I wrote last June about the relative benefits of Otter vs. Fireflies, two well-known, note-taking AI tools. As is the way with AI tools, the landscape has changed radically and I’ve spent the last few months in free trials and researching the tools I already have access to in an effort to find the best tool for the money. Since this is once again something people are asking about, I thought I’d give an update.
Before I begin, one note. The market and offerings for these tools have evolved into what I see as two quite distinct services. First, there are those more focused on pure transcription services, aiming for quality content for captioning or translation. By contrast other tools don’t try to compete on transcription, but focus on the meeting output: notes, tasks, assessment, etc.
My specific needs bridge both: I need transcription of live meetings (uploaded recordings) and I want meeting recaps and action item. Be sure you understand what you need before you beginning assessing these options.
Fireflies
I’m starting on Fireflies since that was where I ended. I actually bailed on that subscription early because I was increasingly annoyed by the tool’s interface. When trying to browse for phrases or copy and paste content, I often had poor interactions where text was not selected correctly or jumped around in the audio transcript. I continued to get not-great meeting recaps.
At $10/month it’s not the cheapest option, but it does come with all the types of data you might want from a meeting note taker: talk time, sentiment, action items, etc., plus a robust number of minutes.
Otter
I ended my last article with the plan to return to Otter, and in some ways, this is still true. Otter offers excellent transcription quality and the ability to record live conversations.
That said, I only need the free version to cover transcription for in-person meetings, interviews, and conference recordings. It is worth noting that Otter is extremely limited with only 300 minutes/month and meeting recording time of 30 minutes/meeting at the Free tier. Bumping to a paid subscription is reasonable for an annual term ($8.33/mo) but borderline outrageous on a month-to-month plan ($16.00/month).
Fathom
I imagine a lot of people will be coming here looking for a Fathom endorsement and I want to give it to you. My problem with Fathom comes down to the fact that when they are recording your meeting, they are recording video, not just audio.
There are a couple of reasons I don’t love this. The first is that this is a LOT more data and I just don’t want to contribute to that living in data centers, largely forgotten for years to come. Secondly, I don’t want video of me/my clients saved. This is a privacy and security choice; there just doesn’t need to be that much visual record of my (or my clients) face. And finally, because I just don’t need it. If I wanted to record video of my meeting I would use my native meeting tool (Meet, Zoom, Teams, etc.) and do it that way, but I rarely need to reference a visual aspect to my meeting and I don’t want video of all my meetings “just in case.”
I wrote Fathom about this and it’s an official feature request. Until then, if you don’t care about video recordings, Fathom is top-notch for delivering AI action items and recaps that are actually useful and very accurate (but double-check!). Particularly if you’re only taking notes for a few meetings and can remain at their free tier, Fathom is a no-brainer for quality meetings takeaways.
Zoom / Meet / Teams
Chances are you’re paying for at least one of these tools, and all of them have advanced to the point of offering their own note-taking and/or summary services. If you want to make use of what you’ve got, take a look at these before you jump into another subscription.
Zoom
I find Zoom‘s settings and website difficult to navigate and nowhere does this come into play more than with your options for using these tools. You can get transcripts, but only when doing video recordings. You can get summaries, but finding those settings is obscure and tricky (Under ADMIN go to Account Management > Account Settings the go to the AI Companion tab. Then press the “Manage All Settings” button. Then there’s options to check in “General” and “Meeting”, and “Recording”… You get the picture).
The coordination is challenging, and ultimately will deliver transcripts only with video (the same as Fathom). Going through the runaround to solve this has me close to bailing on Zoom altogether.
Google Meet
If you’re a Google Workspace user it’s going to come down to which plan you’re on. Google Workspace is integrating more and more of Gemini, their AI service, into the Workspace suite of tools and that now includes Meet. But, only for Business Standard plans and above. If you’re currently a Business Starter user ($7/user/mo) you’ll have to upgrade to Standard for $14/user/month. At double the current rate, this may be a tough pill to swallow, but consider that this is essentially $7/month for an AI note-taker and there’s a lot of other benefits to the Starter > Standard upgrade.
Downside: this is only going to give you transcripts and summaries for you meetings in Meet, so if you’re meeting in other platforms, you’re still missing a solution.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft hasn’t taken the leap of integrating AI into its basic suite of tools yet, but I do expect that will happen at some point. For now, access to Copilot in Teams is limited to those who pay the steep $30/month/user fee for the add-on. It may be worth it if you’re exclusively a Teams player (pardon the pun), especially since it delivers Copilot in other Microsoft products.
But, as with the other options in this section, this only gets you notes for Teams meetings.
Sembly
Since none of these tools really worked for me, I went on the hunt for something else. I have a few honorable mentions in the Conclusion but I wanted to call out Sembly.ai, which is what I’m currently testing.
Sembly is comparable to nearly all the tools here. It offers transcription as well as meeting notes and tasks. It also comes with a dedicated “My Tasks” tab which has automations ready to go for exporting those tasks to Slack or your project management tool of choice. Further, while the tool defaults to recording video, unlike Fathom it does have the option not to record.
Sembly’s Free tier isn’t worth mentioning, covering only 60-minutes of recording/month. The paid version is reasonably-priced at $10/month billed annually, but a pricer $15/month when billed month-to-month.
Takeaways
If you’re still reading you’re probably coming to the same conclusion I did: this landscape has gotten really complicated. The tools, what they deliver, the costs and when you need to start paying vs. getting by with free options — it’s enough to make your head spin.
In an effort at simplification I’m including the table below, though this is not exhaustive of all options, only the ones I’ve discussed here.
| Feature | Price | Minutes | Platforms | Pro/Con |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fireflies | Free | $10/user/month | 800 min/mo | 8,000 min/mo | All* | Lots of features and reasonable price, but frustrating UI |
| Otter | Free | $8.33/user/month | 300 min/mo | 1,200 min/mo | All* | Quality transcription but limited feature set and meeting time |
| Fathom | Free | $15/user/month | First 5 calls | Unlimited | All* | Advanced summaries and action items, but pricy and records video |
| Zoom | Pro accounts + $13.33/user/month | Unlimited | Zoom only | Meeting summaries, but challenging to configure and transcripts only with video |
| Meet | Google Workspace Standard account (or above); $14/user/month | Unlimited | Meet only | Real-time transcription and captions, plus note-taking and Workspace integration; requires Google Workspace |
| Teams | MS 365 account + $30/user/month | Unlimited | Teams only | Feature rich and integrated with MS tools but very pricy and only for MS users |
| Sembly | Free | $10/user/month | 60 min/mo | Unlimited | All* | Transcription plus meeting notes and tasks, and optional video recording; can be pricy month-to-month |
Conclusion
As I mentioned, I’ve looked at a bunch of tools and here are a few more honorable mentions that I’m still keeping my eye on…
- Nyota
So. Many. Features. And I really want to work with the Enterprise’s Captain Uhura. But there is no free option and the lowest plan ($10/month/user) offers only 5 hours of meetings a month, which wouldn’t cover me for most weeks. - Avoma
This is a pretty and highly sophisticated solution, but it’s designed to check more boxes than you may need. It also comes with meeting scheduling and CRM integrations, which bump the price to $19/month.
For me personally (and my team), I’m on the border between a bump to Google Workspace Standard and paying for Sembly. While the Google Workspace upgrade is $7/month vs. $10/month for Sembly, Google won’t take notes in Zoom for me. And though I’d love to get rid of my Zoom license and go with Google for all meetings, I’m not sure I trust Google Meet’s call quality. I also do like Sembly’s features for bookmarking points in transcripts and adding your own notes.
I hope this post is a useful snapshot of the meeting note-taking tools out there. Remember to consider the options with your personal/business priorities in mind and I hope you’ll share the solution(s) you decide on. My Sembly free trial runs out later this week, so one way or another I’ll be deciding soon. Check back in another 6+ months!
