a costly route for notes alone: the Copilot Business add-on is listed at $18.00 per user per month on yearly billing as a promotion and $21.00 regularly, on top of a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan, and the pricing page we fetched advertised no free plan or trial. Copilot is unavailable in end-to-end encrypted meetings, and Anthropic models are currently excluded from the EU Data Boundary.
Wrong for
A ten-person company that only wants summaries of its calls. Paying for an add-on license per person to get notes is poor value next to the entry tiers of Fellow or Fireflies, both of which publish lower per-user prices on annual billing.
Pricing: Requires an add-on Copilot license: Microsoft 365 Copilot Business is listed at $18.00 per user per month on yearly billing (promotional through December 31, 2026; regular $21.00) or $25.20 billed monthly, plus a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan. (none)
Visit Microsoft Teams →
Questions and answers
What is the best AI meeting assistant in 2026?
tl;dv leads this ranking. Its free tier advertises unlimited recordings and transcriptions, data is hosted in the EU, the company names Anthropic as its generative AI partner and states it will never train on recordings. Fathom, in second place, is the better pick for a single user in the United States who wants a free-forever recorder with CRM connections and does not mind opting out of training. Fellow, third, suits a company that needs administrators to control consent and recording rules and is content with a very small free plan.
Is there a free AI note taker that is actually usable?
Yes, but read what is counted. Fathom's free individual plan and tl;dv's free tier both advertise unlimited recordings and transcriptions. Otter gives 300 transcription minutes a month capped at 30 minutes per conversation. Read AI gives 5 meeting transcripts a month, Jamie 10 AI notes with a 30 minute limit, Tactiq 10 transcripts and 5 AI credits. Fellow's free plan is 5 recordings for the lifetime of the account, and Krisp offers a 7-day trial in place of a free plan. Granola and MeetGeek limit how long free history is kept.
Do AI note takers use my meetings to train their models?
Some do, by default. Otter's policy says it trains its proprietary AI on de-identified audio and on transcriptions. Fathom may use de-identified meeting content for in-house models and Granola trains on anonymized data; both let you opt out, and Granola turns it off by default for Enterprise. Read AI asks for opt-in consent. tl;dv, Fellow, MeetGeek, Fireflies, Jamie and Krisp state that meeting content is not used for training. Several also say their outside model providers are barred from training on it, which is a separate promise worth checking.
What is the difference between a bot-based and a bot-free note taker?
A bot-based assistant joins the call as an extra participant through your calendar, so everyone sees it and the host can remove it. It records regardless of which device you use and usually captures video. A bot-free assistant records the audio on your own computer or phone, or reads the call through a browser extension, and never appears in the meeting. That is more discreet and works for in-person conversations, but nobody is told automatically. Fathom, Fellow and MeetGeek document both modes; Granola, Jamie, Krisp and Tactiq are bot-free by design.
Do I have to tell people that an AI note taker is recording?
Treat it as required. Recording laws vary by country and by US state, and some demand consent from every party. The tools handle it differently. Google Meet informs all participants and shows an icon when notes are being taken. A joining bot is visible by its presence. Fellow lets admins configure consent workflows by team or meeting type. Otter's security page puts the duty on the user to ask for consent and indicate that recording is happening. With a device-level recorder there is no automatic notice at all, so the announcement has to be a habit or a policy.
Which AI meeting assistants store data in Europe?
tl;dv says data is hosted and stored in the EU. Jamie describes every plan as hosted in the EU and lists subprocessors that process primarily there. MeetGeek lets customers choose EU or US storage, and its privacy policy places hosting in Ireland. Microsoft states that EU traffic for Copilot stays within its EU Data Boundary, with an exception for Anthropic models. Fathom, Granola and Otter describe United States hosting on the pages we read. Fireflies says United States and other countries, and offers a private storage location on its Enterprise plan.
Which language models power these note takers?
Fewer vendors say than you would hope. tl;dv names Anthropic. Granola names OpenAI and Anthropic for language and Deepgram and Assembly for transcription. Jamie lists Soniox for speech recognition, Google Cloud and Modal Labs. Tactiq says it uses OpenAI's enterprise API. Read AI offers Claude and GPT models in its search copilot. Microsoft documents OpenAI and Anthropic as subprocessors alongside models it hosts itself. The rest did not name providers on the pages we fetched, so ask for the subprocessor list before signing.
Is the assistant built into Zoom, Teams or Google Meet good enough?
If nearly all your meetings run on one platform, often yes. Zoom includes unlimited meeting summaries in its Pro plan. Google Meet's note taking comes with Workspace Standard and above and saves a Google Doc to the organizer's Drive. Microsoft's Copilot in Teams needs an add-on license and gives admins detailed policy control. The limits are scope and output: Google's notes cover Meet calls in eight languages, and none of the three vendors' pages we read describes writing call notes into a third-party CRM, which Fathom and Fireflies both advertise.
How much does an AI note taker cost per user?
Published entry prices on annual billing run from about $7 to $20 per user per month among the dollar-priced independents: Fellow Team at $7, Krisp Core at $8, Otter Pro at $8.33, Fireflies Pro at $10, Read AI Pro at $15. Granola lists $14 and MeetGeek $15.99 without a clearly stated billing basis. Monthly billing is often close to double. Expect the tier with CRM sync, playback or admin controls to cost more: $34 monthly for Fathom Business, $30 for Krisp Advanced, $39 annually for Fireflies Enterprise.
Can an AI meeting assistant update our CRM automatically?
Several can, usually not on the first paid tier. Fathom puts CRM field sync on Business and above. Fellow holds Salesforce and HubSpot for Business and higher. Jamie's Salesforce and HubSpot integrations start at Pro. Krisp includes HubSpot on Core but Salesforce on Advanced, and Granola reserves Salesforce for Enterprise. Fireflies includes app and CRM integrations from Pro. MeetGeek lists Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM and Attio. Check whether the integration writes structured fields or simply attaches a note, because the vendors use the same word for both.
What happens to the audio after the meeting is transcribed?
It depends on the product, and the difference is large. Jamie deletes the audio recording as soon as transcription is complete. Granola says it does not store meeting audio, only notes. Most bot-based recorders keep audio or video so you can replay and clip it, under retention settings or plan limits: MeetGeek keeps free-plan audio for 1 month, and Read AI's policy caps audio and video retention at 2 years unless you are on a paid account. Keeping no audio lowers exposure but leaves nothing to check a disputed summary against.
