Short answer: a free AI note taker records your meeting, turns the speech into a transcript and writes a summary for you, without a paid plan. The catch is that "free," "no bot in the call" and "private" are three different promises. Otter and Fathom have free plans built around a note taker that joins the call. Granola and Tactiq capture from your own computer, so no bot shows up, but they still use cloud services. Yogurt, a new open source app, keeps the audio, the transcript and the AI on your laptop.
If you spend half your week in video calls, you already know the problem. You're trying to listen, think and type at the same time, and the notes come out thin. An AI note taker does the typing for you. This guide explains how these tools work, which free options record without a bot, which ones keep your audio on your machine, and what to check before you connect a work calendar.
What an AI note taker actually does
Think about what you do after a meeting: you skim your scribbles, try to remember who promised what, and write a recap. An AI note taker does the same three steps.
- It captures the audio. Either a bot joins the call as a participant, or an app on your computer listens to your microphone and the sound coming out of your speakers.
- It writes a transcript. Speech recognition software turns the audio into text, often with the name of each speaker.
- It summarizes. A large language model (the kind of AI behind ChatGPT) reads the transcript and writes a recap, decisions and next steps. Many tools also let you ask questions, like "what did we agree on the deadline?"
The difference between tools is mostly in step one and in where steps two and three happen.
Bot in the call or app on your computer?
There are two ways to capture a meeting.
A bot joins the call. You connect your calendar, and the tool sends a note taker into your Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams meeting. Everyone sees it in the participant list. Otter's help center says its Notetaker joins as a visible guest participant and can't join anonymously. That's honest, and it works even when you can't attend. But some people don't like an extra attendee, and some company settings block guests, which stops the bot from getting in.
An app records from your computer. Nothing joins the meeting. The app captures your microphone and your computer's sound, so it works with any call app, including ones the bot tools don't support. Granola and Yogurt work this way, Tactiq does something similar through a Chrome extension, and Fathom offers it as a beta option on Mac. The trade off is that you have to be in the meeting, with the app running.
Without a bot, nobody gets an automatic signal that notes are being taken. Granola and Yogurt both tell you to let the other people on the call know you're recording. Do it every time. Depending on where people are, you may need their permission before you transcribe them.
Where does your audio go?
"Records from your computer" doesn't mean "stays on your computer." That's the part most comparisons skip.
- Cloud tools send audio to the vendor's servers for transcription and summaries. Otter's free plan includes audio playback, and Fathom's free plan stores your recordings, so your meetings live in your account on their service.
- Device capture, cloud processing is the middle option. Granola captures audio on your computer, sends it to a transcription provider in real time, and says it deletes the audio once it's transcribed. Your transcript and notes are still stored in its cloud. Tactiq says it doesn't record or store audio and saves the transcript as text.
- Fully local means the transcription and the summary run on your own machine. Yogurt's README says your audio, transcripts and AI processing stay on your computer, and that it only goes online to download its AI models and check for updates.
If your meetings include client data, health details or anything under a confidentiality agreement, this row matters more than any feature list.
Free AI note takers compared
Every limit below comes from the vendor's own pricing or help pages, checked on November 12, 2026. Free plans change often, so check again before you rely on one.
| Tool | What the free plan includes | Bot in the call? | Where audio is processed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Otter (Basic) | 300 transcription minutes a month, up to 30 minutes per conversation | Yes, a visible Notetaker joins Zoom, Meet and Teams | Otter's cloud, with audio playback |
| Fathom (Free) | Unlimited recordings and transcriptions, instant AI call summaries | Your choice: a bot, or bot free capture (beta, Mac) | Fathom's cloud, recordings stored |
| Granola (Basic) | AI meeting notes, 30 days of meeting history | No, it captures your device audio | Cloud transcription, audio deleted afterward |
| Tactiq (Free) | 10 transcripts and 5 AI credits a month, Chrome extension for Meet, Zoom and Teams | No | Doesn't record audio, saves the transcript as text |
| Yogurt | Free and open source under the MIT license, no account needed | No | On your computer |
A few details that don't fit in a table:
- Otter keeps recording after 30 minutes on the free plan, but you only see the first 30 minutes of the transcript, according to its help center. If your meetings run an hour, plan around that.
- Fathom puts AI generated action items on its paid Premium plan. The free plan gives you summaries, not a task list.
- Granola needs an internet connection to transcribe and write notes, and since it deletes the audio, you can't replay a recording later.
- Tactiq keeps transcribing when you run out of AI credits. The AI features pause until your limit resets the next month.
- Yogurt asks more of your computer: a Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 14.4 or newer, Windows 10 (version 2004) or newer, or Ubuntu 22.04 or similar, with at least 8 GB of memory. Setup downloads about 5 GB of AI models first, and the best model for your machine can be 14 GB or more. Speaker names from Zoom, Teams and Meet work on Mac only for now.
What free plans usually leave out
Free tiers are generous on the headline feature and tight somewhere else. Look for limits in four places:
- Minutes or meetings. A monthly cap or a per meeting cap (Otter), or a number of transcripts (Tactiq).
- History. How long you can look back. Granola's free plan shows 30 days.
- AI actions. Summaries, questions and action items may be counted separately (Tactiq's AI credits) or reserved for paid plans (Fathom's action items).
- Integrations. Sending notes to Notion, a CRM or Zapier is often a paid feature.
None of this makes a free plan bad. It just means the best free tool is the one whose limit you won't hit in a normal week.
Questions to ask before you connect a work calendar
Connecting a calendar is what lets a note taker start on its own, and it's also the moment your work data starts flowing to a new company. Before you click "allow," ask:
- Does my company already allow a tool for this? Many companies have an approved note taker, or a rule against recording. Check first.
- Where are recordings and transcripts stored, and for how long? Look for the answer on the vendor's security or privacy page, not just the pricing page.
- Is my data used to train AI models? Granola, for example, says it trains on anonymized data and lets each user opt out in settings.
- Who can see my notes? Check the default sharing settings. Some tools can send notes to other attendees automatically.
- How will people know they're being recorded? With a bot, they see it. Without one, it's on you to tell them.
The same caution applies to AI assistants in general. If you connect your work email or files to a personal AI account, read what the vendor says about it first. We walk through one example in our guide to the Gemini agent.
Your first week with a free AI note taker
You don't need a perfect setup. Try this:
- Pick one tool based on your biggest worry. Don't want a bot? Try Granola or Tactiq. Want everything on your laptop? Try Yogurt. Just want long recordings for free? Fathom's free plan has no recording cap.
- Use it on three internal meetings first. Low stakes, friendly colleagues, and you can tell everyone up front.
- Read the summary right after the call. Fix names, wrong numbers and anything the AI guessed. You're still the one responsible for what gets sent.
- Turn the summary into action. Copy the next steps into your task list or a short follow up email. That's where the time savings really show up.
- Decide at the end of the week. Keep it, switch tools, or go back to typing. All three are fine answers.
Meeting notes are one of the easiest places to start using AI at work, because the input is already there and the output is easy to check. Once you trust the summaries, the next step is using them: drafting the follow up, updating a tracker, or asking an assistant what changed since last week.
Go deeper
- How to use ChatGPT covers the basics of asking an AI assistant for summaries and drafts.
- ChatGPT in Slack and Teams shows how AI fits into the chat tools you already use at work.
- ChatGPT prompts for work gives you prompts to turn a transcript into a recap or a task list.
- Our AI tools hub maps the assistants and agents worth knowing.