How to choose an AI notetaker

A notetaker feels like relief and behaves like a recording device. Choosing one is mostly a consent and storage decision, and only then a feature decision. Last reviewed October 2026.

Decide if you need a bot in the call

If you have a few calls a week and you can jot actions, you do not need a bot. A doc is enough. If calls are the work and actions keep disappearing, a notetaker is a reasonable tool.

Otter.ai records meetings and produces a transcript and a summary. Fireflies.ai joins calls, transcribes them, and files a summary for a team. Both publish free and paid plans. The difference to test is not the adjective on the homepage. It is whether the summary lands where your team will look, and how long audio is kept.

Gemini Notebook is not a meeting bot. It is a notebook for sources you upload. Use it after the call if you are allowed to store the notes there. Do not confuse it with a recorder.

Ask four questions before you connect a calendar

1. Will every participant be told, in the first minute, that a recording or a bot is present?
2. What happens if someone declines? You need a way to take notes without the bot.
3. How long are audio and transcripts kept, and can you delete them? Read the current policy, not a review.
4. Does the client’s contract allow a third-party recorder? If it does not, stop.

If you cannot answer these, do not connect the calendar. Connecting a calendar “just to try” invites the bot to a call you forgot about.

Test on one internal meeting

Use a meeting where everyone has agreed. Afterward, check the summary against what you remember:

• Are the action items real, with the right owner?
• Did it invent a decision you did not make?
• Can you find the moment in the transcript when you need to?

If the summary invents decisions, do not send it to anyone as the record. Use the transcript as a scratch pad and write the notes yourself. A wrong summary forwarded to a client is worse than no summary.

Keep the record you would want later

Store the approved notes in the place you already trust, such as the project page in Notion or the document the client can see. Do not leave the only copy inside a tool you might cancel. Export after the meeting if the plan makes export easy. If export is painful, that is part of the price. The pricing guide covers meters and retention add-ons that do not show up in the big number.

Tell your future self, in the note, that a tool drafted the summary and a person checked it. That sentence keeps the habit honest.