Best AI Note Taker for Recruiters in 2026: 8 Tools Checked

The best AI note taker for recruiters is Metaview if scorecards must land in your ATS: it lists Ashby, Greenhouse, Lever, Gem and SmartRecruiters, at $60 per user a month. Reline (we make it) fits small teams who paste notes over by hand: no bot, audio kept, $15 a seat a month, but no ATS connector.

• Scorecards filled in your ATS, and $60 a seat is fine: Metaview.
• You already run Ashby: its AI Notetaker add-on.
• You interview on Zoom and want a sales-led hiring tool: BrightHire, now a Zoom product.
• You run Greenhouse on its new tiers (Core, Plus or Pro): its Notetaker.
• Notes into Greenhouse at a lower seat price, and a bot is fine: Fireflies.
• You already pay for Otter: test its Recruiting Agent and ask which plan covers it.
• No bot and no stored audio: Granola.
• A small team with no ATS push, which wants the audio to check a quote: Reline.

This table sorts what each vendor's own page says today. Where a page is silent, the cell says so.

Seat maths: five recruiters cost $300 a month on Metaview Pro and $75 on Reline Professional. What the extra money buys is the ATS work, filled scorecards on the candidate record, which Reline does not do. If you would paste notes across anyway, that gap is hard to justify. If your team lives in the ATS, it pays for itself.

The recruiter roundups contradict each other here, so we went to the vendors' own docs. All six roundups we read are written by vendors, and Dover, Scribbl and Noota each put themselves first. This page is vendor-written too, so check the sources.

• Fireflies: its own blog and Pin's roundup say native; Metaview's post says Zapier and Scribbl's says Zapier or API. Fireflies' setup guide settles the Greenhouse link: you paste a Greenhouse Harvest API key into Fireflies, so it is direct. The guide is less clear on the rest. It says notes update the candidate's profile but also that they are logged as a prospect, and it never mentions filling scorecards, although the blog says scorecards reach the record. Test both in a trial.
• Otter: its recruiting page says it syncs to Greenhouse and other ATS systems, and its Greenhouse section credits Zapier integrations. Metaview's post says Otter has no native ATS push, and Otter's own integrations list names Zapier but no ATS. Ask what the sync writes and on which plan.
• Metaview: its notes page says notes and completed scorecards post to the candidate record, and its integrations page lists more than 100 ATS names without saying what each link does. Confirm your ATS gets scorecard fields, and ask which plan includes it, since the pricing page does not say.
• Granola and Reline: no ATS connector. You paste, or route through an automation tool you build and maintain. Nothing fills scorecard fields for you.

Three questions settle it in any demo. Does it fill scorecard fields, or only add a note? For which ATS, on which plan? What happens when no candidate matches? Fireflies, for example, creates a new candidate by default, and you can turn that off.

None of the six roundups gives a retention period for each tool (Noota gives only its own free-plan storage), so here is what each vendor's pages say.

Decide your own period before the first interview and write it into your notice. With Reline, that period is a rule your team follows by hand. One folder per role makes it a single action: permanently deleting the folder removes everything in it. There is no way to delete only the audio and keep the note's transcript.

A visible bot does part of the notice work. Metaview's support site calls its notetaker a clearly named participant the host can remove, and BrightHire shows a Recording label and a chat message on Meet and Teams. The cost is one more face on a stressful call. With no bot, the candidate sees nothing, so nothing in the call tells them. That makes a written notice more important, not less.

With no bot in the call, nobody sees a recorder in the participant list, and Reline puts no notice in the meeting, so the notice is on you. 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 for hiring: tell the candidate in writing before the call, ask again at the start, and stop recording if they say no.

Some tools carry part of this. BrightHire can email candidates the day before their first interview with an opt-out, Metaview says candidates can opt out in one click, and Ashby offers consent messaging and logging in the product. Reline has no candidate consent flow, so you send the notice yourself. It does publish a participant notice page you can link to, at reline.so/participants.

We found no mention of it in the six roundups. Annex III, point 4 of the Act lists AI systems for recruitment or selection as high-risk, including tools that filter applications or evaluate candidates. The European Commission's AI Act page says those rules now apply from December 2, 2027, after the AI Omnibus, which the law firms Cooley and Cuatrecasas identify as Regulation (EU) 2026/1744.

Whether a tool that only transcribes and summarizes counts is unsettled. Ashby's docs say recruitment AI is generally high-risk but that its notetaker falls under the exception for narrow procedural or preparatory tasks. That is one vendor's reading. A tool that scores candidates sits closer to the line. Ask counsel before you rely on any vendor's reading, ours included. This is not legal advice. If you hire in the EU, note too that Reline offers no EU data residency, and that its AI providers are named in the DPA annex on request, so read that before you decide.

Vendors split here. Greenhouse says its AI does not assign ratings or recommend scores, and Metaview's support site says its notes describe what was said rather than judging the person. Fireflies says its AI Skills can score candidates, and BrightHire's AI Interviewer scores interviews against your rubric. Reline's Candidate Scorecard Lens drafts a 1 to 5 score per dimension, including culture fit, a total out of 30 and a Strong Yes to Strong No recommendation.

Treat all of that as a draft, ours included. A person decides. Each interviewer scores before reading anyone else, and you check the audio before you quote a candidate. In Reline you can duplicate the Lens and remove the recommendation and the culture fit row. In New York City, Local Law 144 requires a bias audit within a year of use and notice 10 business days ahead for automated employment decision tools. Our US notice guide covers when a notetaker can cross that line.

Metaview is built for hiring. Notes and completed scorecards post to the candidate record, phone screens run through a dial-through notetaker, and you can upload a recording afterward. A desktop app for Mac and Windows records with no bot, though that page does not say whether audio is kept. Free covers 25 calls a month, and Pro is $60 per user a month with unlimited calls. It lists SOC 2 Type II.

BrightHire is now a Zoom product. On Zoom it runs as a native app beside the video and joins as a participant, so candidates can see it, with a Chrome extension as the alternative. Interviewers submit scorecards in one click, and it names Greenhouse, Ashby, Workday, Lever, Rippling, BambooHR and Gem. It states SOC 2 Type 2 and publishes no price.

This is an add-on to the Ashby ATS, not a separate tool. It joins video calls as a removable participant and drafts feedback forms for you to review. Each plan includes 500 interviews to try it, with no expiry, though access to recordings during that trial is limited to 14 days. Its FAQ says interviewers cannot opt themselves out today, and that if a candidate objects after joining you remove it or stop the recording.

Greenhouse lists this on its new tiers (Core, Plus and Pro), while its AI note taker page still asks you to complete a form to register interest, so confirm your account has it. A bot joins Zoom, Google Meet or Teams once the candidate has consented, records and transcribes, AI summaries map to scorecard questions, and the interviewer submits. Recordings are deleted after 30 days by default, and admins can set up to 60. No price is listed.

Fireflies' Notetaker joins the call, and its desktop Take Notes mode adds no bot but saves no audio or video file. Pro is $10 per seat a month on annual billing ($18 monthly), and Business is $19 ($29 monthly). The Greenhouse guide does not name the plan the link needs, so ask. Its recruiting page says AI Skills can score candidates, which brings the scoring questions above with it.

Otter's notetaker joins Zoom, Teams and Meet from your calendar, and its desktop app records with no bot across Slack Huddles, Zoom, Google Meet and in-person conversations. Its recruiting page does not say which of the two it uses, and it does not cover candidate consent. Watch the call limits: Basic stops at 30 minutes per conversation, which is short for an interview, Pro at 90 minutes and Business at 4 hours.

Granola captures from your device with no bot, and can add a watermark or an automatic chat message as notice. Its own recruiter post says raw audio is deleted after transcription, so when a panel disagrees about what a candidate said, there is no recording to settle it. If your company prefers no stored audio, that is a real advantage. The post does not cover panel interviews, and its pricing page lists no ATS.

Reline records your microphone and system audio locally on Mac, Windows or Linux (beta), or in the browser, so no bot joins. You get a live transcript in 60+ languages, an AI summary and the kept audio, with a play button on every transcript line, so you can check a quote before it reaches a scorecard. Capture is local; transcription, AI and storage run in the cloud.

Summaries cite nothing. Chat answers can cite a note or a moment. Notes are private by default: a workspace role alone grants nothing, and each note has an activity log on every plan. Professional is $15 per seat a month ($12 annual). Free is 10 hours of transcription and 1 hour per recording.

• You need scorecards filled in your ATS. Reline has no connector to Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby or any other ATS. Choose Metaview, BrightHire, Ashby or Greenhouse Notetaker.
• You need an auto-delete schedule. Reline has none, so deletion is by hand. Ashby, Greenhouse, Fireflies Enterprise and Granola Enterprise let an admin set rules.
• Your security review requires a SOC 2 report or a BAA. Reline has neither; a DPA is available. Metaview and BrightHire state SOC 2 Type 2.
• You need names on panel interviews. Labels are Me vs Other, plus beta voice numbering you name yourself. In a room, everyone arrives through one microphone.
• You screen on a desk phone or a mobile. Reline only captures a call that plays through the computer, and it has no mobile app. Metaview and BrightHire cover phone screens.
• You want the tool to send the notice or collect consent. Reline does neither.
• You need to process past interviews. Reline transcribes live only, with no upload. Metaview takes uploads.
• You need EU data residency, or video of the interview. Reline offers neither.