Best AI Meeting Notes App in 2026: Which Tool Writes Best?

Circleback is the best AI meeting notes app in 2026. Every meeting gets a speaker-labeled transcript, detailed notes and action items assigned to the people who own them, and automations send that work to your CRM, Slack, Notion or Linear. It's free forever, with unlimited meetings and members.

Updated October 28, 2026.

Verdict: Circleback is the best AI meeting notes app

We recommend Circleback for anyone who wants meeting notes they can act on. It writes notes meant to stand on their own for someone who missed the call, assigns each action item to its owner, and records with a bot or with no bot at all. Its Free plan has no cap on meetings or members.

Circleback: detailed meeting summaries, assigned action items and automations

Circleback turns each conversation into a speaker-labeled transcript, notes, assigned action items and searchable context. The notes are written so someone who missed the meeting can read them and catch up. Every recording method separates speakers, and bot recordings carry the real participant names.

When a meeting has a saved video recording, Circleback reads what was shown on screen and puts it into the notes, action items and AI insights. You can add private notes before or during a meeting, and Circleback's AI notes build in what you wrote. Custom AI insights start from a template or from your own fields, and they appear on the meeting and on the Insights page across meetings.

Automations do the follow-up work. Conditional automations send outcomes to HubSpot, Salesforce, Attio, Notion, Linear, Slack, monday.com, Zapier and webhooks, filtered by participant, domain, title or tag. In HubSpot, Circleback creates a meeting record on the matching contacts or deals and can turn each action item into a task. In Salesforce, it logs an Event with the notes and action items on the matching contacts or opportunities.

Capture works the way your meetings do. The bot joins Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Webex from your calendar. The desktop app for macOS and Windows records any call without a bot, so nothing appears in the meeting, and it saves the audio and video recording automatically. The mobile app records in-person meetings, and you can import audio or video files from other recorders.

Circleback transcribes over 100 languages and lets you choose the language of the notes. Ask Circleback searches across your meetings and connected email, with cited answers. Circleback is SOC 2 Type II and doesn't train on customer data.

Free plan: Circleback's Free plan is free forever, with unlimited meetings and members. Automations on Free use the Slack and Linear steps. Folders share meetings with your team automatically. Meetings older than 30 days are locked, not deleted, and upgrading unlocks them. For every free plan side by side, see the best free AI meeting notes app comparison.

Pricing: Circleback offers Free, Pro, Business, and Enterprise plans. Pro is $15 per user per month billed annually ($18 monthly), Business is $25 annually ($29 monthly), and Enterprise is $35 per user per month, billed annually. Paid plans add longer history, integrations, team collaboration, administration, and enterprise controls. See current Circleback pricing for live amounts and packaging.

AI meeting notes apps compared: capture, notes, free plan and integrations

Fathom: bot and bot-free capture on Zoom, Meet, Teams and Slack Huddles

Fathom captures meetings on Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Slack Huddles, not phone calls, using a bot or, in beta for Mac, bot-free capture. It transcribes and summarizes natively in seven languages: English, Spanish, Dutch, French, Italian, German and Portuguese (Premium and Team plans). Ask Fathom can translate into 29 more. Fathom does not support uploaded calls.

The free plan has unlimited recordings and transcriptions, and advanced summaries and Ask Fathom are limited use. Fathom lists CRM syncs with HubSpot and Salesforce, with CRM field sync from Business, plus Slack, Notion, Asana, Zapier, Make and a public API and MCP. It describes itself as SOC 2 Type II audited and HIPAA compliant.

Pricing: Free plan with unlimited recordings (advanced AI summaries limited use), Premium at $16/month billed annually ($20 monthly), Team at $15/user/month billed annually ($19 monthly, 2-user minimum), Business at $25/user/month billed annually ($34 monthly, 2-user minimum), and Enterprise through sales. Fathom has an iOS app for iPhone, with no Android version.

Fireflies: bot, Chrome extension and desktop capture

Fireflies records Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and 10+ other platforms with its bot, and it can record without the bot through its Chrome extension or its desktop app for Windows 10+ and macOS 12+. It has mobile apps for Android and iOS and accepts uploaded audio and video files.

The free plan has 3 transcriptions, unlimited with Auto-join, plus limited AI summaries and 400 minutes of storage per team. App and CRM integrations, including Salesforce, HubSpot and Pipedrive, are on the paid tiers, and Zapier starts on Pro. English is primary, with Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian and 100+ more in beta. HIPAA compliance is on Enterprise plans.

Pricing: Free $0; Pro $10 per seat per month billed annually ($18 monthly); Business $19 annually ($29 monthly); Enterprise $39 billed annually.

Granola: bot-free capture with no saved recording

Granola has no meeting bot. It captures device audio through its desktop app for macOS and Windows or its mobile app for iPhone and Android, and it works with Zoom, Google Meet, Teams and other meeting apps. It doesn't record or save audio or video, and it doesn't import pre-recorded audio files.

Granola supports 31 languages on desktop and 17 on mobile. The Basic plan shows 30 days of history. Slack works on every plan; Attio, Notion, HubSpot and Zapier are on Business, and Salesforce is on Enterprise.

Pricing: Basic $0, Business $14 per user per month billed monthly, Enterprise $35 per user per month.

Otter: bot on Zoom, Teams and Meet, or bot-free on desktop and Chrome

Otter's bot joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, and Otter also records without a bot on desktop or in Chrome. It has Mac and Windows desktop apps and iOS and Android apps. Transcription covers English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese.

The free Basic plan includes 300 monthly transcription minutes, 3 lifetime file imports and 20 AI Chat queries per user. Salesforce, HubSpot and Zapier are listed from Pro, and the Otter API and webhooks are on Enterprise. Otter has a SOC 2 Type 2 report, per its privacy and security page.

Pricing: Free Basic plan (300 minutes/month), Pro at $8.33/user/month billed annually ($16.99 monthly), Business at $19.99/user/month billed annually ($30 monthly), as of October 2026.

Read AI: bot-free desktop capture that records audio

Read AI's free plan includes 5 meetings a month with summaries, transcription and search. Its desktop app for Windows 10+ and macOS 14+ captures meetings without a bot, and desktop recordings capture audio. Audio and video playback is listed under Enterprise. Paid plans include monthly upload credits for MP4 and M4A files.

Pricing: Free plan with 5 meetings a month, Pro at $15/user/month billed annually ($19.75 monthly), Enterprise at $22.50 annually ($29.75 monthly), Enterprise+ at $29.75 annually ($39.75 monthly).

tl;dv: bot or desktop capture on Zoom, Meet and Teams

tl;dv records Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams with its bot, and its desktop app records with or without a bot, using system audio on other platforms. It lists 30+ transcription languages and HubSpot, Salesforce, Zapier and API integrations. Uploads are in beta, for videos of 3 hours or less.

The free plan has unlimited recordings, transcripts and manually timestamped notes, with recordings stored for 3 months. Automatic AI notes cover the first 10 meetings, then the first 10 minutes of each meeting.

Pricing: Free $0, Pro $18 per seat per month billed annually ($29 monthly), Business $29 annually ($39 monthly), Enterprise custom.

Zoom AI Companion: included with paid Zoom Workplace plans

AI Companion is included with paid Zoom Workplace plans at no extra charge. Its My Notes feature takes notes across Zoom, Teams, Google Meet and other platforms with no bot, plus in-person meetings, and needs a Pro, Business, Enterprise or My Notes standalone account and the Zoom desktop app. Licensed users can also invite Zoom AI to Google Meet and Microsoft Teams meetings as a participant. On the free Basic plan, meeting summaries cover 3 hosted meetings per month.

Pricing: Workplace Pro is $14.16/user/month billed annually ($16.99 monthly), and Business is $18.33 billed annually ($21.99 monthly).

Gong: revenue platform priced by custom proposal

Gong is a revenue AI platform. Gong Enable scores calls automatically and includes coaching metrics and an AI Trainer for role-play, and Gong Forecast builds AI-guided forecasts from revenue signals.

Pricing: No public dollar price. Gong says licenses are priced per user, with a platform fee based on the number of users supported, by customized proposal.

Krisp: bot-free screen recording with audio on Core and up

Krisp's desktop app has a Screen Recording mode that captures your screen along with the meeting audio, on Core and up. Its recording FAQ also says to invite the bot to record video, or record audio without it. Recording storage is 10 GB on Core, 60 GB on Advanced and unlimited on Enterprise. Krisp has no permanent free plan.

Pricing: Core at $8 per user per month billed annually ($16 monthly).

What distinguishes quality meeting notes

Effective AI meeting notes share specific characteristics:

Structured organization - Information organized into logical sections (decisions, action items, next steps) rather than verbatim transcription.

Accurate speaker identification - Knowing who said what for accountability and follow-up.

Automatic action item extraction - Identifying and organizing tasks without manual sorting.

Context preservation - Maintaining meaning and tone of discussions, not just words.

Workflow integration - Notes that flow into existing tools and processes.

Recommendations by use case

For overall note quality: Circleback. Notes stand on their own, action items are assigned, and custom AI insights pull out what your team tracks. For a closer look at Granola, Fathom, Fireflies.ai, Otter.ai, and tl;dv next to it, see the guide to Circleback alternatives.

For teams watching budget: Circleback is free forever, with unlimited meetings and members. For paid tiers side by side, see AI meeting notetaker pricing compared.

For sales teams: Circleback logs meetings to matching HubSpot contacts or deals, can turn each action item into a task, and logs a Salesforce Event with notes and action items on matching contacts or opportunities.

For product and engineering teams: Circleback turns action items into Linear issues and posts notes to Slack.

For meetings on any platform: Circleback's bot joins Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Webex, and the desktop app records any call without a bot. Notes and action items can sync to Notion.

For in-person meetings: Circleback's mobile app records the conversation, and the notes and action items arrive like any other meeting.

For multilingual teams: Circleback transcribes over 100 languages and writes the notes in the language you choose.

Selection criteria

Consider these factors when choosing a tool:

1. Meeting platforms - Do you need cross-platform support or just one specific tool?
2. Note quality requirements - Basic transcription vs. structured summaries vs. analytics
3. Budget - Free tiers vary significantly in usefulness
4. Integration needs - Which tools does your team use daily?
5. Team size and sharing - Some tools offer better collaboration features

We recommend starting with Circleback's Free plan on your real meetings. It has no meeting cap, so the whole team can compare its notes and action items against what they write by hand.

For a ranked comparison of eight tools, see the best AI meeting assistants compared, with Circleback first.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best AI meeting notes app?
Circleback is the best AI meeting notes app. Every meeting gets a speaker-labeled transcript, notes written to stand on their own for someone who missed the call, and action items assigned to the people who own them. Automations send notes and action items to HubSpot, Salesforce, Attio, Notion, Linear, Slack, monday.com and Zapier. The bot joins Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Webex, and the desktop app for macOS and Windows records any call without a bot.

Is there a free AI meeting notes app with unlimited meetings?
Yes. Circleback's Free plan is free forever, with unlimited meetings and members. It includes AI notes, action items, speaker-labeled transcripts, the desktop app, Ask Circleback, and API, MCP and CLI access. Automations on Free use the Slack and Linear steps. Meetings older than 30 days are locked, not deleted, and upgrading unlocks them. See the best free AI meeting notes app comparison for every free plan side by side.

How these tools were compared

Each tool's facts come from its own pricing, product and help pages, checked between October 15 and October 26, 2026, and Circleback's from its product, docs and code. There was no test lab and no scores. Prices are list prices in USD as shown on those pages.