Fathom vs Otter.ai for meeting automation

Fathom is an AI meeting notetaker that integrates with Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams. It records meetings, provides real-time transcription in over 25 languages, and generates various AI summaries including bullet lists, action items, and detailed chronological overviews. The system identifies speakers, allows manual highlighting during calls, and offers post-meeting features like meeting overviews and follow-up email drafts. Users can query meeting content afterward through an "Ask Fathom" feature. The tool is commonly used by sales representatives and others who need to focus on conversations rather than note-taking.

Fathom offers a free plan with unlimited recordings but AI summaries limited to 5 meetings monthly. Paid plans range from $15/month for individuals to $29/user/month for teams with advanced features. It requires a desktop application and doesn't support uploading external audio files or in-person meetings. The platform integrates with CRMs like HubSpot and Salesforce, plus Slack and Notion. While it lacks a mobile app, users highlight its accurate transcription capabilities and the quick generation of meeting summaries.

Otter.ai is an AI note-taking tool that transcribes audio from meetings, interviews, and classes in real-time. It works with uploaded files or live meetings through Zoom and Teams integration, identifies different speakers, captures screen content, and generates automatic summaries of key points. The service offers searchable and shareable transcripts, with features allowing users to highlight or comment during meetings.

The platform operates on a tiered pricing model starting with a free plan offering 600 minutes monthly, advancing to paid plans with increased minutes and features. While it supports in-person transcription through its mobile apps (available for iOS and Android) and integrates with services like Slack, Zoom, HubSpot and Notion, Otter primarily works through web browsers rather than a desktop application. It handles English transcription well, with limited support for Spanish and French.

Comparing Fathom and Otter.ai

Fathom

• Fathom provides real-time transcription and AI summaries for virtual meetings on Zoom, Google Meet and Teams. It lacks support for in-person conversations or audio uploads, limiting its use to scheduled online meetings only.

• While Fathom offers strong transcription accuracy and various summary formats, its integration ecosystem remains relatively narrow and basic. The lack of a mobile app and limited ability to actually turn meeting content into actionable workflows hampers its utility for teams seeking comprehensive meeting management.

Otter.ai

• Otter.ai transcribes both online meetings and in-person conversations, supporting audio uploads with automatic summaries. The transcripts can be verbose and sometimes lack structure, making it difficult to extract the most important information quickly.

• Despite integrations with platforms like Zoom and Slack, Otter's ecosystem falls short of deep workflow automations that would help users efficiently act on meeting outcomes. The tool struggles with complex audio environments and can have accuracy issues with speaker identification.

Fathom better serves professionals who primarily conduct virtual meetings and value accurate transcription with clean summaries. Its interface simplicity and free tier generosity make it attractive for individual contributors and small teams who need basic meeting capture without complexity. However, its lack of mobile access and in-person recording capability limits its utility in hybrid work environments.

Otter.ai works best for users with varied meeting formats, including in-person conversations and impromptu discussions. Its mobile app and audio upload capabilities provide flexibility for journalists, researchers, and teams with diverse recording needs. However, users requiring highly structured outputs or working in multilingual environments may find its verbosity and limited language support frustrating.

Fathom vs Otter.ai: What do users say?

User reviews for Fathom highlight its generous free plan and highly accurate transcriptions that appear seconds after meetings end. Many users praise the intuitive interface and the ability to get different summary formats, allowing them to be more present during conversations. Some limitations noted include advanced features being restricted to paid plans, no ability to upload external audio files for transcription, and the lack of a mobile app. Meanwhile, Otter.ai receives mixed reviews - many appreciate its ease of use, real-time transcription, and generous free tier for creating meeting notes. However, critics point out that transcripts can be overly verbose and lack structure, making it difficult to quickly find key information. Accuracy issues with complex audio and problems with the assistant spamming calendar invites are also common complaints. Users can learn more about these tools from several sources: CNET's Otter AI Review, Reddit discussion on Otter.ai for meeting minutes, Trustpilot reviews of Otter.ai, The Business Dive's detailed Fathom review, and Capterra's verified Fathom reviews.

FAQs

• Would Fathom work for in-person meetings? What about Otter.ai? No, Fathom does not work for in-person meetings. It only works for scheduled online meetings (Zoom, Google Meet, Teams) and cannot import external audio. Otter.ai does work for in-person meetings as it can transcribe live in-person conversations via its app.

• What about meeting bots? Does either of these tools require a meeting bot? Otter.ai uses an assistant that can join meetings in real time.

• What do users say about the quality of transcriptions? For Fathom, transcriptions are praised as "quick and accurate" and the AI-generated summaries appear just seconds after meetings. For Otter.ai, the reviews are mixed - while it captures a large amount of meeting info, "accuracy can suffer with complex audio" with some reviews noting "mistakes in transcription or speaker ID."

Another alternative: Circleback

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