Best AI Note Taker (2026): Picks for Every Kind of Meeting

The best AI note taker depends on where your meetings happen. Fine with a bot in the call: Fathom (unlimited free recordings) or Otter. Bot-free on your computer: Reline (we make it), which also has a Linux (beta) app, or Granola, which has phone apps. Rooms and phone calls: a laptop or phone app, or a Plaud recorder.

Start with where the meeting happens and what you can live with. The full guide behind each row is linked under “Every situation, in depth” near the end of this page.

Two tables, the same ten tools. The first shows how each one gets the audio and where it runs; the second shows what it costs and what happens to your recording. Every cell comes from the vendor’s own pages as of November 2026 (see Sources). “Not stated” and “not listed” mean the pages we read do not say, which is not the same as “no”.

Three patterns stand out. Reline is the only tool here with a Linux app, as a beta. Jamie and tl;dv are the only ones that name a hosting region, both in Europe. And the field splits on audio: Reline, Otter, Fathom, tl;dv and Fellow keep the recording, while Granola, Jamie and Notion delete it after transcription. Deleting is more private, and it leaves nothing to replay when you need the exact words.

Other prices from the same pages: Granola Enterprise $35 per user a month; Otter Business $30, or $19.99 billed yearly; Fathom Team $19, or $15 billed yearly, for at least 2 users; Fireflies Business $29, or $19 billed yearly; Fellow Business $23, or $15 billed yearly; Krisp Advanced $30, or $15 billed yearly; tl;dv Business EUR 39, or EUR 29 billed yearly; Jamie Team EUR 33 per seat, billed yearly; Reline Enterprise $32, or $26 billed yearly.

An AI note taker gets the audio in one of two ways. A bot joins the meeting as a participant and records from inside it. A bot-free tool records on a device you control: your computer’s microphone plus the sound it plays, or a phone or recorder in the room. Decide this first, because it narrows everything else.

• It can attend without you. tl;dv’s help center says that with auto-record on, its bot asks to join a calendar meeting even if you are not there.
• Names come easier. A bot sits in the meeting and sees who joined. Fireflies’ own guide shows the difference: when its desktop app records without the bot, people appear as Speaker 1 and Speaker 2 instead of by name.
• Nothing runs on your computer. The bot records in the cloud, so it works the same from any laptop or phone.

• Everyone sees it. The bot is a named participant, and some guests ask the host to remove it.
• It can be kept out. Waiting rooms and lobbies stop bots at the door, and a client’s IT team decides what may join their meetings.
• It only works where it can join. A meeting in a room, a call on your mobile phone or a call in an app the bot does not support needs a device that records locally.

• You have to be there, with the app running on your computer or phone.
• Names do not arrive on their own. In Reline, the transcript splits your microphone (Me) from the call audio (Others); the beta Separate speakers option numbers the voices on the call, and you name them.
• Nobody is told automatically. Nothing appears in the participant list, so telling people is your job.
• Your computer’s sound is the input. On Windows, Reline records the whole default output device, so mute music and videos during the call.

1. Will you miss meetings you still need notes from? Then you need a bot: Otter, Fireflies or tl;dv join meetings for you.
2. Do clients or your IT block bots, or do you dislike an extra participant? Go bot-free: Reline, Granola, Jamie, Krisp or Notion, or the desktop app of Otter, Fireflies, tl;dv or Fellow.
3. Where do you sit? On Linux: Reline (beta). Mostly on your phone: Granola, Otter, Jamie or Krisp. Around a table: a laptop app, a phone app or a Plaud.
4. Do you need to hear the exact words again? Reline, Otter, Fathom, tl;dv and Fellow keep the audio. Granola, Jamie and Notion delete it once the transcript exists.
5. What does the free plan really give you? Unlimited recordings at Fathom, 300 minutes a month at Otter, 10 hours of transcription at Reline, 10 notes a month at Jamie, 30 days of history at Granola, 5 notes in total at Fellow, a 7-day trial at Krisp.
6. What will your security review ask for? A SOC 2 report: Granola, Fireflies, Fellow, Krisp and tl;dv mention SOC 2 on their pages, and Reline has none yet. Data hosted in Europe: Jamie or tl;dv.

Who each tool suits and where it falls short. The facts come from each vendor’s own pages as of November 2026; the verdicts are our opinion.

Reline is the one we make. It is an AI notepad: you type rough notes while the desktop app records your microphone and the sound your computer plays, with nothing joining the call, and when the call ends the AI writes finished notes from your notes and the transcript. Capture happens on your computer; transcription in 60+ languages, the AI and storage run in the cloud. It works with any call app and in a room, and the recording stays with the note, so you can press play on any transcript line to hear the exact words.

Where it is weaker: no iPhone or Android app; no bot, so it cannot cover a meeting you skip; the Linux app is a beta; names do not appear on their own; and there is no SOC 2 report yet. Pick it if you want one bot-free tool for calls and rooms on every desktop, with the real recording to check a statement against. Free: 10 hours of transcription and up to 1 hour of recording per note. Professional: $15 per user a month, or $12 billed yearly.

Granola captures device audio without a meeting bot on macOS and Windows and has iPhone and Android apps, which it pitches for in-person meetings too. Its pricing page says audio is deleted after transcription and that Granola is SOC 2 Type II certified; its docs list 31 transcription languages on desktop and 17 on mobile. Basic is free with 30 days of meeting history; Business is $14 per user a month and Enterprise $35.

Verdict: the most refined bot-free notepad if you also take notes on your phone, and the safer pick when a security review asks for SOC 2. Where it is weaker: no recording to replay, no Linux or browser app listed, and a free plan that keeps only 30 days.

Otter’s pricing page says it joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet to write and share notes, and its Mac and Windows desktop app records without a bot across Slack Huddles, Zoom, Google Meet and in-person conversations. It also runs on the web, iOS and Android. It keeps your audio (Basic exports MP3) and transcribes 6 languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese. Basic is free with 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation and your 25 most recent conversations; Pro is $16.99 a month, or $8.33 billed yearly.

Verdict: pick Otter for live transcripts on every device and an agent for meetings you miss. Where it is weaker: free conversations stop at 30 minutes, it lists 6 languages, and Teams is not named among the apps its desktop app records without a bot.

Fireflies’ bot joins meetings through calendar sync, and its desktop app for Windows and Mac and its Chrome extension can record without it. Its own guide says the bot-free desktop mode saves no audio or video file and shows people as Speaker 1 and Speaker 2 rather than by name. The pricing page lists English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian, plus 100+ more languages in beta, and its Multi-Language Mode for meetings in several languages is a beta on Business and Enterprise. That page shows no prices, so these come from Fireflies’ own pricing guide of July 10, 2026: Free includes unlimited transcription with 400 minutes of storage per team and up to 2 hours per meeting; Pro is $10 per seat a month billed yearly, or $18 monthly.

Verdict: pick Fireflies if you want every calendar meeting recorded without lifting a finger, in many languages. Where it is weaker: the free plan is a storage cap, and going bot-free means giving up the recording and the names.

Fathom’s free plan includes unlimited recordings and transcriptions plus instant AI call summaries, with some AI features marked limited use. You choose bot capture or bot-free capture, which its pricing page labels a beta feature for Mac; its What’s new page says the new desktop app is live on Mac and lists Windows as coming soon. Its help center article on languages gives two numbers: 38 for transcripts, and 7 (English plus six) for translated summaries. Premium is $20 a month, or $16 billed yearly; the Business plan ($34, or $25 yearly, for at least 2 users) adds CRM field sync after meetings.

Verdict: the pick for people who record many video calls and accept a bot. Where it is weaker: bot-free capture is a Mac-only beta, and on Windows you rely on the bot until the new app arrives.

tl;dv says its data is hosted and stored in the EU and that it transcribes 30+ languages. With auto-record on, its bot asks to join calendar meetings even if you are not there, per its help center, and its desktop app for macOS and Windows records system audio with no bot. Free includes unlimited recordings and transcripts, but full AI notes cover only your first 10 meetings and then the first 10 minutes of each, for the life of the account; free recordings are kept for 3 months. Pro is EUR 29 per seat a month, or EUR 18 billed yearly.

Verdict: pick tl;dv if you want EU hosting and a bot that covers meetings you skip. Where it is weaker: the free AI allowance never resets, and there is no native phone app yet.

Fellow lets you use a bot, go botless through its desktop app for Mac and Windows, or capture conversations in person, and it has a mobile app. Its pricing page lists 100+ languages, hosting on Amazon Web Services and SOC 2 Type II. Free is 5 AI notes and 5 AI recordings per user for the life of the account; Team is $7 per user a month billed yearly ($11 monthly) with 10 of each a month; Business is $15 billed yearly ($23 monthly) with no cap.

Verdict: pick Fellow if your company wants a visible bot on some calls and none on others, managed in one place. Where it is weaker: the free plan is 5 notes in total, and its pages do not name the phone systems its mobile app supports.

Krisp works at the audio level on your device, so it says you do not need a bot in your meeting, though an optional bot mode exists for platforms like Zoom. It has Mac and Windows apps, iOS and Android apps for in-person discussions, and a browser extension. Its language counts disagree: the pricing page lists 16+, while the meeting assistant page says 17 in real time, 60+, and English on the device plus 15 more on servers. There is no free plan, only a 7-day trial with no card; Core is $16 per user a month, or $8 billed yearly, with 10 GB of storage.

Verdict: pick Krisp if poor call audio is your first problem and you want notes from the same app. Where it is weaker: you pay after a week, and its own pages give different language counts.

Jamie says no bot joins your calls and that it captures in-person meetings from your laptop or your phone. It streams audio and never stores it, and says storage and processing stay within the EEA, Switzerland and the UK. It lists Windows, macOS, iOS and the web, and notes and transcripts in 99+ languages. Free gives 10 AI notes a month with a 30-minute limit per meeting. Its pricing table lists Plus at EUR 21 without a billing period; Pro is EUR 39 a month billed yearly, and Team EUR 33 per seat a month billed yearly.

Verdict: pick Jamie when processing in Europe is a hard requirement. Where it is weaker: no audio to replay, no Linux or Android app listed, and a 30-minute cap on free meetings.

Per Notion’s help center, the desktop app captures your microphone and system audio, the browser hears only your microphone, and the phone app records through the phone’s microphone; no bot is involved. It transcribes 16 languages, labels speakers in English only, and deletes the temporary audio after processing. It comes with the Business plan, $20 per member a month billed yearly or $24 monthly; Free and Plus get a limited trial.

Verdict: if your company already pays for Notion Business, this is the note taker with the least setup, because the notes land in pages your team already uses. Where it is weaker: no recording to replay, no Linux desktop app, and speaker labels in English only.

If you would rather carry a device than install an app, Plaud Note Pro records phone calls and in-person meetings and switches between the two modes on its own. Its product page lists it at $189 with a free Starter plan of 300 minutes of transcription a month, 112 languages, apps for iOS, Android, the web and desktop, and cloud storage. The page describes calls and rooms, not online meetings.

Verdict: pick Plaud for interviews, site visits and calls on your mobile phone. Where it is weaker: one more device to charge and carry, and a monthly minute cap on the free plan.

If your company already pays for one of these suites and you host most of your meetings there, check the built-in assistant before you buy anything.

• Zoom: Meeting Summary needs a licensed host on Zoom Workplace Pro or higher, per Zoom’s support page. Only the host or a co-host can start or stop it, and participants see the AI icon change color. Zoom’s ZoomMate page also lists summaries for 3 hosted meetings a month on the free Basic plan.
• Google Meet: “Take notes for me” needs an eligible Google Workspace edition or Google AI plan on the organizer’s side. Meet tells everyone that notes are being taken, saves them in the organizer’s Drive and works in 8 languages, one at a time. Google says you can also use it for in-person meetings.
• Microsoft Teams: intelligent recap comes with Teams Premium or a Microsoft Copilot license, and Copilot does not work in meetings hosted outside your organization.

The catch: each assistant belongs to the organizer’s account and works inside its own app. On a client’s Zoom, a partner’s Teams call or any meeting you do not host, you need a note taker of your own.

Reline is our product, so here is exactly what using it looks like, to judge against the others.

1. Install the desktop app for Mac, Windows or Linux (beta), or open Reline in a browser tab. In the browser, Reline hears the other side only while you share a tab’s audio, so for calls the desktop app is the better choice.
2. On first run, click “Allow microphone”, then “Allow system audio”. On a Mac, call audio needs macOS 13 or later, and from macOS 14.2 the permission covers audio only.
3. Optional: open Settings, then Calendar, and connect Google or Outlook so your meetings show up in Reline. With the desktop app running, a small card offers to take notes when Zoom, Teams, Meet or another call app starts using your microphone.
4. Join your call as usual and click “Quick note” (or the card). A note opens, recording starts, and the live transcript fills in as people talk, split into Me and Others.
5. Type rough notes as you go: a number, a name, “pricing?”. Reline uses what you type to tell what matters to you.
6. A Quick note records until you stop it: when the call ends, click the stop square in the bottom pill, then “Generate notes”. If you started from the card, Reline stops when the call ends and writes the notes on its own. Your enhanced notes appear next to My notes, the lines you typed; pick a template if you want a fixed outline.
7. Type a question in the “Ask anything” box at the bottom of the note, for example “What did we agree on price?”. The answer quotes the transcript lines with their [m:ss] times; click one to hear that moment. Every transcript line also has its own play button.
8. Need a different shape? Pick a Lens in the chat to turn the same meeting into action items with owners and deadlines, or a three-sentence brief for someone who missed it.
9. Share when you are ready. Every note is private until you share it: “Share” invites people, and “Share to Web” creates a link.

What it costs, as of November 2026: Free includes 10 hours of transcription and up to 1 hour of recording per note, with no card. Professional is $15 per user a month, or $12 a month billed yearly, with unlimited transcription and recording.

A bot announces itself by sitting in the participant list, and Zoom and Google Meet show their own signals when their AI takes notes. A bot-free tool shows nothing to the other side, so the notice is your job. Several US states, California among them, require every party to agree before a call is recorded, and in the EU you need a lawful basis under the GDPR and should say why you record. Rules differ by country and state, so check the rules where everyone on the call is. The simple habit: say at the start that you are taking notes with AI, and stop if someone objects. This is not legal advice.

This page is the overview. Each guide below goes deep on one situation, with its own comparison and sources.

• Granola: granola.ai, granola.ai/pricing, docs.granola.ai/help-center/customising-granola/multi-language
• Otter: otter.ai/pricing, otter.ai/desktop
• Fireflies: fireflies.ai/pricing, fireflies.ai/blog/fireflies-pricing-which-plan-is-right-for-you (July 10, 2026), guide.fireflies.ai/articles/6666374717, guide.fireflies.ai/articles/2585231364, guide.fireflies.ai/articles/8937818258
• Fathom: fathom.ai/pricing, fathom.ai/whats-new, help.fathom.video/en/articles/296192 (“What languages does Fathom support?”)
• tl;dv: tldv.io, tldv.io/pricing, tldv.io/desktop-app, intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/8919450, intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/10256819
• Fellow: fellow.ai, fellow.ai/pricing, help.fellow.ai/en/articles/12015496
• Krisp: krisp.ai/pricing, krisp.ai/ai-meeting-assistant
• Jamie: meetjamie.ai, meetjamie.ai/pricing
• Notion: notion.com/help/ai-meeting-notes, notion.com/pricing (prices in USD), notion.com/desktop
• Plaud: plaud.ai/pages/plaud-note-pro
• Metaview: metaview.ai/pricing
• Zoom: support.zoom.com (KB0058013), zoom.com/en/products/ai-assistant
• Google: support.google.com/meet/answer/14754931
• Microsoft: support.microsoft.com, “Catch up on meetings with Microsoft Copilot in Teams”