Reline
Answers

The questions, answered straight.

Short, honest answers about recording meetings, bot-free notetakers, and AI summaries — including the trade-offs most tools gloss over.

Does Otter.ai join the meeting as a bot?

Yes. Otter.ai joins your call as a visible bot — an “Otter.ai Notetaker” participant appears in the attendee list and everyone can see it's recording. Reline works the opposite way: it captures your microphone and the meeting's system audio locally on your own device, so no bot ever appears in the call.

Does Fireflies.ai show up in the participant list?

Yes. Fireflies.ai sends a “Fireflies Notetaker” bot that joins the call and appears in the participant list, visible to everyone. Reline doesn't join at all — it records the meeting's audio locally on your device, so there's no extra participant and no “has joined” announcement in the room.

Does Fathom join the call as a bot?

Fathom records by joining your meeting as a bot on cloud platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams, so a Fathom participant appears in the call. Reline takes a different approach entirely: it captures mic and system audio locally on your computer, so nothing joins the meeting and no one sees a recorder.

How do you record a meeting without a bot?

Use a tool that captures audio locally instead of sending a bot into the call. Reline records your microphone and the meeting's system audio directly on your Mac, Windows, or Linux machine — the same way a screen recording works — so nothing joins the meeting and no participant is added.

How do you take meeting notes without a bot in Microsoft Teams?

Record Teams meetings locally instead of admitting a notetaker bot. Reline uses Windows (WASAPI loopback) and macOS system-audio capture to record what you hear plus your microphone, entirely on your device — so no bot requests to join the Teams call and nothing appears in the participant roster.

What is a bot-free notetaker?

A bot-free notetaker records and transcribes your meetings without sending an automated participant into the call. Instead of a bot that joins and shows up in the attendee list, it captures audio locally on your own device. Reline is a bot-free notetaker for macOS, Windows, Linux, and the web.

Do AI meeting summaries hallucinate?

They can. Many AI notetakers produce summaries that state things no one actually said, because nothing links the summary back to the source. Reline reduces this by citing every claim to the exact moment in the transcript, so you can click any line and check where it came from before you trust it.

Do you have to tell people you're recording a meeting?

Often, yes. Recording-consent laws vary: some places require only one party to consent, others require everyone. Regardless of the tool, the responsible and usually legal practice is to tell participants and get agreement before recording. Bot-free capture removes the on-screen bot, but it does not remove your duty to get consent.

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