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By one estimate, executives spend nearly 23 hours a week in meetings on average, and few of them believe that time is totally well spent. One of the tangible workplace promises of artificial intelligence is to improve the quality of meetings, through automated transcription and other features.
Charter tested seven different AI meeting-notes tools, some that take notes by adding a bot to virtual meetings and some that rely on data from your computer’s speakers and microphone without the use of an in-meeting bot. (We’ll cover the differences between these two types of tools, as well as advantages and drawbacks of each, later in this review.)
Our pick for an in-meeting note-taking bot was Circleback for its excellent summarization and speaker recognition, while our pick for external note-takers was Krisp, for its ease of use and detailed notes. We also enjoyed using Granola, a tool better suited for individuals who want to rely mostly on manual note-taking, with additions or reorganization by an AI assistant.
(We’ve previously covered AI transcription services—some of these, like Otter.AI and Fireflies, also include a meeting note-taking feature and are included in this review. Read our full review of AI transcription services if you’re looking for a tool that generates transcripts, rather than a live note-taker and summarizer for meetings.)
Beyond saving time and helping teams stay on the same page with information-sharing and clear followups, outsourcing note-taking to an AI bot could make the distribution of labor on your team more equitable. Note-taking, meeting follow-up, and other supporting tasks not explicitly included in one person’s job responsibilities are often “non-promotable tasks'' (NPTs). In many workplaces, NPTs often fall disproportionately to women, eating up their time and limiting their ability to secure raises, prestigious assignments, and promotions.
Our picks
Circleback
Our top pick for an in-meeting note-taking bot for its excellent summarization and speaker recognition features, as well as streamlined interface and premium features. Although it’s among the most expensive of the tools we tested, we think its stellar performance and features make it worth it.
PROS
- Meeting transcripts are accurate and detailed, summaries and action item sections accurately capture the key moments and decisions of meetings, and speaker recognition is stellar.
- Integrates easily to work calendars, making it easy to add the Circleback bot to meetings. Also features integrations to Slack, Notion, HubSpot, Salesforce, Zapier, and CRM softwares, among others.
- Includes premium features such as automatic notes and action-item sharing to all meeting attendees, AI-powered search across all meeting transcripts, and an AI copilot that can answer questions about past meetings.
CONS
- Circleback was among the most expensive tools we tested, at $25/month for an individual subscription.
- Out of all the tools we tested, Circleback took the longest to generate the meeting transcript and summary. The difference was only a matter of minutes, however, and did not impact our experience using the tool.
Krisp
Our top pick for note-taking apps that do not use an in-meeting bot (although its pro version does include a beta version of bot recording). We chose Krisp for its excellent usability and premium features, as well as competitive pricing.
PROS
- Krisp records meetings using your computer’s own microphone and speakers, which means that there’s no need to add a bot to meetings that may distract attendees.
- Generates accurate summaries and transcripts for meetings, with stellar speaker recognition.
- The desktop app features a widget in the toolbar, which allows users to easily turn the note taker on and off, edit microphone and speaker settings, and even view and join upcoming meetings
- The free version offers a generous number of transcriptions and meeting notes/summaries, and its pro plan is just $12 per month for unlimited notes and summaries.
CONS
- Unlike Circleback, Krisp doesn’t offer an extensive set of integrations to other workplace apps beyond work calendars.
- While testing, we did encounter an error generating action items, but after refreshing the app, they appeared.
Granola
Our pick for users who prefer to manually take meeting notes but want an AI assistant to reorganize their notes, add anything they may have missed, or generate a transcript to reference after the meeting. Although it does also take automated notes, the feature didn’t capture the highlights and action items as accurately as some competitors. Like Krisp, it doesn’t require a bot to record meetings.
PROS
- When connected to a user’s calendar, the app automatically opens a notepad for users to take notes. After the meeting, users can generate AI-enhanced notes that add in missed points or reorganize the meeting notes for flow.
- The notepad also includes a live transcript, controls for recording, and attendees for the meeting.
- The interface features a chat interface, “ask Granola,” which allows users to ask about themes, action items, or quotes from the conversation.
CONS
- The interface is almost too streamlined—it can be confusing to find the full transcript after meetings are over.
- If users are not taking detailed notes, the AI won’t be able to fill in all the gaps.
Our process
We tested seven tools—Circleback, Fireflies.ai, Granola, Krisp, Notta, Otter.ai, and Shadow—by using each of them to take notes during Charter’s internal meetings. When available, we integrated our meeting calendar with the note-taking app, then started recording either by allowing a bot to join a meeting, or by turning on the external note taker. When testing Granola, we took meetings during the meeting within the app’s notepad. Afterwards, we reviewed the resulting notes.
We took note of the experience before and during the meeting, as well as the quality of the notes that the tools produced. We scored each platform on ease of use, performance (speaker recognition, summarization, and accuracy), sharing and integrations, speed, and user experience.
Our recommendations
When compared with competitors, Circleback and Krisp emerged as the best-in-class platforms for in-meeting bots and external note-takers, respectively. We also recommend Granola as an alternative option for users who’d like to keep taking notes manually—a unique offering among the tools we tested.
Tools that rely on in-meeting bots (Circleback, Fireflies AI, Otter AI, and Notta) ask users to connect their meetings app, whether that’s Google Meet, Zoom, Teams, or another video-conferencing platform. After attending the meeting, the bots will generate meeting notes and summaries, with features to share the notes with all attendees.
External recording tools, however, use data from the computer’s local speakers and microphone to record the audio from virtual meetings, meaning that a bot does not have to join meetings as an attendee. For some users, the lack of a bot is preferable, as the presence of another meeting attendee can be distracting (or even unsettling for unprepared colleagues).
It’s important to note that whether you’re using an in-meeting bot or an external note-taker, it’s best practice to disclose that you’re recording the call. Beyond simple meeting etiquette, acquiring consent from all parties before recording a call is required by law for some or all circumstances in 15 states.
For the tools themselves, Circleback and Krisp stood out for their performance and ease of use, features and integrations, and visual appeal. For both of our top picks, we had no issues adding them to meetings (other tools we tested occasionally glitched out and missed meetings or joined them late). The meeting notes they generated were also outstanding in accuracy, especially in identifying important decisions, themes, and action items.
Both offered features and integrations that improved usability and value. Circleback includes premium features like a chat function with an AI assistant and automatic sharing with meeting attendees, while Krisp’s desktop widget doubles as an excellent calendar management tool. One click shows the user’s upcoming meetings for the day, and the widget can send reminders for upcoming meetings directly to the desktop. Both integrate easily with work calendars, and Circleback offers several other integrations to workplace softwares like Slack and Salesforce.
Both tools had streamlined, intuitive interfaces that made learning and using the platforms easy and convenient.
Pricing deep dive
All of our picks require users to pay a monthly (or annual) fee to access the platforms’ full features, though each of them also offers free trials for users to test them out before committing to the free version. Circleback and Krisp also offer team pricing. Here’s a full pricing breakdown of each of our picks:
Circleback offers a seven-day free trial. After the trial expires, users can choose from an individual or team plan:
- Individual plans cost $25/month (or $20.83 if billed annually). With an individual plan, users get notes, action items, and meeting transcriptions for an unlimited number of live meetings, as well as the ability to import audio or video recordings.
- Team membership costs $30/month per seat (or $25 if billed annually). Team memberships have access to the full suite of individual features, as well as sharing permissions among the team, Slack huddles support, and AI-powered search that allows users to ask questions about meetings they didn’t participate in.
Krisp offers a 7-day free trial of its pro features, as well as three pricing levels:
- The free version includes unlimited meeting transcriptions and two AI meeting notes and summaries per day.
- The pro version costs $12/month per seat ($8 if billed annually). It includes unlimited meeting transcriptions and AI meeting notes and summaries.
- The enterprise level includes call-center transcription and AI accent localization. Enquire for enterprise pricing and terms.
Granola offers a free trial that allows you to access the full features for 25 meetings. To continue using the app, you need to upgrade to a pro plan for $10/month.
How we chose what to review
We sourced our seven candidates using online research and suggestions from online workplace forums on Slack and Reddit. To narrow down our list, we included tools that focus on note-taking, summarizing, and generating action items from live meetings. We did not include services that are primarily AI transcription services or more tailored tools, like BuildBetter, which is designed specifically for product teams. We also didn’t include Microsoft Copilot, an integrated tool within Microsoft Teams that also generates AI notes, as it’s only available to Microsoft Teams users.
