Meeting notes

Some clients mind seeing a recorder join, especially on a first sales call or a sensitive conversation. Granola transcribes from your device's audio, so no bot appears in the call. Bot-based tools such as Fireflies and Fathom are easier to share with a team, since the recording lives in one place. Tell people you are taking AI notes either way, which costs you nothing and builds trust.

Fathom's free plan includes unlimited recordings, so you do not count calls. Fireflies, Granola, Read AI and tl;dv also list a free plan, with limits that vary by vendor. Otter has no free plan in our data. Start with Fathom if cost is the deciding factor, then pay elsewhere only for a feature you miss.

tl;dv pushes summaries into CRMs such as HubSpot and Salesforce, which suits teams that log every client call. Fireflies can also send notes into your CRM. Fathom adds CRM sync on its paid plans. Check that the tool writes to the right field on the deal, or you end up with notes no one reads.

Fireflies keeps every past meeting searchable and lets you ask questions across them. Read AI searches meetings, email and chat together, so you find the agreement without rewatching a recording. Otter's chat answers questions across all your past meetings. tl;dv goes a step further and surfaces recurring themes, such as common objections across sales calls.

Under GDPR you need a lawful basis to record and transcribe, and the people on the call must know it is happening. Germany is strict here, and recording a private conversation without consent can be a criminal offence. Say at the start that an AI note taker is running and offer to switch it off. Set a retention period so old recordings are deleted on schedule.