AI meeting assistants record, transcribe and summarise calls, and the right one depends on where your meetings already happen and what your security team will approve. Start with the platform you already pay for, then test a dedicated tool.
| Option | Entry cost or free limit | Planning use |
|---|---|---|
| Otter free plan | 300 minutes per month, 30-minute meeting cap | Suits short, occasional calls. Longer meetings run into the cap. |
| Fathom free tier | AI summaries capped at 5 per month | Enough to judge summary quality, not enough for daily use. |
| Fellow free tier | Up to 10 team members; 5 AI notes and 5 AI recordings, lifetime per user | A trial for a small team rather than an ongoing plan. |
| Fireflies Pro | From $10 per seat per month | Gives a per-seat budget line for people who sit in meetings every day. |
| Zoom My Notes (standalone) | $10 per user per month | Fits Zoom-centred teams that want notes without a separate app. |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot | $30 per user per month add-on (annual) to a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan | Worth the cost only if Copilot will be used well beyond meetings. |
Vendors change plans often, so confirm on the pricing page before buying. Free limits and the Fireflies Pro price come from Rework’s review of AI meeting assistants, while the Zoom My Notes and Microsoft 365 Copilot prices come from Fellow’s guide.
Meeting notes are one slice of the wider field of ai tools for business, so weigh ai meeting assistants against the rest of your software before adding another subscription.
Define the job before comparing tools
The case for a note-taking tool starts with the meetings themselves. One summary reports that 71% of senior managers consider meetings unproductive and inefficient. A good assistant removes the manual note-taking and follow-up work. It cannot fix a meeting that has no agenda or no decision to make.
Live help or after-the-call notes
Decide first whether people need help during the call or only a record afterwards. Fireflies describes its Live Assist feature as providing real-time notes, suggestions and coaching during calls. In the same vendor comparison, Otter is described as offering limited live captioning, which the comparison scores as partial coverage. That comparison comes from a competitor, so treat the ranking as a prompt to test, not a verdict.
Most teams need only the after-the-call record: a transcript, a summary and action items. If that describes your team, skip live coaching features and put the effort into summary quality and where the notes end up.
- List the platforms. Note which video tools your meetings run on, because a built-in assistant removes a separate bot from the call.
- Pick the output. Decide whether you need a full transcript, a short summary, action items or all three.
- Name the audience. Settle who reads the notes afterwards, since that decides how much detail is useful.
Shortlist built-in and dedicated tools
Two routes exist: use the assistant inside your meeting platform, or add a dedicated app that joins calls. Built-in tools are simpler to approve and administer. Dedicated apps usually work across more platforms and offer more control over how notes are stored and shared.
- Confirm which of your existing plans include an assistant.
- Test the free cap on a real meeting.
Tools inside platforms you already pay for
- Zoom AI Companion. Zoom offers its AI companion on even the lowest-paid plans, which makes it a low-friction first test for Zoom-based teams. A standalone My Notes option exists for people outside that arrangement, priced in the table above.
- Google Gemini. Meeting notes are included with Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus. Teams on those plans can try notes without a new purchase.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot. It is a paid add-on, and Fellow’s guide notes that answers may be limited in meetings longer than about two hours. Check this if your workshops or reviews run long.
Dedicated apps and their free limits
Dedicated apps suit mixed environments, where some calls run on one platform and some on another. Fireflies offers a free plan. Otter, Fathom and Fellow also have free tiers, with the caps shown in the table at the top. Those caps differ in kind. Otter limits minutes and meeting length, Fathom limits summaries per month, and Fellow limits notes and recordings over a user’s lifetime. Pick the cap that matches how your team actually meets.
Fellow also states that Wirecutter named Fellow its top pick for transcribing and summarizing meetings after independent testing. That is a useful signal, but run your own pilot, because your platform mix and accents will differ from any review.
Budget-conscious teams can compare these free tiers against the wider options in ai tools for small business. Free allowances run out quickly, so expect to pay once the tool becomes part of the weekly routine.
Check security and compliance before a pilot
Security is where many assistants stall. In the TechTarget research, 39.5% cited security concerns, and 26.3% said compliance management is an issue. The same report says 19% of participating organizations block collaboration apps they do not believe they can properly secure. A tool that fails review will not reach your meetings, so involve IT or compliance before anyone invites a bot to a call.
| Vendor | Certifications and encryption | Training on customer data |
|---|---|---|
| Fireflies | SOC 2 Type II, FERPA, GDPR compliant; ISO/IEC 42001 certified | Says it does not use meeting data to train AI models |
| Fellow | SOC 2 Type II certified, with AES-256 encryption | Says it never trains AI models on notes, transcripts, audio or summaries, on any plan |
These statements come from the vendors’ own pages, Fireflies and Fellow. Ask any shortlisted vendor for the same details in writing, and ask for the current audit report instead of relying on a badge on a web page.
Run a pilot and roll out
A pilot shows whether a tool fits your meetings better than a feature list can. Choose a recurring meeting with clear outcomes, so you can judge whether the summary captured them.
- Pick one meeting type. A weekly team check-in or client call works better than a one-off workshop.
- Tell participants. Let attendees know a recording tool is running, and agree where the notes will be stored.
- Compare against a human note. Check that decisions, owners and deadlines in the summary match what the group agreed.
- Test a long or noisy call. This is where limits on length and transcription quality show up.
- Decide on the paid tier. Move to a paid plan only when the free limits are the main thing holding the pilot back.
Once notes are reliable, they can feed reporting and follow-up. The options in ai tools for data analysis show how to analyse what meeting records capture across many calls.
Troubleshooting common problems
- Summaries miss decisions. Check whether the meeting stated its decisions aloud. Assistants summarise what is said, so ask the chair to read out actions at the end.
- Transcripts contain errors. Accuracy figures such as Fireflies’ reported 99% in English are vendor claims under the vendor’s own conditions. Test with your own accents, jargon and audio quality, and ask people to use a decent microphone.
- A long meeting is cut short or answers are limited. Copilot may limit answers in meetings longer than about two hours, per the Fellow guide. Split long sessions into shorter recorded segments or try a dedicated app.
- The free allowance runs out early. Review which cap you hit: minutes, summaries or lifetime notes. Then decide between upgrading and switching to a tool whose free limit matches your pattern.
- IT blocks the tool. Bring the vendor’s certification and data-training statements to the security review, and consider a built-in assistant that your organisation already approves.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a low-risk way to try an AI meeting assistant?
Show answer
Yes. Fireflies has a free plan, and Fathom offers a 90-day money-back guarantee on its Premium, Team and Business tiers, which lowers the cost of testing paid features.
Which tools handle meetings in other languages?
Show answer
Fellow’s guide reports that Zoom summaries support 36 languages with automatic language detection. Google’s note-taking supports eight languages, one at a time. Fireflies reports 99% accuracy in English and 95% in other languages, across 100+ languages, which are vendor-reported figures to verify on your own calls.
Can an assistant be used with health information?
Show answer
Fellow states it is HIPAA compliant, with a BAA available on Enterprise. Have your compliance team review that agreement before any patient-related conversation is recorded.
How common are AI meeting assistants already?
Show answer
TechTarget’s research found that almost 40% of participants had already deployed the technology in their operations. Fireflies reports 20M+ users across 1M+ organizations, a vendor-reported figure.
