Users report mixed experiences with Zoom AI, with some praising its real-time assistance capabilities, whiteboard integration, and sentiment analysis features that help maintain engagement during meetings. However, questions remain about the practical utility of its AI-generated summaries and transcripts, with users seeking feedback on whether these features provide meaningful value in real-world usage. The platform appears to offer useful functionality for meeting enhancement, though adoption and effectiveness of its AI features vary among users.

Otter.ai receives polarized reviews from users, with significant criticism focused on its poor performance in multi-speaker environments and transcript accuracy issues. While some users find it to be an easy-to-use recording and transcription service, others report that the product doesn't meet advertised expectations and contains bugs that affect core functionality. Additional concerns include unclear pricing structures and inadequate customer support, though the service maintains a moderate user rating despite these limitations.

For more detailed information about these AI transcription services, you can explore the following resources: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Otter.ai excels as a dedicated AI transcription tool that works across multiple platforms and meeting types. It provides comprehensive live transcription, speaker identification, and automated summaries with a generous free tier. However, transcripts can be verbose and lack structure, while accuracy issues occur with complex audio or speaker identification.

Otter.ai is best suited for professionals who attend meetings across different platforms, educators recording lectures, and journalists conducting interviews. The tool's cross-platform compatibility and ability to handle in-person conversations make it valuable for users who need flexible transcription capabilities. While it offers some integrations with tools like HubSpot and Notion, these connections remain relatively shallow for driving meaningful workflow automation.

Zoom AI provides seamless integration for organizations already using Zoom's platform, with no additional setup or cost for paid subscribers. It generates instant meeting summaries and action items while allowing participants to query the AI during meetings. However, it's limited exclusively to Zoom meetings and lacks the depth of features found in dedicated transcription tools.

Zoom AI works best for organizations heavily invested in Zoom's ecosystem who want basic meeting intelligence without additional tools or costs. The platform serves teams that primarily use Zoom for virtual meetings and value simplicity over advanced features. Like Otter.ai, Zoom AI's integration capabilities are limited, offering little connection to external productivity tools that could help users act on meeting insights.

Why users switch away from Otter.ai or Zoom AI

Users switch away from Otter.ai due to transcript quality issues that make the output difficult to use effectively. The transcripts are frequently overly verbose and lack structure, which makes it hard to quickly locate key takeaways from meetings. Additionally, accuracy problems occur with complex audio situations, resulting in transcription mistakes and incorrect speaker identification that reduces the reliability of the output.

The meeting management system creates operational problems that frustrate users in professional settings. The Otter.ai assistant can spam calendar invites to meeting participants and join unwanted meetings when not properly configured. These issues disrupt normal meeting workflows and create administrative overhead that users must manage to prevent unwanted interruptions.

Feature limitations restrict users who need broader functionality for their workflow requirements. Otter.ai has limited language support, covering primarily English with only Spanish and French as additional options. The platform also lacks a native desktop application, requiring users to work through web browsers or integrations. For users requiring extensive third-party integrations or desktop-native functionality, these gaps drive them toward alternatives that offer more comprehensive feature sets.

Users switch away from Zoom AI because it only functions within Zoom meetings, limiting its usefulness for organizations that use multiple video conferencing platforms like Teams or conduct in-person meetings. Unlike alternatives that can transcribe any audio source, Zoom AI cannot independently capture in-person conversations or meetings held on other platforms.

The integration capabilities are constrained compared to dedicated AI note-taking tools. Zoom AI lacks direct connections to popular productivity platforms like HubSpot and Notion, keeping meeting data siloed within Zoom's ecosystem. Users cannot easily push meeting summaries and action items to their existing workflow tools and CRM systems.

Meeting management features remain underdeveloped, with users reporting limited control over which meetings to record or summarize automatically. The chat integration functionality is basic, and some users experience technical issues when attempting to retrieve or share AI-generated notes outside of the Zoom platform itself.

FAQs

Would Otter.ai work for in-person meetings? What about Zoom AI?

Otter.ai works well for in-person meetings - it can transcribe live in-person conversations through its mobile app and can record audio without requiring a meeting. Zoom AI, however, only works for virtual Zoom calls and cannot independently capture in-person audio.

Does either of these tools require a meeting bot to join the meeting?

Otter.ai uses an assistant that can join meetings in real time when integrating with platforms like Zoom and Teams. Some users have complained about the assistant spamming calendar invites or joining unwanted meetings if not configured properly. Zoom AI doesn't require a separate bot since it's built directly into the Zoom platform.

What do users say about the quality of transcriptions?

For Otter.ai, users find it extremely easy to use for transcribing, but accuracy can suffer with complex audio. Some reviews note mistakes in transcription and speaker identification. The transcripts can also be overly verbose and lack structure, making it hard to quickly find key takeaways.

Do these tools help a user follow up with action items from the meeting? How so?

Both tools help with action items. Otter.ai's "OtterPilot" feature auto-generates summaries, follow-up emails, and CRM updates. Zoom AI automatically generates meeting summaries and next-action items at the end of Zoom calls, with summaries and highlighted action items generated almost instantly after meetings.

Do these tools integrate with software like Hubspot, Salesforce, or Linear?

Otter.ai offers robust integrations - it connects with Zoom, Slack, and pushes notes to HubSpot and Notion via OtterPilot. Zoom AI has limited integrations and stays primarily within Zoom's ecosystem, with no direct HubSpot or Notion sync mentioned.

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