Transcribe Meetings and Interviews
Otter.ai and Fireflies compared -- live meeting transcription, summaries, and action items.
An AI note-taker joins your video call, transcribes everyone in real time, and emails you a clean summary with action items the moment the meeting ends. For most people taking part in regular meetings, this is the single most time-saving AI tool on the site. It also has consent implications that the marketing pages tend to gloss over, so we will get to those too.
Meeting transcription services
| Otter.ai | |
|---|---|
| What it is | AI meeting transcription and note-taking assistant |
| Best at | Real-time transcription during meetings, automated summaries, action item extraction, speaker identification |
| Free tier | Free tier with 300 minutes per month of transcription |
| First paid tier | Pro - US$8.33/month annual (~A$13/month) or US$16.99/month (~A$27/month) |
| Ken's take | Otter is the tool I would recommend first for meeting transcription. The free tier at 300 minutes per month is generous enough for most people. It integrates with Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet. The summaries and action item extraction save real time after meetings. The bot joins the meeting visibly, so everyone present can see "Otter Notetaker" in the participant list, which matters for consent (see below). |
| Sign up | https://otter.ai |
| Fireflies.ai | |
|---|---|
| What it is | AI meeting assistant with transcription, summaries, and conversation intelligence |
| Best at | Meeting transcription, CRM integration, conversation analytics, team collaboration on meeting notes |
| Free tier | Free tier with limited transcription and storage |
| First paid tier | Pro Plan - US$10/month (~A$16/month) |
| Ken's take | Very similar to Otter in core functionality. Fireflies has stronger integrations with CRM and project management tools if you need that. For most individuals, either Otter or Fireflies will do the job. I would start with Otter for simplicity. |
| Sign up | https://fireflies.ai |
| Granola | |
|---|---|
| What it is | Mac-only meeting notes that capture the audio directly through your computer, without joining the meeting as a bot |
| Best at | Meetings where you do not want a visible "AI attendee" in the participant list. Structured summaries delivered to your notes app of choice |
| Free tier | Free tier with limited monthly meetings |
| First paid tier | Pro - US$14/month (~A$22/month) or US$120/year |
| Ken's take | This is the tool I reach for when joining a meeting where adding a third-party bot would be awkward. Granola listens through your Mac's audio without anyone else seeing it, then produces a structured summary. It still respects consent (you should still tell people you are taking AI-assisted notes), but the etiquette feels different to having Otter join as a visible participant. Mac-only, which is the catch. Windows and Linux users have to use Otter or Fireflies. The summary quality is genuinely better than the bot-based competitors in my testing. |
| Sign up | https://granola.ai |
A note on consent
In Australia, recording a private conversation generally requires the consent of the people taking part. State surveillance-device laws vary, but the safe rule is to tell people that an AI note-taker is on the call. In a video meeting this is usually obvious because Otter or Fireflies appears as a participant, but it is still good practice to mention it at the top of the call. ("I have an AI note-taker on, it transcribes and produces a summary, no recording is shared outside this group, please let me know if you would prefer it off.") If anyone says no, turn it off.
The same goes for in-person conversations recorded through Otter on your phone. The other person should know.
Try this right now (free)
Sign up for Otter.ai and use it in your next meeting or phone call (with the other parties' awareness). Let it record and transcribe. After the meeting, check the auto-generated summary and see how much time it would have saved you taking notes manually.