Read AI vs Circleback

Read AI

Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android

Desktop captures device audio for online meetings. The iPhone and Android apps record in-person conversations and put their reports beside Zoom, Meet, and Teams meetings; neither mobile app can record another app or phone call using the same microphone.

EvidenceRead AI desktop appRead AI iPhone appRead AI Android app

Circleback

Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, and Apple Watch

macOS and Windows apps capture online meetings without a bot, including system audio and video, with recording from the detected-meeting prompt. The iOS and Android apps record in-person conversations and include Assistant. Apple Watch records from your wrist without the iPhone nearby. Every app sends recordings into the same Circleback meeting system.

EvidenceCircleback recording guideCircleback desktop recordingCircleback mobile and Apple Watch apps

Read AI

iOS and Android real-time transcript and summary

Both mobile apps record room conversations with a live transcript and summary. They do not capture phone calls, FaceTime, or a virtual-meeting app on the same device. In shared-room audio, distinct voices may begin as Conference Room — Speaker 1, Speaker 2, and so on; owners and editors can rename or reassign them afterward.

EvidenceRead AI iPhone appRead AI Android appRead AI mobile capture limitsRead AI speaker editing

Circleback

Phone, desktop, or Watch—with speaker labels

Record in-person conversations from iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, or Apple Watch. For quick capture, tap the iPhone Lock Screen widget, Android home screen widget, or Apple Watch complication, or press and hold your configured iPhone Action button. No separate recorder is needed. Recordings get the same speaker labels, notes, assigned action items, search, sharing, and automations as online meetings. Phone calls use an existing call recording imported into Circleback.

EvidenceCircleback product guideCircleback mobile and Apple Watch appsCircleback mobile recording shortcutsCircleback iPhone Action buttonCircleback Apple Watch complication

Read AI

Playback only on Enterprise and Enterprise+

Pro and free users can receive notes and transcripts, but source media is not a durable playback library. Read documents a 30-day grace period before lower-tier media deletion.

EvidenceRead AI recording availabilityRead AI pricing

Circleback

Optional recordings with playback, downloads, and clips

Every capture route can keep the source recording with the meeting. Bot recordings keep the meeting video, and bot-free desktop recordings keep meeting video by default, which you can turn off with the Record meeting video setting. Play it beside the transcript, download it, link to a moment, or make a clip. If you want notes and the speaker-labeled transcript without the recording, turn recording storage off.

EvidenceCircleback recording guideCircleback desktop recordingCircleback optional recording storage

Read AI

Summaries, action items, Search Copilot, and coaching analytics

Read analyzes meetings live and afterward: engagement, sentiment, speaker stats, action items, and search across connected content. Recommendations can resurface recent work assigned to the user, but Read does not document a full workspace-wide task board with assignee and completion management comparable to dedicated action trackers.

EvidenceRead AI pricingRead AI report distribution

Circleback

Detailed standalone notes, assigned action items, and cited search

Circleback’s notes are designed to give someone who missed the meeting its context, decisions, and next steps. Type private notes during the meeting on web, desktop, or mobile, and Circleback uses them as it writes the AI notes, keeping the points you flagged and expanding them with context from the transcript. It automatically creates action items and assigns them when the conversation makes the owner clear. One workspace-wide list lets teams filter and complete tasks across meetings. Custom insights extract the fields a team needs, while Assistant searches meetings and connected email with citations. What’s shown on screen, like slides, dashboards, and docs, makes it into the notes, so Assistant (Ask Circleback) and AI tools connected over MCP can find it through the notes.

EvidenceCircleback product guideCircleback action items in LinearCircleback CLI documentationCircleback notes capture what’s shared on screen

Read AI

Cross-source Search Copilot

Search can span meetings, email, messages, and documents, which is broader than a transcript library. This supports search across work, but not dedicated relationship timelines or upcoming-event pages.

EvidenceRead AI pricing

Circleback

Meeting and email history for each person and company

Person and company pages combine rolling summaries, relationship timelines, emails, meetings, attendees, and upcoming events. Search and Assistant work across that context, so a conversation stays useful to the next person and the next team.

EvidenceCircleback product guide

Read AI

Workspace-wide participant and team report access

Workspace admins can set automatic report access for internal or external participants and give teams role-based access to matching reports, including retroactive access. Owners can send recaps and recurring-meeting pre-reads through email, Slack, or Teams. Participant rules use calendar invitees, including no-shows, and the owner’s settings govern each report, so teams should configure workspace controls deliberately.

EvidenceRead AI workspace sharing settingsRead AI report distribution

Circleback

Conditional automatic sharing with workspace safeguards

Folders add meetings automatically by meeting name, participants, invitee emails or domains, and tags. Share a folder with specific people, teams, or the whole workspace, including people outside it. Privacy rules keep meetings like 1:1s out of shared folders, and admins can set or enforce default sharing access.

EvidenceCircleback automatic sharingCircleback enforced workspace settings

Read AI

Recaps, pre-reads, scheduled updates, and agent actions

Read can send post-meeting recaps, recurring-meeting pre-reads, and scheduled topic updates, while Ask Read actions can draft and send email, create calendar events, and update HubSpot after user approval. It is more opinionated around its own agents and intelligence outputs than a general meeting trigger/condition/action canvas.

EvidenceRead AI report distributionRead AI actions

Circleback

Conditional workflows, CRM updates, and task creation

Run actions when meetings match conditions, extract the fields each team cares about, and route the result into the system where work happens. Sales can update the CRM; product and research can collect themes; engineering can open assigned issues in Linear or another tracker; recruiting and customer teams can route structured follow-up. Automations also post to Slack, call webhooks, and can be re-run for past meetings.

EvidenceCircleback product guide

Read AI

Calendar, conferencing, email, messaging, documents, and premium connectors

Search Copilot’s cross-source coverage is a strength, although connector eligibility varies by paid plan.

EvidenceRead AI pricing

Circleback

Search other apps, then do the work there

Circleback Assistant can look up context and take actions in tools such as Linear, Notion, Asana, HubSpot, PostHog, Attio, Ashby, Intercom, and Plain. Automations can create Linear issues from assigned meeting action items, write action items to monday.com, and send outcomes to Slack, Salesforce, Zoho, and more. Connect additional tools through Zapier, Make, webhooks, or custom MCP servers.

EvidenceCircleback product guideCircleback Assistant connectors

Read AI

Open-beta REST API and MCP with full meeting reports

Read’s API and remote MCP can return meeting metadata, participants, summaries, chapters, action items, topics, metrics, full speaker-labeled transcripts, and recording-download URLs. They are open beta, use browser OAuth with short-lived rotating tokens, lack service credentials and file upload, and only reach reports the user can access unless an admin enables global report access.

EvidenceRead AI API and MCP overviewRead AI MCP tools

Circleback

The same complete meeting data for people and AI agents

Circleback is built for people and AI agents. The complete meeting record a person can access—its full speaker-labeled transcript, recording, notes, action items, metadata, attendees, and related people and companies—is also available programmatically through the public API, MCP, and CLI. The API also supports action-item updates. MCP and CLI add search and retrieval across meetings, transcripts, action items, calendars, email, people, companies, and tags, and can update meetings and tags, share meetings, and create, update, or delete action items. Connect ChatGPT or Claude, build internal tools, or receive meeting data by webhook.

EvidenceCircleback public APICircleback MCP documentationCircleback CLI documentation

Read AI

Core admin on Enterprise; advanced governance on Enterprise+

Retention, domain controls, SAML, and HIPAA-related capabilities are concentrated in Enterprise+. That plan currently carries a five-license minimum.

EvidenceRead AI pricingRead AI workspace sharing settingsRead AI workspace offboardingRead AI data handling

Circleback

Security, privacy, and workspace controls

Customer data is encrypted at rest and in transit and never used to train models. Circleback is SOC 2 Type II, certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, supports GDPR obligations, and is HIPAA-compliant with BAAs available. The security portal includes compliance materials and an external infrastructure pentest report. Available controls include single sign-on (SAML or OIDC) and SCIM provisioning, configurable data retention and recording storage, enforced workspace and sharing settings, teams and roles, domain and API key access controls, centralized billing, usage reporting, and free viewer seats.

EvidenceCircleback enforced workspace settingsCircleback security and data processingCircleback security overviewCircleback security portal

Read AI

Read’s pricing page says 20+; its detail table says 16+

Read’s current pricing page uses “20+ languages” in the Free plan card but “16+ languages” in the detailed comparison table. The coverage is useful but materially narrower on paper than competitors advertising 75 or 100+; verify the language you need rather than relying on the headline count.

EvidenceRead AI pricing

Circleback

100+ transcription languages

Users can choose from more than 100 meeting languages and separately control the output language used for generated notes.

EvidenceCircleback product guide