What Is Granola AI? How It Works, Price and Who It's For (2026)

Granola AI is an AI notepad for meetings: it runs on your Mac, Windows PC or phone, transcribes the call from your device's audio with no bot joining, and turns the notes you type into AI meeting notes. It doesn't record or save audio or video, so if you want the same no-bot notes plus the video of every meeting, with nothing to type, Scribbl is the pick, and the free plan includes Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams: Start free.

Below is what Granola is, how it captures a meeting, what it keeps and throws away, what each plan costs, who it's built for, and why Scribbl is the better pick for most people asking. Every Granola fact comes from Granola's own pages and help docs and from TechCrunch, checked on October 23, 2026. We make Scribbl. We compared Granola from its own pages; we didn't create a Granola account.

What is Granola AI?

Granola's homepage calls it "The AI notepad for back-to-back meetings," with "Notes, actions and memory" and "Without a meeting bot." It's an app you run on your own device during a call:

• On your computer: the Granola desktop app for macOS or Windows transcribes meetings. Granola says it "Works with Zoom, Google Meet, Teams and every other meeting app."
• On your phone: apps for iPhone and Android. Granola launched its Android app on July 1, 2026.
• On the web: notes.granola.ai lets you read and edit notes, but transcription needs the desktop or phone app.

After the call you get AI notes, action items and a follow-up you can share, plus a chat to ask about one meeting or all of them. Granola also preps a brief before external meetings from your calendar.

The company. Chris Pedregal and Sam Stephenson founded Granola in 2023, according to TechCrunch. It raised a $20 million Series A in October 2024, a $43 million Series B at a $250 million valuation in May 2025, and a $125 million Series C at a $1.5 billion valuation on March 25, 2026, led by Index Ventures with Kleiner Perkins. TechCrunch puts the total raised at $192 million.

How Granola works

Granola is a notepad first. Here's what happens in a meeting, from Granola's help docs:

1. It listens on your device. Granola "runs only on your computer and uses your system audio and microphone," with no meeting bot. Nothing joins the call, so other people don't see a Granola participant.
2. The audio goes to a transcription provider. "Granola passes audio directly from your microphone and system audio to our transcription provider." Its security page names Deepgram and Assembly.
3. You type as much or as little as you like. Granola's homepage: "Write down as much or as little as you like."
4. It writes enhanced notes when the call ends. Granola combines the transcript, your raw notes and the calendar event. Your own notes show in black, and a magnifying glass next to each line shows where in the transcript it came from (AI enhanced notes).
5. You can reshape the notes. Built-in and custom templates, and "recipes," saved prompts you run by typing "/" in Granola chat.

Speaker names. On the Mac and Windows apps, Granola tags speakers for Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Without speaker tags, "transcripts show Me and Them," your microphone and everyone else (speaker attribution).

Telling people. Because nothing joins the call, other people don't see that Granola is running unless you tell them. Granola's docs say "It is best practice to make sure participants know when you use AI notetaking tools," and offer an optional chat message and a camera watermark in settings (getting consent). An org-wide notice is an Enterprise feature that Granola's pricing page marks as a pilot. Whatever tool you use, tell everyone you're recording.

What Granola keeps, and what it throws away

Granola keeps the transcript and your notes. It doesn't keep the meeting itself. In Granola's words, it "does not record or save audio or video at any point during the call," and its security page says "Granola doesn't store the audio from meetings." On the phone apps, audio is "temporarily cached" while the meeting is transcribed.

That means there's no video to rewatch, no screen share to look back at, and no audio to check when the transcript and the notes disagree. If a client says "that's not what I said," the transcript is all you have.

Do it with Scribbl: no bot, and you keep the video

If you like that Granola has no bot but want the meeting itself, Scribbl does the job with nothing joining the call and keeps the video, and you don't have to type anything:

1. Add Scribbl. The Chrome extension for Google Meet, or Scribbl Desktop for Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows for Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
2. Join your meeting as usual, as host or guest. Nothing joins the call. Tell everyone you're recording.
3. Open the notes when it ends. You get the video recording, a transcript with speaker names, AI notes and action items.

The free plan includes Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams, with 10 meetings a month. Start free.

Granola pricing

Granola has three plans, priced per user per month in US dollars, from granola.ai/pricing on October 23, 2026. The page shows monthly prices only. Scribbl is first for comparison. For what a team pays and how billing works, see Granola pricing.

Feature	Scribbl	Granola Basic	Granola Business	Granola Enterprise
Price	Free plan; Pro $13 billed annually, or $20 monthly	$0	$14	$35
Does anything join the call?	No	No	No	No
Video of the meeting	Every meeting, free plan included	– No	– No	– No
Who takes the notes	Scribbl, with nothing to type	You type; AI fills in	You type; AI fills in	You type; AI fills in
Meeting history on the plan	Free plan: 10 meetings a month	Last 30 days visible	Unlimited	Unlimited
Follow-up after the call	Automations draft the email, log notes in HubSpot or Pipedrive, post to Slack or Teams	Slack	Notion, HubSpot, Attio, Affinity and Zapier	Business, plus admin controls

Basic, $0. "Unlimited meeting notes for free," AI chat within and across meetings, shared folders, custom templates and the option to "Opt out of model training any time." The limit is history: Granola says to "Upgrade to view and work with notes older than 30 days." (One older Granola blog post says 14 days; the pricing page and homepage say 30.)

Business, $14. "Unlimited meeting notes and history," advanced AI models, integrations with Attio, Notion, HubSpot, Affinity and Zapier, MCP in your other apps and API access.

Enterprise, $35. SSO, org-wide auto-deletion periods, admin controls for sharing and API access, and opting out of model training for the whole team.

Is Granola safe?

Granola says it meets "SOC 2 Type 2 standards," stores notes in "our US-hosted AWS Virtual Private Cloud," and doesn't let OpenAI or Anthropic train on your data. Its own models are another matter: "By default on Free and Business plans, anonymised data may be used for Granola's own model improvements," and you can opt out in settings (security FAQ).

Granola is also the defendant in Chamberlain v. Granola, Inc., No. 3:26-cv-07926, a proposed class action filed July 30, 2026 in federal court in Northern California. It alleges Granola records other people in meetings without notice and uses that data to train its AI by default. These are allegations, and no court has ruled. For the details, see is Granola AI safe.

Who Granola is for

Granola is built for people who like to type their own notes in meetings and want AI to tidy them up afterward, and who don't need the recording: Granola's pricing page pitches Business at "individuals or small teams." For everyone who wants the meeting captured for them, with the video to go back to and the follow-up done, Scribbl is the better pick. For how Granola fits each meeting app and computer, see does Granola work with Zoom, Teams, Outlook and Windows.

Granola vs Scribbl: the better pick

Scribbl is an AI note taker for Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams, and for most people looking at Granola it's the better pick. Like Granola, nothing joins the call: a Chrome extension for Google Meet, and Scribbl Desktop for Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows for Zoom and Teams. Unlike Granola, you don't type during the call and nothing is thrown away: every meeting comes back with the video recording, a transcript with speaker names, AI notes and action items.

It also does the work after the call. Smart Collections sort your meetings by themselves. Automations do the follow-up when a meeting lands in a collection: they draft the follow-up email (copy it or open it in Gmail; it never sends by itself), log a note in HubSpot or Pipedrive, post to Slack or Microsoft Teams, save to Google Drive, Notion or Confluence, open an Asana, Monday, Linear or Jira ticket, or add a Google Sheet row. They ask before they change anything by default. On Pro, connect Scribbl to ChatGPT or Claude and ask about past meetings. Recordings are private by default, and Scribbl doesn't use your meetings to train AI for anyone other than you.

Feature	Scribbl	Granola
Does anything join the call?	No	No
Video of the meeting	Yes, every meeting	No; it does not record or save audio or video
Who takes the notes	Scribbl captures the whole meeting; no typing	You type rough notes; its AI fills them in from the transcript
Transcript with speaker names	Yes	Speaker tags on desktop for Meet, Zoom and Teams; otherwise Me and Them
Free plan	10 meetings a month on Google Meet, Zoom and Teams	Unlimited notes, but only the last 30 days visible
Follow-up after the call	Automations draft the email, log notes in HubSpot or Pipedrive, post to Slack or Teams, open tickets	Integrations beyond Slack start on Business
Your meetings used to train AI	Not for anyone other than you	Anonymized data may be, on Free and Business, unless you opt out
Paid plan	Pro, $13 per user billed annually, or $20 monthly	Business, $14 per user per month

For more options side by side, see the best Granola alternatives.

The short version. Granola is a notepad: you type, its AI tidies up, and the audio is gone. Scribbl is automatic: nothing joins the call, and you keep the video, a transcript with speaker names, AI notes and action items for every meeting. The free plan includes Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams, with 10 meetings a month. Start free.

FAQ

What is Granola AI?

Granola is an AI notepad for meetings. It runs on Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android, transcribes the call from your device's audio with no bot joining, and combines the transcript with the notes you type into AI meeting notes. It doesn't record or save audio or video. Granola was founded in 2023 by Chris Pedregal and Sam Stephenson and raised a $125 million Series C at a $1.5 billion valuation in March 2026.

How does Granola work?

You open Granola on your computer during a Zoom, Google Meet, Teams or other call. It sends your microphone and system audio to its transcription provider while you type rough notes, and when the call ends it writes enhanced notes from the transcript, your notes and the calendar event. No bot joins the call, and Granola says it does not record or save audio or video at any point.

Is Granola AI free?

Yes. Granola's Basic plan is $0 per user per month with unlimited meeting notes, but you can only see the last 30 days of meeting history. Business is $14 per user per month and adds unlimited history, advanced integrations, MCP and API access. Enterprise is $35 per user per month. Granola's pricing page shows monthly prices only.

Does Granola record the meeting?

No. Granola says it does not record or save audio or video at any point during the call. It keeps the transcript and the notes you write. On the phone apps, audio is cached only while the meeting is transcribed. So there is no recording to play back if you want to check exactly what was said.

Is Granola safe?

Granola says it meets SOC 2 Type 2 standards and stores notes in a US-hosted AWS private cloud. On the Free and Business plans it may use anonymized data to improve its own models unless you opt out. It is also the defendant in Chamberlain v. Granola, a proposed class action filed July 30, 2026, which alleges it records people without notice. No court has ruled on those claims.

Is there an AI note taker like Granola that keeps the video?

Yes. Scribbl, which we make, works with nothing joining the call, like Granola, but keeps the video recording and does the note taking for you. Every Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams meeting comes back with the video, a transcript with speaker names, AI notes and action items. The free plan includes Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams, with 10 meetings a month. Start free.

Is Scribbl free, and will people see anything join the call?

Yes, Scribbl has a free plan, and no, nothing joins the call, so no extra name appears in the participant list, whether or not you are the host. The free plan includes Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams, with 10 meetings a month, and every meeting gets the video, a transcript with speaker names, AI notes and action items. Tell everyone you're recording. Start free.

Sources

Every Granola fact above was checked on these pages on October 23, 2026.

• Granola: homepage, pricing, security, integrations, Introducing Granola for Android
• Granola help docs: transcription, AI enhanced notes, speaker attribution, getting consent, security, privacy and data FAQs, MCP
• TechCrunch: Granola debuts an AI notepad for meetings (May 22, 2024), Series A (October 23, 2024), Series B (May 14, 2025), recipes (September 30, 2025), Series C (March 25, 2026)
• The lawsuit: Chamberlain v. Granola, Inc., No. 3:26-cv-07926 (N.D. Cal.), via CourtListener
• Scribbl: pricing