Users have reported several significant issues with Fireflies.ai that impact its reliability and usability. Many complain about frequent transcription errors, particularly with technical terms and proper names, which reduces confidence in the accuracy of meeting records. The platform struggles with speaker identification in multi-person meetings, often misattributing statements to the wrong participants. Users also report that the bot frequently fails to join scheduled meetings automatically, requiring manual intervention and causing missed recordings.

The interface and user experience present additional challenges for many users. Several reviews mention that the dashboard feels cluttered and makes it difficult to quickly locate specific meetings or information. The search functionality is often described as inadequate, making it hard to find relevant content across meeting histories. Users also express frustration with limited customization options for meeting summaries and action items, forcing them to work within rigid formatting constraints.

Integration and workflow limitations create further problems for teams trying to incorporate Fireflies.ai into their existing processes. Many users report unreliable connections with popular tools like Slack, HubSpot, and project management platforms, often requiring manual workarounds. The action item detection is frequently inaccurate, either missing important tasks or flagging irrelevant information as actionable items. Additionally, users mention poor performance in noisy environments and inconsistent quality when recording in-person meetings.

Learn more about these issues: 1, 2, 3

Circleback addresses these common pain points with superior technical capabilities and reliability. Unlike Fireflies.ai's inconsistent transcription, Circleback delivers over 95% accuracy with precise speaker identification, ensuring you can trust your meeting records without verification. The platform works seamlessly whether online or in-person, with no bot required, eliminating the frustration of missed recordings due to technical failures.

Where Fireflies.ai users struggle with poor search and cluttered interfaces, Circleback offers powerful AI-powered search that lets you query your entire meeting history naturally and find exact moments with one click. The platform automatically organizes action items and assigns them correctly, with reliable integrations that actually work with your existing tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, Linear, and Slack. Circleback's automation engine ensures meeting outcomes flow directly into your workflows without manual intervention, transforming meetings into actionable results across your entire organization.

Fireflies.ai offers a straightforward cloud-based meeting assistant that automatically records, transcribes, and summarizes discussions across major platforms. Users consistently praise its ease of setup and time-saving capabilities, with many highlighting the quality of transcription even in multiple languages. The platform provides quick post-meeting summaries and action items, making it valuable for team knowledge sharing and sales call analysis.

The tool excels in accessibility with a free tier and affordable pricing starting at $10/month, plus strong integration capabilities with CRM and project management systems. Transcription accuracy is generally reliable for standard meetings, and the mobile app enables in-person recording. The AskFred chatbot feature allows users to query meeting content effectively, while keyword search helps locate specific discussions quickly.

However, Fireflies.ai struggles with nuanced summarization, often producing high-level summaries that lose original tone and phrasing. Transcription accuracy drops significantly with heavy accents, technical jargon, or overlapping speakers, and the free plan restricts access to advanced features like video recording. Some users find the interface cluttered and report receiving excessive email notifications.

Compared to Circleback, Fireflies.ai falls short in several key areas: it lacks a custom automation engine, provides less sophisticated workflow capabilities, and offers lower transcription accuracy. Circleback also provides superior speaker identification, more powerful search functionality with AI-powered querying across all meetings, and more robust team collaboration features with shared automations and access controls.

Why users switch away from Fireflies.ai

Users often switch away from Fireflies.ai because the AI-generated summaries lack the depth and nuance they need. While the tool creates summaries quickly, they tend to be high-level overviews that miss important details, lose the original tone of conversations, and don't capture the specific phrasing that might be crucial for business decisions. This forces users to go back to the full transcripts anyway, defeating the purpose of having automated summaries.

Transcription accuracy becomes a significant problem for users dealing with diverse teams or technical content. The system struggles with heavy accents, industry-specific jargon, and often misidentifies who is speaking during meetings. When users can't rely on the basic transcription being correct, especially for important sales calls or technical discussions, they lose confidence in the entire system and look for more reliable alternatives.

The free plan limitations push users toward paid alternatives when they realize they can't access key features like video recording without upgrading. Additionally, many users find the interface becomes cluttered and overwhelming, while the constant email notifications create more noise than value. When combined with the ongoing AI inaccuracies, these usability issues drive users to seek cleaner, more reliable solutions.

FAQs

Fireflies.ai does not work for in-person meetings in the traditional sense since it operates by sending a bot to join virtual meetings. However, it does offer a mobile app that can record in-person meetings and voice notes, though this requires manual recording rather than the automated bot functionality.

Yes, Fireflies.ai requires a meeting bot called "Fred" to join virtual meetings. This bot participant appears in your meeting to handle the recording and transcription process.

Users generally report good transcription quality, but there are notable limitations. While many find the accuracy acceptable for standard conversations, transcription quality drops significantly with heavy accents, technical jargon, or slang. Some users also report issues with speaker identification, where the system misidentifies who is speaking during the meeting.

The tool does help with action item follow-up by automatically generating bullet-point action items and summaries within minutes after calls. However, users often find these summaries too high-level and lacking in nuance, sometimes losing the original phrasing or tone of important discussions. The system can automatically log notes to CRM systems and create tasks in tools like Asana, though it lacks a fully custom automation engine.

Yes, Fireflies.ai integrates with software like HubSpot, Salesforce, and other CRM systems, along with project management tools. It offers dozens of native integrations plus Zapier connectivity, though more advanced integration features are typically gated behind higher-tier paid plans rather than the free version.

Another alternative: Circleback

Circleback directly addresses the key problems that users experience with Fireflies.ai through better technology and design choices.

Transcription Accuracy and Speaker Identification

While Fireflies.ai users frequently complain about transcription errors with technical terms and misattributed speakers, Circleback achieves over 95% transcription accuracy with precise speaker identification. This means you can rely on the transcripts without needing to verify them against the original recording. The platform correctly identifies who said what, even in multi-person meetings, eliminating confusion about statement attribution.

Meeting Recording Reliability

Fireflies.ai's bot often fails to join meetings automatically, causing missed recordings. Circleback eliminates this problem entirely by not requiring a bot. The platform works through desktop and mobile apps that record locally, ensuring you never miss a meeting due to technical failures. This approach works for both online and in-person meetings.

Interface and Search Functionality

Users find Fireflies.ai's dashboard cluttered and difficult to navigate, with inadequate search capabilities. Circleback provides a clean interface with AI-powered search that lets you query your entire meeting history using natural language. You can ask questions like "What did the client say about budget?" and get exact quotes with one-click access to the specific moment in the recording.

Integration Reliability

Fireflies.ai users report unreliable connections with tools like Slack and HubSpot that require manual workarounds. Circleback offers robust native integrations that work consistently with CRMs, project management tools, and communication platforms. The platform includes a custom automation engine that automatically moves meeting outcomes into your existing workflows without manual intervention.

Action Item Detection

Where Fireflies.ai frequently misses important tasks or flags irrelevant information, Circleback automatically identifies and correctly assigns action items. The platform structures these items clearly and routes them to the appropriate tools and team members through its automation system.

Performance in Challenging Environments

Fireflies.ai struggles with noisy environments and in-person meetings. Circleback maintains consistent quality across different meeting types and environments, whether you're recording online calls or face-to-face discussions. The mobile app captures in-person conversations effectively, while the desktop app handles online meetings without requiring bot participation.

Summary Quality

Many Fireflies.ai users switch away because the AI-generated summaries lack depth and lose important nuances. Circleback produces detailed, structured notes that capture decisions, context, and specific phrasing while maintaining the original tone of conversations. This eliminates the need to return to full transcripts to find missing details.

Team Collaboration

Fireflies.ai offers limited team features and collaboration capabilities. Circleback provides advanced team functionality including shared automations, access controls, and the ability to search across all team meetings. Team members can collaborate on meeting notes and share insights without everyone needing full access to recordings.

The core difference is that Circleback was built as a comprehensive meeting automation platform rather than just a transcription service. This foundation enables it to handle the complex workflows and reliability requirements that Fireflies.ai users find lacking.