Summary: AI meeting assistants record your calls, transcribe the audio, and use AI to extract summaries, action items, and key insights. We tested nine tools across Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. CraftNote stood out for its bot-free recording approach that captures audio directly from your device without adding a visible participant to the call. The rest of the list includes Fireflies, Granola, Avoma, tl;dv, Krisp, Otter, Fellow, and Fathom, each with a different strength depending on your workflow.
When you are in a meeting, you are splitting yourself in two: the active listener who is paying attention to the speaker, and the thorough note-taker who is saving every insight for later. Doing two jobs at once is always tricky. You will either miss the opportunity to ask a great question or fail to take a critical note that you will need in the future.
AI meeting assistants solve this. They record your calls, transcribe the audio, and store it all for later use. You can then use a range of AI features to extract information, doing things like summarising the transcript, listing key insights, and generating action items.
We spent time doing in-depth research and testing on all the AI meeting assistants available in 2026. Based on our experience, these are the nine best.
What Makes the Best AI Meeting Assistant?
AI meeting assistants are not out to replace your current video conferencing platform. They empower Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams with features that help you keep track of your meetings. You can use them to refresh your memory, accurately quote people, or share important information with all members of your team.
Here is what we looked for while testing:
- Easy implementation: Simple to connect to your calendar and video conferencing software, working with at minimum Zoom and Google Meet.
- Quality AI features: Transcription quality, summarisation, extracting insights, sentiment analysis, and any other AI capabilities the platform offers.
- Recording approach: Whether the tool uses a bot that joins the call or records directly from your device. Bot-free recording matters for client-facing calls where an extra participant can feel intrusive.
- Organisation and collaboration: Once the meeting is over, you need to keep things organised so it is easier to search for information later. Sharing should be simple so you can keep your entire team in the loop.
- Integrations: The more the better, especially if you can send lead data to a CRM, action items to a task management app, or a summary to a dedicated Slack channel.
1. CraftNote
Best for: Bot-free meeting recording with AI summaries, speaker identification, and CRM integration
Platforms: Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and any other video conferencing platform. Also works for in-person meetings via iOS.
Most AI meeting assistants work by sending a bot into your call. It shows up on the participant list, sometimes announces itself, and occasionally makes clients uncomfortable. CraftNote takes a completely different approach: it records directly from your device microphone and system audio, which means no bot ever joins your call.
When CraftNote detects you have joined a video call, it asks if you want to start recording. No extra name in the attendee list. No awkward announcements. Just natural conversation while CraftNote quietly captures everything in the background. This approach works everywhere, not just on Zoom and Meet, but on any platform that runs on your device, including less common tools like Webex, GoTo Meeting, and even phone calls.
Once the meeting ends, CraftNote generates a structured AI summary with an executive overview and a detailed topic-by-topic breakdown. You get a full word-for-word transcript with timestamps, and the AI automatically extracts action items from the conversation so nothing falls through the cracks.
Who is it for?
Professionals who have client-facing calls and want detailed meeting notes without the awkwardness of a bot sitting in the meeting. Teams that run meetings across multiple platforms and want everything captured in one place.
Key Features
Bot-free recording that works on every platform
CraftNote captures live audio directly from your microphone and your system audio, so it knows when a meeting is happening without ever appearing on your participant list. It detects audio activity on your device or nudges you via calendar sync a minute before your meeting starts. You still inform participants that you are recording, either by saying so at the start or through CraftNote’s auto-email feature that sends a consent notification 24 hours beforehand.
Because CraftNote records from your device rather than joining the call, it works with any video conferencing tool. Zoom, Teams, Meet, Webex, and everything else. You are not locked into a handful of supported platforms.
- Live Recorder: Captures audio directly from your device during any video call automatically.
- Calendar Sync: Detects upcoming meetings and reminds you to start recording a minute before.
- iOS Mobile App: Records in-person meetings from your iPhone and syncs everything to your desktop instantly.
- Consent Features: Auto-email notification sent 24 hours before meetings or manual announcement at the start.
AI summaries with speaker identification
After recording, CraftNote generates structured meeting notes covering key points and main topics discussed. The summary includes an executive overview for a quick scan and a detailed topic-by-topic breakdown when you need the full picture. Speaker Identification learns voices over time and labels who said what throughout your transcripts, so you always know which participant made a specific commitment or raised a concern.
- AI Summary: Generates an executive summary plus a detailed topic-by-topic breakdown automatically.
- Full Transcript: Every word spoken gets transcribed with timestamps and speaker labels.
- Speaker Memory: Once you identify a speaker, CraftNote remembers their voice and recognises them in future meetings automatically.
- Action Items: AI extracts tasks from the conversation and lets you assign them to participants.
- 100+ Languages: Transcription and summaries in over 100 languages, including multilingual meetings.
Ask AI and search across all your meetings
After CraftNote generates your notes, you can have a conversation with them. Ask questions about what was discussed, pull out specific details, or let it draft follow-up emails based on the meeting content. The Ask AI feature works within a single meeting for specific answers, or across all your meetings when you cannot remember which call mentioned that one detail.
- Ask AI Single Meeting: Query one meeting’s transcript and summary to get precise answers about what was said.
- Ask AI All Meetings: Search across your entire meeting history to find patterns, references, or forgotten details.
- Keyword Search: Enter any word in the sidebar and find every meeting where that topic came up.
- Tags: Create private or shared tags to group meetings by project, client, or team for easy filtering.
Custom templates for different meeting types
Sales calls need different structure than team standups, and interviews are their own thing entirely. CraftNote lets you create templates that tell the AI exactly what sections to include and what information matters most.
- Custom Templates: Build your own summary structure with specific sections and instructions.
- Auto-Apply Templates: CraftNote automatically picks the right template based on meeting content and calendar context.
- Detail Levels: Choose between extensive or brief summaries depending on how much context you want.
Summary to Podcast
CraftNote can convert any meeting summary into podcast-style audio you can listen to anywhere. Commuting between client calls? Replay the key takeaways instead of re-reading pages of notes. This is especially useful for managers who need to stay across multiple teams without attending every meeting.
CRM and tool integrations
Meeting notes locked in one app rarely help anyone. CraftNote connects to the tools you already use so your notes flow into your existing workflow without copy-pasting.
- HubSpot: Log meeting notes directly to contacts, companies, and deals.
- Salesforce: Attach notes to opportunities, accounts, and contacts.
- Attio: Sync meeting notes and action items to your Attio workspace.
- Notion: Create Notion pages with summaries and transcripts.
- Google Docs: Send meeting content to Google Docs for editing and collaboration.
- OneNote: Export notes directly to your OneNote notebooks.
- Asana: Push action items to Asana tasks automatically.
- Team Sharing: Share full meetings with workspace members or email summaries to anyone, even without CraftNote accounts.
GDPR-compliant data storage
CraftNote is based in Germany and stores all data on servers located in the EU with full GDPR compliance. Audio files are permanently deleted after processing, keeping only the text transcript. Your meeting data is never used to train AI models.
Pros
- No bot joins your calls, so meetings stay natural and clients are not put off.
- Works on any video conferencing platform, not just Zoom, Meet, and Teams.
- Speaker Memory learns voices and labels them automatically across future meetings.
- Summary to Podcast lets you listen to meeting highlights on the go.
- CRM integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, and Attio keep your pipeline updated.
- 100+ language support handles multilingual meetings well.
- GDPR-compliant with EU data storage and automatic audio deletion.
Cons
- Summary generation can take several minutes depending on meeting length.
- Speaker identification works best with a good quality microphone.
- Audio quality from your side impacts transcription accuracy.
- Desktop app required for full functionality, though iOS mobile app is available.
2. Fireflies
Best for: Collaboration and topic tracking
Platforms: Zoom, Meet, Teams, Webex, GoTo Meeting, Skype, Dialpad Meetings, Lifesize, Jitsi
When there are dozens of meetings going on every week, Fireflies helps you line them all up and keep them organised. The app transcribes everything everyone says, assigning it to the appropriate speaker once you identify who is who. After the meeting, it isolates information such as dates and times, metrics mentioned, tasks, and questions. It also runs sentiment analysis, helping identify the positive, negative, and neutral parts of the conversation.
Need to share critical information with your team? You can create soundbites, clipping important parts of meetings into shareable moments. People can come by the meeting page to leave comments and reactions, so it is easy to see how everyone is keeping up. Fireflies offers native integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, and Dropbox.
Pros
- Strong generative AI features with AskFred for querying meeting content.
- Can send meeting recaps automatically to the right channels.
- Topic tracking helps categorise meetings by project or team.
- Wide platform support beyond just Zoom, Meet, and Teams.
Cons
- Uses a bot that joins the call as a visible participant.
- Some dashboard screens can feel cluttered with too many options.
- Free plan limits total meeting storage to 800 minutes.
Price: Free plan available with unlimited transcription and 800 minutes of meeting storage. Paid plans from $10/user/month billed annually.
3. Granola
Best for: Combining human notes with AI-generated context
Platforms: All (captures audio from your device)
Granola is the AI note taker that lets you stay an active participant. It automatically transcribes, summarises, and analyses your meetings while acting as a live notepad where you manually jot down notes during the call. Granola then enhances your handwritten points with context pulled straight from the transcript.
In practice, you might jot down only a rough agenda before a sprint retrospective. The AI transcribes the meeting, and with the click of a button, Granola plugs in relevant details from the transcript into your notes. The result is a collaborative memory of the meeting that feels both human and complete.
Like CraftNote, Granola captures audio from your device instead of joining calls directly, so it works with any video conferencing tool. It includes native integrations with HubSpot, Slack, and Notion.
Pros
- Automatically formats meeting notes based on context with custom templates.
- Minimal, distraction-free interface that stays out of your way.
- No bot joins the call since it records from your device.
Cons
- No built-in transcript search functionality.
- Does not support transcribing phone calls yet.
- Free plan limited to 25 meetings.
Price: Free plan includes 25 meeting transcripts. Paid plans from $18/month with unlimited transcripts.
4. Avoma
Best for: Conversation analytics and sales coaching
Platforms: Zoom, Meet, Teams, BlueJeans, GoTo Meeting, Highfive, Uber Conference, Lifesize
Avoma knows that transcriptions are not enough if you are on a mission to improve sales calls, UX interviews, or internal meetings. It offers conversation analytics that let you dig deep into every meeting with AI: filler word tracking, monologue detection, talking-to-listening ratio analysis, competitive mention tracking, and AI-based coaching scores for new reps.
The dashboard tracks total conversations per user, median meetings, and keyword-based topic breakdowns. For sales teams, the competitive tracking tool shows how you stack up versus competitors in the words of your customers, correlating mentions with deal outcomes so you can adjust your approach.
Pros
- Comprehensive conversation analytics for coaching sales teams.
- Competitive tracking correlates competitor mentions with deal wins and losses.
- Native CRM integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Copper, and Pipedrive.
Cons
- Most expensive option on this list at $19/user/month minimum.
- Bot joins calls as a visible participant.
- Analytics depth may be overkill for teams that just need basic notes.
Price: From $19/user/month billed annually for up to 25 users.
5. tl;dv
Best for: AI-powered meeting search across multiple calls
Platforms: Zoom, Meet, Teams
tl;dv helps your team skip through recordings but still get the full picture. It offers AI reports that extract information from multiple meetings at once, which you can set to recur weekly or monthly. Its strongest feature is a robust AI-powered search: type in a query and it returns a detailed breakdown of meetings and transcript excerpts that match.
You can add manual notes to transcripts with timestamps, create folders to separate calls, and generate short video clips by highlighting transcript sections. Speaker insights break down talk time, questions per hour, and words per minute for each participant.
Pros
- Generous free plan with unlimited Zoom and Meet transcription.
- Lightweight on your computer resources.
- Multi-meeting AI reports extract patterns across weeks of calls.
Cons
- Can fail to join recording if servers are too busy during peak hours.
- Bot joins calls as a participant.
- Limited to Zoom, Meet, and Teams only.
Price: Free plan for unlimited Zoom and Meet transcription. Paid plans from $18/user/month billed annually.
6. Krisp
Best for: Noise cancellation and audio quality improvement
Platforms: All (installs as a system audio device)
Even with strong communication skills, sometimes it is hard to get your point across when your environment is noisy. Krisp uses AI to improve your audio in real time, filtering out background music, ringtones, and chatter. It also transcribes your meetings, so it fits within the meeting assistant category.
Because Krisp installs as a system audio device on your computer, it works with any video conferencing platform and does not need a bot. The trade-off is a slightly more involved setup, since you need to select Krisp as your audio input and output in your video app. It is lightweight on system resources, so your video calls will not be noticeably affected.
Pros
- Highly effective noise cancellation that handles music, ringtones, and background chatter.
- No bot joins the call since it works as a system audio device.
- Can localise accents of other speakers in real time to improve comprehension.
Cons
- Can sometimes distort your voice depending on hardware.
- Setup is more involved than other tools due to audio device configuration.
- Meeting assistant features are secondary to the noise cancellation focus.
Price: Free plan for unlimited transcriptions and 60 minutes of noise cancellation per day. Paid plans from $8/user/month billed annually.
7. Otter
Best for: Asking questions about your meetings with AI chat
Platforms: Zoom, Meet, Teams
Otter offers AI Chat, a tool that lets you ask questions about your meetings in natural language. Ask “was I mentioned in this meeting?” and the chat gives you a breakdown of any action items assigned to you. If you missed a call or stepped out during a discussion, you can still catch up by querying the transcript.
The AI chat works at multiple levels: within a single meeting for specific questions, within team channels for collaborative queries, and at the account level where you can search across all your meetings at once. Otter also has workspace features with channels, letting you mention the AI or tag teammates directly to assign tasks.
Pros
- AI Chat makes it natural to query meetings in conversational language.
- Account-wide search across all meetings helps find forgotten details.
- Workspace channels support team collaboration directly in the platform.
Cons
- Struggles with transcribing technical language and jargon.
- Bot joins calls as a visible participant.
- Free plan limited to 300 minutes per month.
Price: Free for up to 300 minutes/month. Paid plans from $8.33/user/month billed annually.
8. Fellow
Best for: Data privacy, security, and the full meeting lifecycle
Platforms: Zoom, Meet, Teams
While all the apps on this list take security seriously, Fellow goes further and is very transparent about it. Using the Vanta platform to manage its security policies, you can see how many times it has been tested for vulnerabilities, all security controls in place, and the relationship with vendors. OpenAI is listed as a vendor with a clear note that they are prohibited from training models with your data.
Beyond security, Fellow covers the entire meeting cycle: briefs and agendas before, note-taking during, and action items and analytics after. It has a feed and calendar to see upcoming meetings, collaboration channels, and a copilot to answer questions about your meetings. Over 50 native integrations keep your other tools connected.
Pros
- Industry-leading transparency on security and data privacy practices.
- Meeting templates library helps structure different meeting types.
- Covers the full meeting lifecycle from agenda to follow-up.
Cons
- Desktop app can be buggy at times.
- Bot joins calls as a participant.
- Free plan limited to 5 AI recordings per user.
Price: Free plan for 5 AI recordings/user. Paid plans from $7/user/month billed annually.
9. Fathom
Best for: A free option with solid core features
Platforms: Zoom, Meet, Teams
Fathom offers a generous free version that lets you transcribe all your meetings with no catch. Once the meeting is over, you can generate a summary, send it to your CRM of choice or to a Slack channel, and create short clips organised into playlists. All the core features of the category at no cost.
One nice touch: when you copy content out of Fathom and paste it somewhere else, it lands fully formatted. The paid Team plan adds meeting statistics per member for sales coaching, keyword alerts when specific terms are mentioned, and automation features to simplify CRM connections.
Pros
- Free plan is genuinely usable with unlimited transcription for individuals.
- Meeting sharing and clip playlists make collaboration simple.
- Content copies out fully formatted, saving cleanup time.
Cons
- Some quirks when using it with Meet and Teams versus Zoom.
- Bot joins calls as a participant.
- Keyword alerts only available on paid plans.
Price: Free version for individuals. Paid plans from $15/user/month billed annually.
Which AI Meeting Assistant Is Right for You?
The right choice depends on your workflow, budget, and how you run your meetings.
If you have client-facing calls where a recording bot would feel intrusive, CraftNote is the clear choice. It records from your device without joining the call, generates structured AI summaries with speaker identification, and syncs notes directly to HubSpot, Salesforce, Attio, Notion, and more. The Summary to Podcast feature is also unique, letting you listen to meeting highlights while commuting.
Here is a quick overview of all nine tools:
- CraftNote: Bot-free recording from your device, AI summaries with speaker identification, Summary to Podcast, Ask AI chat, 100+ languages, and CRM integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, and Attio. GDPR-compliant with EU data storage.
- Fireflies: Strong collaboration features with soundbites, topic tracking, sentiment analysis, and a wide range of platform support beyond the big three.
- Granola: Combines your handwritten notes with AI-generated context from the transcript. Minimal interface, no bot, works on all platforms.
- Avoma: Deep conversation analytics with filler word tracking, monologue detection, competitive mentions, and AI coaching scores for sales teams.
- tl;dv: AI-powered search across multiple meetings with recurring reports. Generous free plan with unlimited transcription.
- Krisp: Primary focus on noise cancellation and audio quality improvement, with transcription features as a secondary benefit.
- Otter: AI Chat lets you ask natural-language questions about your meetings at the individual, team, or account level.
- Fellow: Industry-leading security transparency with Vanta-managed policies. Covers the full meeting lifecycle from agenda to follow-up.
- Fathom: Best free option with unlimited individual transcription, shareable clips, and formatted copy-paste.
For most professionals, the decision comes down to whether you need a bot-free approach (CraftNote, Granola, Krisp) or are comfortable with a bot joining calls (Fireflies, Avoma, tl;dv, Otter, Fellow, Fathom). If you frequently record client calls, sales demos, or sensitive internal discussions, bot-free recording removes friction and keeps conversations natural.
Frequently Asked Questions About AI Meeting Assistants
Do AI meeting assistants work with all video conferencing platforms?
Most tools support Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Tools that record from your device, like CraftNote, Granola, and Krisp, work with any platform since they capture audio at the system level rather than integrating with a specific app.
What is the difference between bot-based and bot-free recording?
Bot-based tools send a virtual participant into your meeting that records the audio. Everyone in the call can see it on the participant list. Bot-free tools like CraftNote record directly from your device microphone and system audio, so no extra participant appears. This matters most for client-facing calls where an unexpected bot can feel intrusive.
Can AI meeting assistants identify who said what?
Most tools offer some form of speaker identification. CraftNote goes further with Speaker Memory, which learns voices over time and automatically labels speakers in future meetings without you needing to re-identify them each time.
Are AI meeting assistants secure enough for sensitive conversations?
Security varies by provider. CraftNote stores all data in Germany with GDPR compliance, deletes audio after transcription, and never uses meeting data for AI training. Fellow is transparent about its security controls through the Vanta platform. Always check the provider’s data handling policies before recording sensitive calls.
Can I use these tools for in-person meetings?
CraftNote offers an iOS mobile app specifically designed for recording in-person meetings. Granola also has an iPhone app for this purpose. Most other tools on this list are designed primarily for virtual meetings.
Do I need an AI meeting assistant if my video platform already has AI features?
If you hold meetings across multiple platforms and want all recordings in one place, a dedicated meeting assistant makes sense. It also makes sense if you need features your platform does not offer, such as CRM integration, cross-meeting search, conversation analytics, or bot-free recording.
How accurate are AI meeting transcriptions?
Accuracy depends on audio quality, number of speakers, background noise, and accents. Tools that record from your device tend to capture cleaner audio since they pick up system audio directly. CraftNote supports 100+ languages and handles multilingual meetings, though accuracy improves with better microphone quality.
Try CraftNote for Free
Bot-free recording, AI-powered summaries with speaker identification, full transcripts in 100+ languages, Summary to Podcast, Ask AI chat, and seamless integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, Notion, and more. Download CraftNote and see the difference.