Do you spend more time typing out meeting notes than engaging in meetings? AI notetakers have advanced to the point where they create meeting minutes and action items better than even the fastest typist.
Rather than racing to transcribe your meetings, try some of the tools I list below. I’ve tested all of the tools below in my own work as well as on behalf of clients, and have only included the ones I’ve found most useful.
You can add them directly to your online meetings (I always use Google Meet, but many work on other video call platforms too) and they’ll automatically record your meeting and analyze the transcript to provide a summary and action items.
6 AI Notetaker options for type-free meetings
I still remember being on an all-hands with one of my favorite clients, typing down my notes, and the co-founder pausing to ask me to mute my sound because everyone could hear the rapid clickety-clack of my keys. Well, make sure that isn’t you with these AI notetakers.
Google Meet
Google Meet remains my go-to recording and transcription service for any meetings on Google. To my knowledge, it doesn’t work with other video call software, but as long as the call is scheduled with my Google workspace account (or a client’s), you can start a recording right from within the meeting. It’s easy-to-use, on-demand, and has an optional AI notetaker that will summarize the meeting minutes.
Fathom
Two different clients have recommended Fathom to me now. It connects directly with Google Meet and automatically records and transcribes meetings, and jots down action items. You can replay the video recordings, search the transcript, or ask their AI questions about the call. It’s also guaranteed free, with their homepage advertising “free forever” right in the CTA.
Fireflies
I use this tool for my own business, and record many of my prospect discovery calls and client kick-off/onboarding calls with it. It’s an easy-to-use tool that you can either invite to your meetings or start from their Chrome extension. I’ve found it really useful to record last-minute meetings that I didn’t have time to set up, because I can just go to my bookmarked extensions to trigger the transcription. On the free plan, which is what I use, only audio recordings are available.
ClickUp Notetaker
It was a client that first showed me this, in particular, one that works with ClickUp as their project management tool. After the call, the notetaker creates a document within ClickUp that has the video recording, a summary, key takeaways, next steps, key topics, and the full transcript. You can also then turn next steps into tasks within the project management tool.
Note: One issue I’ve run into is once you exit or end a call, you won’t be able to add another Notetaker to the same meeting. I left a meeting after admitting the Notetaker, since the other attendee would be late. When we re-joined, there was no option to pull the Notetaker in again.
Otter
I don’t have as much experience with Otter beyond testing it on a recommendation, but from what I saw it was easy to use, search, and query. I took a marketing course wherein the instructor used Otter.ai in many of her examples and tool list.
Gong
This tool has always been a little more than I’ve ever needed on the marketing side, but the sales teams I’ve worked with rave about it. From my understanding, you can use Gong to automatically draft a follow-up email to a prospect after having a call with them, with key notes and a recap.
My favorite way to use Gong as a marketer has been to review various sales calls to learn more about our prospects, their hestitations, and what they find most interesting about our pitch. If your sales team is already using Gong anyway, it’s worth checking how much another seat would be for you to take along to your meetings as well.
Wrapping up: Using AI notetakes wisely
As with all things, be protective of your data and err on the side of privacy if you aren’t sure your attendees are comfortable being recorded. Most of the notetakers, if not all, will have prior warnings and notices to let all meeting attendees know they’re being recorded and such, but it’s a good idea to keep the recordings safe and secure (so don’t share out the links with just anyone, and confirm permission).
I haven’t found any downside to using these notetakers, and they’ve helped me focus and engage more in meetings instead of making to-do lists to avoid forgetting anything. I highly recommend having a go-to notetaker for every internal and external call. It’s better to have those notes and AI-generated to-dos and summaries, and not need them, than not have them and find you need them.
Hope these tools make your meetings a little less painful and a little more productive.