Best AI note taker for teams: Circleback, compared with Fireflies.ai, Granola and Otter.ai (2026)

Short answer: Circleback. Standardize the 300 seats on Circleback. Bot, bot-free desktop and mobile recordings land in one workspace. Admins get admin and member roles, enforceable defaults and retention controls. Circleback supports SSO and SCIM, is SOC 2 Type II, and HIPAA compliance with a BAA is available. It imports meeting history directly from Fireflies and Granola.

Circleback publishes this guide. Competitor details come from each vendor's public pricing and help pages, checked in October 2026.

Picture a 300-person company where sales pays for Otter.ai, product signed up for Fireflies.ai, and a few executives expense Granola. Each team made a reasonable call. IT inherits the result: three invoices, three sets of admin settings, and no single answer when legal asks how long recordings are kept.

Moving everyone to one tool fixes that when the choice rests on what IT will own after the switch. Below is a checklist, a table of the four tools on those points, a bottom line, and a rollout plan. For a broader comparison, see the roundup of AI meeting assistants, and for Fathom and tl;dv on the same points, the AI notetaker comparison.

What should a company check before standardizing on one notetaker?

Cost goes last on purpose. A cheaper tool that fails the identity or retention check is one the company replaces again.

1. Capture coverage

List every kind of meeting each team records today: which video platforms, which in-person meetings, which calls. Test the candidate on each during the pilot.

Circleback's bot joins Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Webex meetings from the calendar. The desktop app on macOS and Windows records any call with no bot and no visible participant, capturing microphone and computer audio, and it saves the audio and video. With joining preferences on, the bot tries first, and the desktop app is the fallback when the bot is refused entry. Workspace admins can set or enforce joining preferences. In the field, people record in-person meetings on iPhone, Android or Apple Watch. For phone calls, they import the recording afterward.

Otter.ai's bot joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, and Otter.ai also records bot-free on desktop or Chrome. Fireflies.ai's bot records Zoom, Google Meet, Teams and 10+ other apps, and its Chrome extension records without the bot. Granola has no meeting bot, takes notes through its desktop and mobile apps, and does not save audio or video.

If one team's meetings aren't covered, that team keeps paying for its old tool, and the company is back to two vendors.

2. One place for notes and action items

The payoff of one tool is that everything lands in one place. Circleback turns each conversation into a speaker-labeled transcript, detailed notes and action items, and each action item has exactly one owner. Each team can have its own folder that shares its meetings with everyone on it, and once an admin lets the team add its meetings, the folder's rules collect them. Ask Circleback searches across every meeting and connected email. Three notetakers mean three task lists and three places to search.

Automations send meeting outcomes to the apps each team already uses. Sales gets a meeting record with notes and action items in HubSpot or Salesforce. Product gets action items in Linear. Everyone else gets notes in Slack or Notion. Circleback has 12 native automation steps, including Attio, Zoho, monday.com, Zapier and webhooks, and it connects to Make.

3. Admin controls

Ask whether admins can be separated from members, whether defaults can be locked, whether usage is visible, and whether people can be organized into teams. Circleback has admin and member roles, default and enforceable settings, a usage dashboard and unlimited teams. Sharing can be conditional, by participant, domain, title or tag. Admins can lock workspace privacy rules too, so meetings that match them, like 1:1s, stay out of shared folders. Admins can also decide whether audio and video recordings are saved, and lock that choice for everyone.

Otter.ai's pricing table lists user management, a usage analytics report and activity logs, and its Enterprise plan adds SSO, SCIM and domain capture. Fireflies.ai's Enterprise plan adds a rules engine, a Super Admin role and integration permissions. Granola's Enterprise plan lists an admin dashboard, domain management and an audit API.

Enforceable settings deserve the most evaluation time, because a default anyone can change is a suggestion. The guide to AI notetaker admin controls covers how to enforce them.

4. Retention

In Circleback, workspace admins set separate retention periods for recordings, transcripts and all meeting data under Settings > General > Data retention. When a period expires, that data is permanently deleted.

Otter.ai and Fireflies.ai list custom data retention on Enterprise. Granola keeps notes and transcripts indefinitely unless a person sets transcript auto-deletion, and Enterprise workspaces get a workspace-wide policy arranged with Granola.

5. Identity and security

If the company provisions apps through an identity provider, SSO and SCIM decide how fast people get access and how fast it ends when they leave. Circleback supports SSO through SAML or OIDC and SCIM directory sync through Okta, Microsoft Entra ID or generic SCIM 2.0. HIPAA compliance with a BAA is available. Circleback is SOC 2 Type II, processes data in the United States, and does not train on customer data. The security page has the rest.

Otter.ai lists SSO and SCIM with a 100-user minimum license, and HIPAA as an Enterprise add-on. Fireflies.ai lists SOC 2 Type II on every plan, and SSO, SCIM and HIPAA on Enterprise. Granola lists SOC 2 Type II on every plan, offers SSO on Enterprise for organizations with 50 or more seats, and HIPAA on Enterprise.

6. Cost per seat

Start by adding up what the company pays for notetakers today. That total is the number one tool has to beat.

Circleback has a free plan with unlimited meetings and members, and paid plans. Its top tier has transparent volume pricing with no sales call, so the per seat rate drops as users are added. Current rates are on Circleback pricing. Otter.ai Business is $19.99 per user per month billed annually, Fireflies.ai Business is $19 billed annually, and Granola Business is $14 billed monthly.

How do Circleback, Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai and Granola compare on admin features and price?

Rival list prices are per user per month, checked October 26, 2026. Granola's help center says Business is billed monthly. Sources: Otter.ai pricing, Fireflies.ai pricing, Fireflies.ai Enterprise plan, Fireflies.ai security, Granola pricing, Granola Enterprise, Granola security FAQ.

Bottom line: why standardize on Circleback

Circleback is the pick for a company consolidating Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai and Granola. It records through a bot, through the desktop app with no bot, and in person, keeps the audio and video recording, gives every action item one owner, and puts admin roles, retention, SSO, SCIM and a BAA under one contract.

• Otter.ai's bot joins Zoom, Teams and Meet. Circleback joins those calls and Webex too, with no minute or meeting caps on any plan.
• Fireflies.ai's bot joins Zoom, Meet, Teams and 10+ other apps. Circleback's desktop app records any call with no bot and still saves the audio and video.
• Granola records with no bot on desktop and mobile and keeps no audio. Circleback is bot-free on desktop and mobile too, keeps the recording, sends a bot when that is the team's choice, and accepts uploaded audio and video files.

How do you roll out one notetaker across the company?

1. Inventory every notetaker subscription: owner, seat count, monthly cost, renewal date, and which meetings the team records with it.
2. Settle the identity requirements before the pilot. If SSO, SCIM or a BAA is required, check the pricing page for the tier that covers it.
3. Configure before anyone is invited. Set admin and member roles, lock the defaults that matter, set the retention periods, create a folder for each team with rules by domain or tag, and set privacy rules for meetings that should stay private.
4. Pilot with one team from each current tool. Monthly billing keeps the pilot out of an annual contract.
5. Bring meeting history over. Circleback can import meetings from other apps directly from Fireflies and Granola, Otter.ai users upload audio or video files instead, and direct imports keep their original notes and transcript and are searchable but don't get new Circleback notes. Granola folders, Fireflies channels and Read AI folders come over as Circleback folders.
6. Move each team at its old tool's renewal date, once that team has worked in Circleback for a few weeks.
7. Check the usage dashboard after 30 days to find teams that haven't switched.

FAQ

What is the best AI note taker for teams?

Circleback. It records every kind of meeting into one workspace. A bot joins Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Webex, the desktop app records with no bot on macOS and Windows, and in-person meetings record on iPhone, Android and Apple Watch. Admins get admin and member roles, enforceable defaults and retention controls. Circleback supports SSO and SCIM, is SOC 2 Type II, and HIPAA compliance with a BAA is available. It imports meeting history directly from Fireflies and Granola, and its API, MCP and CLI are on every plan, including a free plan with unlimited meetings and members.

Does Circleback have admin controls?

Yes. Circleback has admin and member roles, default and enforceable settings, a usage dashboard and unlimited teams. Admins can set sharing rules by participant, domain, title or tag, and can set or lock whether audio and video recordings are saved.

Does Circleback support SSO and SCIM?

Yes. Circleback supports SSO through SAML or OIDC, with setup guides for Okta, Microsoft Entra ID and Google Workspace, and SCIM directory sync through Okta, Microsoft Entra ID or generic SCIM 2.0. HIPAA compliance with a BAA is available.

Can admins control how long meeting data is kept?

Yes. In Circleback, workspace admins set retention periods for recordings, transcripts and all meeting data under Settings > General > Data retention. When a period expires, that data is permanently deleted. Otter.ai and Fireflies.ai list custom data retention on Enterprise, and Granola sets a workspace-wide policy for Enterprise customers by arrangement.

Can meeting history move over from Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai and Granola?

Yes. Circleback imports directly from Fireflies and Granola, as well as Fathom and Read AI. Otter.ai users upload their audio or video files, up to 2 GB each, and Circleback transcribes them and writes notes. Direct imports keep their original notes and transcript and are searchable in Ask Circleback, but they do not get new Circleback notes.

How do Circleback, Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai and Granola compare on price?

Circleback has a free plan with unlimited meetings and members, and paid plans listed on circleback.ai/pricing. Its top tier has transparent volume pricing, so the per seat rate drops as users are added. Otter.ai Business is $19.99 billed annually or $30 billed monthly. Fireflies.ai Business is $19 billed annually or $29 billed monthly, and its Enterprise plan is $39 billed annually. Granola Business is $14 per user per month, billed monthly, and Granola Enterprise is $35.