Best AI meeting notetaker (2026)

An AI meeting notetaker only earns its keep if it changes what happens after the meeting — who remembers the decision, who gets the action item, what lands in the CRM. We compared the three tools most people actually reach for, on the free tier, the AI layer, live captions, and integrations, and drew a clear line between them.

The field at a glance

Pricing and allowances change often; verify current plans on each vendor's site before deciding. Fireflies' free tier transcribes unlimited meetings but now meters the AI: limited summaries, a 20-credit allowance for AskFred and premium features, 400 minutes of team storage, and no downloads — action items sit behind Pro. Fathom's free tier has no storage cap and includes instant AI call summaries; advanced summaries and the Ask Fathom assistant are limited-use on free, and AI action items sit behind Premium. Otter's free tier caps every conversation at 30 minutes and only keeps the 25 most recent. Sources: fireflies.ai/pricing, fathom.ai/pricing, and otter.ai/pricing, checked 2026-10-08.

Why Fireflies is our pick

Fireflies wins because of what Pro unlocks for the price. At $10/seat/mo on annual billing it opens up unlimited AI summaries, action items and a task manager, AI Skills, Voice Agents, and transcript downloads — less than Fathom's Premium at $16/mo. The free plan still transcribes unlimited meetings across 100+ languages with automatic detection, but the AI layer is now metered: limited summaries and a 20-credit allowance for AskFred and premium features, plus a 400-minute team storage cap. It's also the only one of the three that logs calls to your CRM and transcribes dialer conversations, with Salesforce, HubSpot, and Aircall depth on Pro. If the point of a notetaker is to feed the rest of your stack instead of just filing a transcript, Fireflies is the strongest default — budget for Pro.

The free unlimited-transcription option

Fathom is the pick when the job is simply "record and transcribe everything, for free, forever." Its free plan has no storage cap and no transcription limit, plus instant AI call summaries, so you can log every call without watching a meter. The catch is the AI layer: advanced summaries and the Ask Fathom assistant are limited-use on free, and AI action items require Premium at $16/mo on annual billing ($20 monthly); teams pay $15/user/mo for shared workspaces, and CRM field sync arrives on Business at $25/user/mo. Fathom was acquired by Superhuman in September 2026 — the company says nothing changes for users in the near term. It's the cleanest free recorder-transcriber of the three — and the natural choice if you'd rather pay later, only when you outgrow the basics.

The live-caption pick

Otter is the one to choose when you need the words on screen while the meeting is still happening. Live captions for Zoom and Google Meet are its genuine differentiator — Fireflies and Fathom produce notes after the fact. Otter also has the stronger shared-workspace story (folders, an AI chat that searches meetings and connected apps), and its Business tier removes the transcription caps entirely with 4-hour meetings and three concurrent sessions. The trade-off is the free tier: 300 minutes a month with a 30-minute per-conversation cap, and only the 25 most recent conversations kept.

The verdict

Choose Fireflies for teams that will pay — unlimited AI summaries, action items, and the deepest integrations at $10/seat/mo on Pro, plus 100+ languages. Choose Fathom if you want the best free tier: unlimited transcription with no storage cap and instant summaries at $0. Choose Otter if you want live in-meeting captions or a stronger shared-workspace experience.