Fireflies.ai is a cloud-based service that automatically joins your online meetings on platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams to record and transcribe conversations. The bot enters your meeting and captures the audio, then processes it through AI to create transcripts in over 100 languages with automatic language detection. After each meeting, it creates summaries, pulls out action items, and identifies discussion topics.

The platform stores all your meeting data in a web dashboard where you can search through past conversations and transcripts. It includes a chatbot called "AskFred" that lets you ask questions about your meeting history. You can export transcripts in various formats and share them with team members. The service connects with more than 50 other tools including CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot, communication apps like Slack, and productivity tools like Notion and Google Docs.

Fireflies.ai operates on a freemium model with a free tier that provides 800 minutes of storage and meetings up to 2 hours long. Paid plans start at $10 per user monthly and add features like unlimited storage, video recording, and detailed analytics. The Enterprise plan includes security features like HIPAA compliance and single sign-on. The service works mainly with online meetings, though you can upload audio files from offline meetings for transcription.

Users look for alternatives to Fireflies.ai because...

Transcription struggles with overlapping speech and accents - Users find that Fireflies.ai has trouble with transcription quality when multiple people talk at once or when participants have strong accents. The AI gets confused trying to tell speakers apart during crosstalk and may misinterpret words spoken with different accents. This means users spend time manually fixing transcripts to make them accurate.

The free tier is pretty limited - The free plan only gives you 800 minutes of storage and caps meetings at 2 hours max, with basic AI summary features. For businesses with lots of meetings or longer sessions, these limits feel restrictive fast. Teams end up having to upgrade to paid plans that can get expensive at $10-39 per user each month.

Technical hiccups with integrations and speaker ID - Users run into delays when the Fireflies bot tries to join Microsoft Teams meetings, and the speaker labeling gets mixed up when people talk over each other. These technical issues can mean missing parts of meetings or having comments assigned to the wrong people in the final transcripts.

How Circleback can help

People switch to Circleback because it fixes many of the everyday frustrations that come with traditional meeting AI tools. Unlike solutions that struggle when real conversations get messy, Circleback was built to work well exactly where other platforms stumble.

Better handling of tricky conversations While Fireflies.ai users get frustrated with overlapping speech and accent recognition, Circleback uses smarter speaker separation technology and adapts to different accents. The platform's AI was trained on all kinds of conversation patterns, making it much more reliable when people talk over each other or bring different backgrounds to meetings. Users consistently get cleaner, more accurate transcripts even when the audio gets challenging.

More generous free tier and fair pricing Circleback takes a different approach to letting people try the platform. Instead of boxing users in with tight storage limits or artificially short meeting caps like Fireflies' 800-minute ceiling, Circleback offers a more generous free experience that actually lets teams test out what the platform can really do. The pricing grows more reasonably with teams, avoiding the sticker shock that comes when Fireflies' enterprise tiers hit $39 per user monthly.

Smooth technical performance The technical problems that bug Fireflies users – slow bot joining, mixed-up speaker identification, integration delays – mostly disappear with Circleback's better infrastructure. The platform joins meetings instantly across all major platforms and keeps track of speakers consistently even during lively discussions. Users especially appreciate how Circleback handles the attribution challenges that leave other platforms putting comments under the wrong names.

Smart context understanding Beyond just fixing transcription problems, Circleback excels at understanding what conversations actually mean. While other platforms might capture words correctly but miss the point, Circleback's AI grasps context, how topics connect, and why action items matter within bigger projects. This deeper understanding creates more useful summaries and more actionable follow-up items.

The result is a platform that doesn't just record meetings – it genuinely makes teams better at working together and following through on decisions. Users can also take advantage of features like the meeting assistant and desktop app for an even more seamless experience.

Circleback provides best-in-class AI meeting notes and automations

Circleback provides best-in-class AI-powered meeting notes and automations. We support over 100 languages and automatic participant identification in both in-person and online meetings.

• Automatically-identified and assigned action items

• AI-enabled search across all meetings

• Automations with 100+ app integrations

• Industry-leading security with SOC 2 Type II, EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, and HIPAA compliance

• Ability to capture both online and in-person meetings with desktop and mobile apps