AI meeting notes tools compared for 2026

For most people the best AI note taker is the one already inside the call tool they use, or Fathom if you want a free standalone one. Paid standalone tools add search, templates and team features.

By RespireSoft. Published 31 October 2026. Prices and product status checked 31 October 2026. 9 min read.

If you want the short answer: start with the notes that come with your meeting tool, because they cost nothing extra on some plans and need no bot. If you want a note taker that works across Zoom, Google Meet and Teams, look at Fathom (free tier with unlimited recordings), Otter, Fireflies or Read AI. All prices below were checked on the vendors' own pages on 31 October 2026 and can change, so read the page before you buy.

This post covers what each tool actually gives you, where the limits are, and what to think about before you let any AI listen to a meeting. It is not a ranking by quality. We have not run a blind test of summary accuracy, and we will not pretend to have one.

Two kinds of AI note takers#

Standalone note takers (Otter, Fireflies, Fathom, Read AI) join your meeting as a bot or a browser extension, record or transcribe it, and send you a summary, action items and a searchable transcript. They work across several meeting tools. Their value is search across all your meetings, templates for different meeting types, and integrations with a CRM or task tool.

Built-in notes (Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams) come from the meeting platform itself. No extra bot appears in the participant list, and the admin of the account controls them. The limit is that they only work inside that one platform, and on some plans they are not included.

The tools side by side#

Vendor pages used, all checked 31 October 2026: otter.ai/pricing, fathom.ai/pricing, read.ai/pricing, zoom.us/pricing, workspace.google.com/pricing. Fireflies is explained below.

Otter#

Otter is the best known of the group. On its pricing page the free Basic plan gives 300 transcription minutes per user each month, with a 30 minute cap per conversation, and an AI chat allowance of 20 queries a month. Pro gives 1,200 minutes and 90 minutes per conversation. Business and Enterprise list unlimited meeting transcription and a 4 hour cap per conversation.

The page mixes list prices with promotions. It shows Pro at $16.99 per user monthly with a second figure of $8.49 marked "save 50%", and annual figures of $8.33 and $4.17. We could not tell which of these is the standing price, so we quote only the monthly list figures in the table and say that the annual numbers are unclear. Business was shown at $24 monthly (struck from $30) and $19.99 billed annually.

Otter's strength is that it has been around long and has a large set of templates and workflows. Its weakness for light users is the 300 minute free allowance, which a few meetings a week will use up.

Fireflies#

Fireflies is built for teams that want every meeting stored and searchable, with AI credits for questions and skills. When our tool fetched fireflies.ai/pricing, the page named the plans (Free, Pro, Business, Enterprise) but did not show dollar figures in the text we could read, so we could not confirm prices there.

The figures in the table come from Fireflies' own blog post, Fireflies pricing, which plan is right for you, dated 10 July 2026: Pro $10 per seat per month billed annually or $18 monthly, Business $19 or $29, Enterprise $39 billed annually only. It lists Free storage at 400 minutes per team and Pro at 8,000 minutes per seat. The post does not give AI credit amounts per plan. Treat these as the vendor's figures from July, not as today's pricing page.

Fathom#

Fathom is the one to try first if you want a standalone tool at no cost. Its pricing page lists unlimited recordings, transcription and instant AI call summaries on the free plan. Paid plans are Premium ($20 monthly, $16 billed annually), Team ($19 and $15, two user minimum) and Business ($34 and $25, two user minimum). Enterprise is "talk to sales".

Some AI features, such as AI action items and certain Ask Fathom options, are marked "limited use", and the page does not say what the limit is. Fathom is built mostly around video calls, so check that it supports the call tool you use.

Read AI#

Read AI sells summaries, a meeting coach and search across meetings, email and messages. The free plan gives 5 transcripts and 5 meeting reports a month and meetings up to one hour. Pro is $19.75 monthly or $15 billed annually, with unlimited transcripts and a 4 hour limit. Enterprise ($29.75 monthly, $22.50 annually) needs five or more licenses. Enterprise+ lists HIPAA and SAML support.

The page also says "30 meetings measured per month" on every plan, which does not clearly fit the free plan's limit of five. We could not reconcile the two statements.

Zoom, Google Meet and Teams built-in notes#

Zoom. On zoom.us/pricing, Zoom Workplace Basic includes meeting summaries for 3 hosted meetings a month and 40 minute meetings. Pro ($16.99 monthly, $14.16 billed annually) and Business ($21.99 monthly, $18.33 annually) list unlimited meeting summaries. Zoom's help page on meeting summary says the host switches it on during the meeting, the summary covers only the time from when it was switched on, and the host receives it and can share it by email or chat. That page does not say whether other participants are told when a summary is running, so we could not confirm that.

Google Meet. The Meet help page for Take notes for me says the feature needs an eligible Workspace edition or Google AI plan, supports English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish, one language at a time, and is recommended for meetings from 15 minutes to 8 hours. Meet tells all participants when notes are being taken with a pencil icon, and admins can require explicit consent. Google's pricing page shows Gemini in Meet notes on Standard, Plus and Enterprise, not on Starter. In euros it listed Standard at 13.60 and Plus at 21.10 per user a month billed monthly, with a temporary 50 percent offer. Prices vary by country.

Microsoft Teams. Microsoft's Meeting Recaps help page says intelligent recaps, with AI summaries and tasks, need a Microsoft Copilot license or a Teams Premium license, and audio and video recaps need Copilot. Without one you can still read transcripts and recordings you have permission to see. We could not fetch a current Teams plan price page, so we give no Teams prices. Check Microsoft's own page.

Where the built-in tools win, and where the bots win#

Built-in notes win on privacy review, because your admin already approved the platform, and on simplicity, because there is no bot to explain. They lose when your calls are spread over several tools, or when the plan that includes AI notes costs more than you wanted to pay.

Standalone tools win on search across months of meetings, on templates, and on integrations. They lose when a bot in the participant list makes a client uncomfortable, or when per-seat pricing grows with the team.

Privacy and consent#

Recording or transcribing a call is a legal matter in many places. Some jurisdictions need every participant to agree. Tell people before you start, say who will see the notes, and use the tool's own notice. Google Meet shows a pencil icon and offers an admin consent step. Whatever tool you choose, check where the transcript is stored, how long it is kept, and whether the vendor may use it to train models. Those answers are on each vendor's privacy page, and we did not review them here.

Where RespireSoft Meet fits#

RespireSoft Meet is a meeting service and an API for developers, not a note taker for other platforms. It only takes notes in its own rooms. We say what it does today, based on our code.

• Notes are made from the live captions. Captions must be running, because the notes read the caption lines.
• About every five minutes (the interval is a setting), once at least 40 new words have been spoken, an AI model updates the notes. When the meeting ends, a final pass runs.
• The notes hold a running summary, decisions, to do items (with an owner and a due date only if someone said them), questions still open, and whether each agenda item was covered.
• They are written in the language most spoken in the meeting, and the model is told not to invent decisions nobody made.
• A chip that says "AI notes on" shows in the room and everyone in the room can read the notes. Notes can be switched off for a single room, and for a whole project.
• Developers can get webhooks when notes update and when the final summary is ready, and download the transcript as JSON, text, VTT or SRT.

What it does not do: it does not join Zoom, Teams or Meet calls, it has no CRM integration, and we have not measured its accuracy against the tools above. The pricing page lists captions at $0.004 per minute and recording, with transcript and chat, at $0.0009 per minute, and says billing is not on yet. It lists no separate price for notes, so we cannot say what they will cost. Competitors are ahead on integrations and polish. If you want captions and notes inside one meeting you host or embed, see the captions and translation guide, the live captions tool and how to add live captions to a meeting.

Questions people ask#

Is there a good free AI note taker? Fathom's free plan lists unlimited recordings and AI summaries. Otter, Read AI and Fireflies have free tiers with smaller limits.

Do I need a bot in the call? Not with Zoom, Meet or Teams built-in notes. Standalone tools usually add a bot or an extension.

Are AI notes accurate? They depend on the audio and the speech recognition. Names, accents and noise cause mistakes. Read the notes before you send them on.

For related reading, see Google Meet vs Zoom vs Teams and Zoom alternatives.