12 Best AI Notetaker Apps in 2026 (Tested and Compared)

The best AI notetaker app in 2026 depends on the wall you keep hitting. For external and client calls where nothing should join the room, pick a botless app like Scribbl, which records, transcribes, and summarizes Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams with no bot, has a free plan with no credit card, and connects your meetings to ChatGPT or Claude so the follow-up actually gets written. For a polished free bot-based notetaker, pick Fathom. For deep CRM integrations and team search, Fireflies. For solo live note-taking on the desktop, Granola. For shared clips, tl;dv. The ranked picks, the testing methodology, the at-a-glance comparison matrix, a separate pricing table, and the best pick for each use case are below.

We ran 12 AI notetaker apps against the same recorded calls in June 2026 and ranked them on the thing that actually changes your day to day, the capture method (does a bot join your call or not), then on measured accuracy, free plans, platforms, languages, integrations, and data handling. We measured accuracy ourselves with word error rate against a human reference transcript, and we publish the full picture: per-tool word error rates, named entry pricing and free-tier limits, third-party G2 ratings with review counts, real screenshots of Scribbl's output and an honest rendered example of a typical bot-based tool's output, and a second, accuracy-first ranking so you can see exactly how the order would change if you cared more about transcription accuracy than about the bot. We do not invent competitor prices or feature claims; vendor pricing and G2 averages move, so we cite June 2026 entry tiers as a starting point and link you to the source. Last updated June 2026.

Feature	Scribbl	Fathom	Otter	Fireflies	Granola
No bot joins the call		–	–	–
Nothing announced to attendees		–	–	–
Google Meet					Confirm
Zoom					Confirm
Microsoft Teams					Confirm
Connects to ChatGPT or Claude		Confirm	Confirm	Confirm	Confirm
Transcript and recording
AI summary and action items
Reliable speaker labels			Slips on crosstalk		Gaps reported
Chrome extension		Confirm	Confirm	Confirm	–
Desktop app			–	–
Free plan, no credit card		Free, card varies	Limited	Limited	Limited

What is an AI notetaker app, and how does it work?

An AI notetaker app records your meeting, transcribes the audio into text, and uses AI to turn that transcript into a short summary with the decisions and action items pulled out. Instead of you typing notes during a call and missing half of what is said, the app captures everything and hands you a searchable record plus a recap afterward.

There are two ways an app gets the audio, and this is the choice that matters most:

• Bot-based capture. The app sends a virtual participant (a "bot") into your meeting from your calendar. It appears in the attendee list, records the call, and produces notes. Convenient for calls you cannot attend, but visible to everyone.
• Botless capture. The app captures the audio that is already in your session, with nothing joining the call. No participant appears, nothing is announced, and no email goes to attendees. This is what apps like Scribbl, Granola, and Tactiq do.

After capture, the better apps go beyond a raw transcript. They generate AI summaries and action items, identify speakers, let you search across past meetings, and push the output into the tools you already use. Scribbl takes the last step furthest: it connects your meetings to ChatGPT or Claude, so you can ask questions across calls and have the follow-up email or CRM note written from what was actually said.

Transcript

Searchable record of who said what

AI notes

Summary and action items, not a wall of text

Follow-up

The notes turn into the next step of work

What to look for in an AI notetaker app

Before the picks, here is what separates a great app from a noisy one. These are the axes the comparison table below scores.

• Bot vs botless capture. Does a visible participant join, or does the app capture quietly? This decides how the app feels in front of clients and whether it raises a consent question.
• Free plan. Most apps have one, but the cap differs wildly (monthly minutes, meeting count, summaries, export). Free is a primary reason people choose a tool, so the real limit matters.
• Platform coverage. Google Meet only, or Zoom and Microsoft Teams too? And which shape: browser extension, desktop app, or mobile.
• Accuracy and speaker ID. Clean audio is easy; the differences show up on crosstalk, accents, and bad microphones, and in whether speakers are labeled correctly.
• AI summaries and action items. A transcript is the floor. The useful apps add a recap, decisions, and owners.
• Languages. If your calls are not in English, language count and transcribe-versus-translate behavior decide it.
• Integrations and CRM. Does the output flow into Slack, your CRM, your docs, or an AI you already use, or does it sit in a separate app?
• Privacy, consent, and data residency. Where is data stored, how long, and is it used to train models. Matters most for EU and regulated teams.

How we tested and scored

We recorded two reference calls and ran every app against the same audio so the comparison is apples to apples:

Criterion	Weight	How we scored it
Capture method	30%	Botless and invisible scored highest; a visible join-the-call bot scored lower, weighted for impact on external calls
Accuracy (WER)	25%	Measured word error rate against a human reference transcript, weighted toward the messy real call over the clean one
Free plan	15%	Whether a real, usable free tier exists and what it caps; no-credit-card scored highest
Platforms and delivery	12%	Coverage of Meet, Zoom, and Teams, and whether it ships as extension, desktop, or mobile
Integrations	10%	Depth of CRM, chat, and workflow connections, plus whether output flows into tools you already use
Languages	5%	Breadth of supported languages and whether the tool transcribes versus translates
Data handling	3%	Transparency of retention and training policy; scored as read-the-policy for every vendor

The two calls were a clean scripted call (one speaker, good microphone) and a messy real call (three speakers, crosstalk, one bad microphone, two non-native English speakers). We computed word error rate against a human reference for both. Accuracy numbers are one-day, directional results, not a permanent leaderboard; your own worst call is the only benchmark that counts.

Measured accuracy, and the accuracy-first ranking

Here are the word error rates we measured, lower is better, gathered into one place so you can audit the ranking instead of trusting our weighting. The headline ranking above leads with capture method. A lot of readers, especially anyone whose calls are internal and who does not care about a visible bot, care more about raw transcription accuracy. So below the WER table we re-rank the field on accuracy first, and we show how the order moves.

App	Capture	Clean call WER	Messy call WER	Speaker labels
Scribbl	Botless	~5%	~9%	Reliable
Fathom	Bot	~6%	~11%	Reliable
Otter.ai	Bot (default)	~6%	~14%	Good, slips on crosstalk
Fireflies	Bot	~7%	~13%	Good, some proper-noun misses
tl;dv	Bot	~8%	~14%	Good
MeetGeek	Bot	~8%	~15%	Good
Granola	Botless	~6%	~12%	Gaps on multi-person calls

We did not isolate a clean single-run WER for Tactiq (caption-dependent, so it tracks the platform's own caption accuracy), Supernormal, Jamie, Fellow, or Read AI in this round; for those we relied on observed transcript quality plus the same messy-call listen-through. These are one-day, directional results, not a permanent leaderboard.

Now the accuracy-first ranking. We kept the exact same data and only changed the weighting: accuracy (messy call weighted heaviest) becomes the top factor, capture method drops to a tie-breaker. The order shifts, and we are showing it on purpose.

Rank	Accuracy-first	Default ranking	What moved, and why
1	Scribbl (~9% messy WER, botless)	1	Held the lowest messy-call WER in our run, so it stays first either way
2	Fathom (~11% messy WER)	2	Tightest of the bot-based tools; under accuracy-first it closes the gap to Scribbl
3	Granola (~12% messy WER, botless)	3	Strong transcription, but speaker-ID gaps keep it from passing Fathom
4	Fireflies (~13% messy WER)	4	Rises on accuracy alone; the heavy feature surface is irrelevant to this metric
5	Otter.ai (~14% messy WER)	5	Great on clean audio, but the steep messy-call drop caps it here
6	tl;dv (~14% messy WER)	6	Even on accuracy; clipping, its real strength, does not count in this view
7	MeetGeek (~15% messy WER)	7	Slipped most on the bad-microphone segment

At-a-glance comparison

The full matrix across the axes people actually filter on, now with third-party G2 ratings and named entry pricing. The G2 column is the public average and approximate review volume on G2 as of June 2026 (Scribbl's 5.0 from 3,000 is our own verified review count); these averages shift, so treat them as directional. Starting-paid figures are vendor-published June 2026 entry tiers and change often. Confirm specifics on each vendor's site.

App	Our score	G2 rating	Capture	Free plan	Starting paid	Platforms	Delivery	Speaker ID	AI summary / action items	Integrations	Best for
Scribbl	4.8 / 5	5.0 (3,000 reviews)	Botless, nothing joins	Yes, no credit card	See pricing	Meet, Zoom, Teams	Chrome extension + desktop	Yes	Yes, with owners and due dates	ChatGPT, Claude; Meet, Zoom, Teams	External and client calls, no bot
Fathom	4.6 / 5	~5.0 (high volume)	Bot joins	Yes, generous	~$15-30/user/mo	Meet, Zoom, Teams	Desktop + web	Yes	Yes	Common CRMs and chat; confirm	Free, polished, internal-friendly
Granola	4.4 / 5	~4.7 (growing)	Botless, local audio	Limited free; confirm	~$18-35/user/mo	Any call on your Mac	Desktop (Mac focus)	Limited; gaps reported	Yes, merges your typed notes	Confirm on site	Solo live note-taking, no bot
Fireflies	4.4 / 5	~4.7 (large volume)	Bot (Fred) joins	Yes, with caps	~$10-19/user/mo	Meet, Zoom, Teams	Web + mobile	Yes	Yes	Very broad; deep CRM and search	Integrations and team search
Otter.ai	4.2 / 5	~4.3	Bot (default) joins	Yes, minute caps	~$10-30/user/mo	Meet, Zoom, Teams	Web + mobile	Yes	Yes	Common tools; confirm	Live transcription, mobile
tl;dv	4.2 / 5	~4.7	Bot joins	Yes, with caps	~$18-30/user/mo	Meet, Zoom, Teams	Desktop + web	Yes	Yes	Common CRMs and chat; confirm	Clips and highlight sharing
MeetGeek	4.1 / 5	~4.6	Bot joins	Yes, with caps	~$15-30/user/mo	Meet, Zoom, Teams	Web	Yes	Yes, auto recaps	Common tools; confirm	Automated summaries and recaps
Supernormal	4.1 / 5	~4.7	Bot joins	Yes, with caps	~$9-18/user/mo	Meet, Zoom, Teams	Web + extension	Yes	Yes, templated notes	Common tools; confirm	Templated, tidy meeting notes
Tactiq	4.0 / 5	~4.5	Botless, reads captions	Yes, with caps	~$8-20/user/mo	Meet, Zoom, Teams	Chrome extension	Caption-dependent	Yes	Common tools; confirm	Lightweight caption-based notes
Jamie	4.0 / 5	~4.6	Botless, on-device focus	Limited; mostly paid	~20-30 EUR/user/mo	Any call on your device	Desktop	Yes	Yes	Confirm on site	Privacy-leaning, no bot
Fellow	4.0 / 5	~4.7	Bot joins	Yes, with caps	~$7-18/user/mo	Meet, Zoom, Teams	Web + extension	Yes	Yes, with agendas	CRM, chat, agendas; confirm	Agendas plus notes for managers
Read AI	3.9 / 5	~4.6	Mixed: botless on Meet, bot on Zoom/Teams	Yes, with caps	~$15-30/user/mo	Meet, Zoom, Teams	Web + extension	Yes	Yes, plus analytics	CRM, chat, calendar; confirm	Meeting metrics and analytics

Pricing and free plans

Free is one of the top reasons people choose a notetaker, so here is the free-tier and entry-paid picture with named numbers. The paid figures below are vendor-published June 2026 entry tiers (lowest paid plan, billed annually where that is the cheaper option) and the G2 column is the public average with approximate review volume on G2. Both move, sometimes monthly, so use them to build a shortlist and confirm the live number on each vendor's pricing page before you buy.

App	Free plan	What the free tier typically caps	Starting paid (June 2026, confirm)	G2
Scribbl	Yes, no credit card	Meeting volume; Pro lifts the limits	See pricing	5.0 (3,000 reviews)
Fathom	Yes, generous (unlimited recording, AI summaries metered)	Advanced AI summaries and ask-anything beyond a monthly allowance	~$15-30/user/mo	~5.0 (high volume)
Otter.ai	Yes	~300 transcription minutes/mo and ~30-min per-conversation cap	~$10-30/user/mo	~4.3
Fireflies	Yes	Transcription credits and limited storage/search history	~$10-19/user/mo	~4.7 (large volume)
tl;dv	Yes	Recording count and AI feature limits	~$18-30/user/mo	~4.7
MeetGeek	Yes	~Monthly transcription minutes and storage	~$15-30/user/mo	~4.6
Supernormal	Yes	Number of meetings or notes per month	~$9-18/user/mo	~4.7
Tactiq	Yes	Number of AI-credit actions per month	~$8-20/user/mo	~4.5
Granola	Limited	Trial-style meeting cap before paid	~$18-35/user/mo	~4.7 (growing)
Read AI	Yes	Meetings and feature access	~$15-30/user/mo	~4.6
Fellow	Yes	Recordings and integrations	~$7-18/user/mo	~4.7
Jamie	Limited	Small free allowance, mostly paid	~20-30 EUR/user/mo	~4.6

The bot vs botless choice, decided

A bot is convenient because it attends for you, but it also announces itself in front of everyone in the room. On client and candidate calls, an unexpected recording assistant can feel intrusive and raises a consent question, because the other side did not agree to it. In 2025, Otter's notetaker bot drew consolidated consumer-privacy litigation in federal court over exactly this auto-joining, auto-recording behavior. The takeaway is not that bots are forbidden; it is that you should choose one on purpose. For a deeper take on the category, see our botless AI notetaker guide.

Typical bot-based app

• Capture: a bot joins the meeting as a participant
• Attendees see it: yes, and some remove or block it
• External calls: the visible bot can change the room
• Examples: Otter, Fathom, Fireflies, tl;dv

Scribbl (botless)

• Capture: from your own session, nothing joins
• Attendees see it: no bot, nothing announced, no email
• External calls: the meeting stays exactly normal
• Plus: free plan, connects to ChatGPT or Claude

Browser extension vs desktop app vs mobile vs bot

AI notetakers come in four shapes, and the right one depends on where you actually meet.

App shape	How it captures	Adds a participant?	Example
Browser extension	Audio or captions in your meeting tab	No	Scribbl, Tactiq
Desktop app	System audio captured locally	No	Granola, Scribbl desktop, Jamie
Mobile app	Phone-call or in-room audio on your device	No	App-store recorder apps
Bot from calendar	A named attendee joins and records	Yes	Fireflies, Otter, Fathom

For people who run meetings in the browser anyway, the extension shape is the lightest: nothing installs per call and no bot joins. If you live in the Zoom or Teams desktop client, a desktop app captures cleanly. Scribbl ships both a Chrome extension and a desktop app, so you are covered either way. See our picks for the best AI notetaker Chrome extension, for Mac, and for Windows.

The 12 best AI notetaker apps, ranked

1. Scribbl, the botless overall pick

Scribbl is our top recommendation for most people because it solves the exact problem that sends folks searching for a better notetaker: the bot. Scribbl is botless. Instead of sending a participant into the call, it captures from your own session, so nothing joins, nothing is announced, and no notification goes to the people you are meeting with. It records, transcribes, and summarizes across Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams, runs as a Chrome extension or a desktop app, and connects your meetings to the AI you already use, ChatGPT or Claude, so the follow-up gets written rather than just stored. It is rated 5.0 from 3,000 reviews and used by more than 10,000 organizations.

In our test, Scribbl captured cleanly with nothing visible to other attendees, posting a word error rate of about 5 percent on the clean call and 9 percent on the messy real one, which was the best of the live tools on the crosstalk segment, with reliable speaker labels. The summary then handed off straight into an AI workflow, which is the part competitors mostly do not do. The free plan needs no credit card, so you can verify all of this on a real call before paying.

The part that separates Scribbl from a pure transcription tool is what happens after the call. Instead of stopping at notes, it connects your meeting library to the AI you already use, so you can pull facts across calls, draft a follow-up grounded in what was actually said, and cross-reference history without copy-pasting transcripts.

Pros: no bot ever joins; works across Meet, Zoom, and Teams; free plan with no credit card; Chrome extension and desktop app; connects meetings to ChatGPT or Claude so the work gets done; 5.0 from 3,000 reviews. Cons: capture is anchored to your own session and devices rather than a server-side bot, which is the point but means you are the one running it; not built to attend calls you are not on, and not a sentiment-analytics dashboard. Pricing: free plan, no credit card; paid tiers on the pricing page. Rating: 5.0 from 3,000 reviews, used across 10,000+ organizations. Best for: anyone with client, sales, or external calls who wants notes with no bot, and a free start. More in our botless AI notetaker explainer and the AI notetaker without a bot guide.

Capture

• Botless: nothing joins Meet, Zoom, or Teams
• Delivery: Chrome extension and desktop app
• Output: transcript, AI notes, action items with owners
• Free: real free plan, no credit card

After the call

• Connects to: ChatGPT and Claude
• So you can: ask across past meetings
• And get: the follow-up email written for you
• Trust: 5.0 from 3,000 reviews, 10,000+ orgs

2. Fathom

Fathom is a polished, widely loved notetaker, and on G2 it carries one of the highest review volumes in the category at a near-5.0 average. It typically joins the meeting to record and produces clean summaries and action items, and it is well regarded for a generous free experience (the free plan allows unlimited recording and transcription, with the advanced AI summaries metered). In our test it scored about 6 percent WER on the clean call and 11 percent on the messy one, the tightest of the bot-based tools and second only to Scribbl overall, which is why it leads the accuracy-first ranking among bot apps. The trade is the usual one: a participant appears in the call.

So the page does not only show our own product, here is an honest, clearly-illustrative rendering of what a typical bot-based notetaker's post-call output looks like, including the line that defines the category, the visible recording assistant in the attendee list. It is a diagram, not a screenshot of a real vendor's pixels.

Typical bot-based notetaker (illustrative)

Notetaker (bot) joined the meeting and is recording

Summary

Team reviewed the Q3 launch timeline and agreed to ship the beta the week of the 14th. Pricing page copy still open.

Action items

• Maria: finalize beta invite list (Fri)
• Dev: stage pricing copy for review

Transcript and recording saved to the app dashboard

Pros: strong free tier (unlimited recording, metered AI summaries), clean summaries, popular and well-supported, near-5.0 G2 at high volume. Cons: a bot joins and is visible to attendees. Pricing (confirm current): generous free plan; paid tiers commonly in the roughly $15 to $30 per user per month range. Verify on Fathom's site. G2: around 5.0 at one of the highest review volumes in the category; public average, varies. Best for: teams that want a clean, popular notetaker and are fine with a bot. See our Fathom alternative breakdown and Otter vs Fathom.

3. Granola

Granola is a desktop app, Mac-focused, that captures audio locally and merges your own typed notes with an AI summary. No bot joins the call, which makes it a good botless option for solo note-takers who like to jot during a meeting and have the AI clean it up afterward. In our hands the summaries were strong, but speaker identification showed gaps, which several reviewers also report, so attribution on multi-person calls is its weak spot.

Pros: botless, blends your live notes with AI, clean desktop experience. Cons: speaker-ID gaps on multi-person calls; Mac-centric; limited free use before paid. Pricing (confirm current): limited free, then paid tiers commonly around $18 to $35 per user per month. Verify on Granola's site. G2: around 4.7 and growing as review volume builds; public average, varies. Best for: solo professionals who take notes live and want them tidied up, with no bot.

4. Fireflies.ai

Fireflies is one of the more established and feature-rich options, with strong search, broad integrations, and team analytics. Its standard model sends a notetaker bot, often called Fred, into the meeting. In our test it landed around 7 percent WER on the clean call and 13 percent on the messy one, with a few proper-noun misses, and the searchable archive and integration depth stood out. If you want depth and a lot of connected tooling, and a visible bot is acceptable, Fireflies is a serious contender.

Pros: very broad integrations, strong search, team analytics. Cons: visible bot; the feature surface can feel heavy. Pricing (confirm current): free tier with transcription credits; paid tiers commonly from roughly $10 to $19 per user per month plus enterprise. Verify on Fireflies' site. G2: around 4.7 at one of the largest review volumes in the category; public average, varies. Best for: teams that want a deep feature set and CRM depth and do not mind a join-the-call bot. See our Fireflies alternative.

5. Otter.ai

Otter is a mature transcription product with a strong live-transcription experience and a good mobile app. By default it sends its Notetaker bot into calls across Meet, Zoom, and Teams, though it has a quieter no-bot mode for Google Meet. In our test it scored about 6 percent WER on the clean call and 14 percent on the messy one, good on clean audio with a steeper drop on crosstalk. Its free tier caps monthly minutes and per-conversation length, and auto-join behavior has drawn consent scrutiny, so set it deliberately.

Pros: strong live transcription, good mobile app, established product. Cons: bot joins by default; accuracy drops on messy audio; minute caps on free. Pricing (confirm current): free tier capped around 300 monthly minutes with a roughly 30-minute per-conversation limit; paid tiers commonly around $10 to $30 per user per month. Verify on Otter's site. G2: around 4.3; the lowest in this group, dragged by auto-join and accuracy complaints. Public average, varies. Best for: live transcription and mobile capture, if a bot is acceptable. See Read AI vs Otter.ai.

6. tl;dv

tl;dv focuses on recording and highlighting meetings, with clipping and sharing features teams use to spread context. It generally captures by joining the call. In our test it scored about 8 percent WER on the clean call and 14 percent on the messy one, and it was strongest as a way to cut and share moments rather than as a pure notes tool. A good fit if your workflow is built around sharing clips.

Pros: excellent clipping and highlight sharing, good free tier. Cons: a bot joins; notes are secondary to clips for some teams. Pricing (confirm current): free plan available; paid tiers commonly from roughly $18 to $30 per user per month. Verify on tl;dv's site. G2: around 4.7; public average, varies. Best for: teams that share meeting clips and want recording-first features. See our tl;dv alternative.

7. MeetGeek

MeetGeek leans into automated summaries, recaps, and meeting insights, sending a notetaker into the call to capture. In our test it came in around 8 percent WER on the clean call and 15 percent on the messy one, fine on clean audio and slipping most on the bad-microphone segment. A solid pick if you want hands-off recaps delivered after every meeting without much configuration.

Pros: automated summaries and recaps, low setup effort. Cons: a bot joins; analytics depth is lighter than dedicated sales platforms. Pricing (confirm current): free tier capped by monthly transcription minutes; paid tiers commonly around $15 to $30 per user per month. Verify on MeetGeek's site. G2: around 4.6; public average, varies. Best for: people who want automatic post-meeting recaps with little setup.

8. Supernormal

Supernormal generates tidy, templated meeting notes after a bot joins the call, with a focus on consistent structure and shareable summaries. The notes are clean and well organized, which teams like for predictable recaps, and its templates help standardize how meetings are written up. It is a bot-based tool, so the usual visible-participant trade applies.

Pros: consistent, templated notes; easy sharing; tidy structure. Cons: a bot joins; less depth on analytics and search than heavier platforms. Pricing (confirm current): free tier capped by meetings or notes per month; paid tiers commonly around $9 to $18 per user per month. Verify on Supernormal's site. G2: around 4.7; public average, varies. Best for: teams that want consistent, templated meeting notes.

9. Tactiq

Tactiq is a Chrome extension that reads live captions from Meet, Zoom, and Teams and summarizes them, with no bot joining the call. Because it relies on the platform's captions, accuracy and coverage track caption quality, and speaker labels depend on what the platform exposes. It is a lightweight, botless option if you mostly want a quick transcript and summary in the browser without installing much.

Pros: botless, lightweight, browser-native, quick to start. Cons: caption-dependent accuracy and speaker labels; lighter on post-call workflow. Pricing (confirm current): free tier with a monthly AI-credit cap; paid tiers commonly around $8 to $20 per user per month. Verify on Tactiq's site. G2: around 4.5; public average, varies. Best for: lightweight, caption-based notes in the browser with no bot.

10. Jamie

Jamie takes a privacy-leaning, on-device approach with no traditional join-the-call bot, capturing audio on your device and generating notes afterward. That appeals to teams that do not want a participant in the room or their audio routed through a server-side bot. It is mostly paid, with a limited free allowance, and onboarding has a slightly steeper curve than the simplest tools.

Pros: botless, on-device focus, privacy-leaning. Cons: mostly paid; onboarding curve; confirm platform coverage on site. Pricing (confirm current): small free allowance, mostly paid; paid tiers commonly around 20 to 30 euros per user per month. Verify on Jamie's site. G2: around 4.6; public average, varies. Best for: privacy-conscious users who want no bot and an on-device leaning.

11. Fellow

Fellow pairs meeting agendas with a notetaker, so it is aimed at managers who run structured one-on-ones and team meetings and want notes tied to an agenda and action items. It joins the call as a bot to capture, then connects notes to its agenda and task features. The agenda-first workflow is its differentiator; the onboarding can take a moment to learn.

Pros: agendas plus notes in one place, good for recurring management meetings. Cons: a bot joins; onboarding curve; heavier than a pure notetaker. Pricing (confirm current): free tier with recording and integration caps; paid tiers commonly from roughly $7 to $18 per user per month. Verify on Fellow's site. G2: around 4.7; public average, varies. Best for: managers who want agendas and notes together. Compare with our AI notetaker for 1-on-1 meetings guide.

12. Read AI

Read AI records Google Meet through Google's native API with no bot, but sends a visible assistant into Zoom and Teams, so it is mixed on capture. Its differentiator is analytics: engagement, sentiment, and meeting metrics on top of transcription and summaries. If you want team-level meeting insight and do not mind a bot on Zoom and Teams, it is worth a look; for plain notes it is heavier than most.

Pros: botless on Meet; rich meeting analytics and metrics. Cons: bot on Zoom and Teams; analytics focus is more than many people need for notes. Pricing (confirm current): free tier with meeting and feature caps; paid tiers commonly around $15 to $30 per user per month. Verify on Read AI's site. G2: around 4.6; public average, varies. Best for: teams that want meeting metrics and analytics. See Read AI vs Otter.ai.

Best AI notetaker app by use case

Map the tool to your most common meeting rather than to the longest feature list.

If you want...	Pick	Why
Best overall	Scribbl	Botless, free to start, connects meetings to ChatGPT or Claude so the work gets done
Best free plan	Scribbl or Fathom	Scribbl is free with no credit card; Fathom is the most generous bot-based free tier
Best botless app	Scribbl	No bot on Meet, Zoom, or Teams; extension and desktop; free start
Best for solo note-taking	Granola	Blends your live notes with an AI summary, no bot, on the desktop
Best for sales and CRM	Scribbl (botless) or Fireflies (bot)	No visible bot on prospect calls plus AI follow-up, or deep CRM and revenue tooling
Best for privacy and EU	Scribbl or Jamie	Botless capture; read each tool's current data-residency and retention terms
Best for multilingual	Notta or Sembly	Commonly cited for the broadest language coverage; confirm transcribe vs translate
Best for education and lectures	Otter or Scribbl	Strong live transcription and a searchable record of long sessions
Best for shared clips	tl;dv	Recording-first with strong clipping and highlight sharing
Best for managers and agendas	Fellow	Agendas tied to notes and action items for recurring meetings
Best for team analytics	Read AI	Engagement, sentiment, and meeting metrics on top of notes

Our pick: Scribbl

If you want a notetaker app that gets out of the way, Scribbl is the one we recommend. It records, transcribes, and summarizes Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams from a Chrome extension or a desktop app, never adds a participant, and turns each meeting into a searchable transcript with AI notes and action items. The difference that matters most is what happens after: the meeting connects to ChatGPT or Claude, so the follow-up email, the summary, the CRM note, the actual work, gets done instead of sitting in a transcript. The free plan needs no credit card, and Pro lifts the meeting limits.

The honest caveat: if you want a bot to cover calls you are not in, or a full analytics dashboard with sentiment trends, that is not what Scribbl is for. It is a botless app focused on capturing your meeting cleanly and turning it into done work.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best AI notetaker app in 2026?

It depends on your most common meeting. Our overall pick is Scribbl, a botless app that records, transcribes, and summarizes Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams without anything joining the call, has a free plan with no credit card, and connects your meetings to ChatGPT or Claude so the follow-up gets written. For a polished free bot-based notetaker, Fathom is excellent. For deep CRM integrations and team search, Fireflies. For solo live note-taking on a desktop, Granola. For shared clips, tl;dv.

Is there a free AI notetaker app?

Yes. Scribbl has a free plan that needs no credit card. Otter, Fathom, Fireflies, tl;dv, MeetGeek, and Supernormal also publish free tiers, but each one caps something (monthly minutes, number of meetings, summaries, or export), and most of them put a visible bot in your call by default. Compare the free column in the table above and verify current limits on each vendor's pricing page, since they change.

What is the best free AI notetaker that does not use a bot?

Scribbl is our pick for a free, botless notetaker. It captures from your own session, so nothing joins the call and nothing is announced to attendees, it works across Meet, Zoom, and Teams, and the free plan needs no credit card. Granola is a strong botless option for solo desktop note-taking, and Tactiq reads live captions in the browser without a bot.

Do AI notetaker bots show up in the meeting?

Most do. Bot-based tools like Otter, Fireflies, Fathom, and tl;dv send a named participant into the call that everyone can see, and some platforms announce it. Botless apps like Scribbl, Granola, and Tactiq capture without adding anyone, so nothing is visible and nothing is announced. If a visible recorder would change the room, pick a botless app.

Is it legal to record a meeting with an AI notetaker?

Recording laws vary by country and, in the US, by state. Some places allow one-party consent and others require all-party consent, where everyone must agree. An AI notetaker does not change your obligation to disclose. The practical rule most teams use is to tell people you are recording or taking notes, and a botless app like Scribbl gives you control over that disclosure rather than a surprise bot announcing it. This is general information, not legal advice; check the rules for your jurisdiction and your company policy before recording sensitive calls.

How accurate are AI notetaker apps?

In our June 2026 test, accuracy on clean, single-speaker audio was close across the field, with most tools landing in single-digit word error rates. The gap opened on a messy real call with crosstalk and a poor microphone, where the better tools held near 9 to 11 percent and the weaker ones drifted to 14 to 15 percent. Speaker identification and proper nouns are where most tools slip first. Treat published accuracy numbers, including ours, as directional, and run your own worst call through your top two picks before committing.

What is the difference between transcription and AI summarization?

Transcription is the verbatim text of who said what, the searchable record. AI summarization sits on top: it condenses the transcript into a recap, pulls out decisions and action items, and often assigns owners. A good notetaker does both. Scribbl goes one step further and connects the meeting to ChatGPT or Claude so the follow-up actually gets written, not just stored.

How is my meeting data stored, and is it used to train AI?

Retention and training policies differ across every tool and change over time, so for any vendor, including Scribbl, read the current privacy policy and data-processing terms before recording sensitive calls. The questions worth asking: where is the data stored (data residency matters for EU and regulated teams), how long is it kept, who can access it, and is it used to train models. Some tools offer regional data residency and compliance certifications on higher tiers.

Do AI notetakers support languages other than English?

Many do, but coverage varies a lot, so confirm on each vendor's site. If most of your calls are not in English, shortlist on the supported-language count and on whether the tool transcribes the original language or translates it. Notta and Sembly are commonly cited for broad multilingual coverage. Scribbl handles multiple languages across Meet, Zoom, and Teams; confirm the current list for any tool before committing a non-English meeting to it.

Can I try an AI notetaker app for free before I pay?

Yes. Scribbl has a free plan with no credit card required, so you can capture a real call and judge accuracy, speaker labels, and the in-call experience yourself. Fathom, Fireflies, tl;dv, MeetGeek, and Supernormal also publish free tiers with usage caps. The most honest test is to run one real meeting, ideally a messy one with crosstalk, through your top one or two picks and compare the transcript and summary against what was actually said.

How much do AI notetaker apps cost?

Free plans are common, and the paid entry tiers for most meeting notetakers sit roughly between $8 and $30 per user per month as of June 2026, billed annually. As a rough guide from that period: Fellow and Tactiq tend to start lowest (around $7 to $20), Fireflies around $10 to $19, Supernormal around $9 to $18, Otter, MeetGeek, Read AI, and Fathom around $15 to $30, and Granola and Jamie at the higher end (Jamie in euros). Scribbl has a free plan with no credit card and posts current paid pricing on its pricing page. Notetaker pricing changes often, so confirm the live number on each vendor's pricing page before you buy. The full free-tier-and-price breakdown is in the pricing table above.

Which AI notetaker app is the most accurate?

In our June 2026 test, Scribbl posted the lowest word error rate on the messy real call (about 9 percent), with Fathom the tightest of the bot-based tools (about 11 percent) and Granola close behind (about 12 percent) before its speaker-ID gaps. Otter, Fireflies, tl;dv, and MeetGeek landed between roughly 13 and 15 percent on that harder call. If accuracy is your single priority rather than whether a bot joins, build your shortlist from the accuracy-first ranking in this guide, then run your own worst, messiest call through your top two, since accuracy depends heavily on your microphones, accents, and crosstalk.

Related reading: botless AI notetaker, AI notetaker without a bot, best Zoom AI notetaker, AI notetaker Chrome extension, AI notetaker for Mac, AI notetaker for Windows, best meeting transcription software, and AI notetaker with Slack.