I tried 3 different AI meeting note-taking tools. Pros, cons, and my ultimate winner. (a/o May 2023)
If you're knee-deep in meetings and hate the idea of taking notes, this is for you.
I hate taking meeting notes. It distracts me from the conversation at hand, and I miss those fleeting emotional cues from the other person. In this review, I’ll take you through an honest analysis of my top 3 AI meeting note-taking tools.
But first, a quick background from what I’ve seen thus far.
Notetaking, transcribing, and extracting meaning… out the window.
Before everyone started making them, there were video analyzing tools. I remember having a call with the founder of Clipr.ai a long while back, and at the time it sounded like a fresh new thing to do with video. I also met the founder of Axle.ai at a Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs event—and while they were focusing more on video creators, I couldn’t help but think of more uses for these tools.
For example, for a UX researcher, pouring over videos to analyze interviews could be painful. Maybe that’s a valid problem to tackle. (But then, with the recent massive layoffs in UXR, it could be a nail in the coffin rather than a useful solution...)
So, it seems people have been working on new angles with video for a while now, and there seemed to be a convergence:
A need to extract key moments (e.g. insights, decisions, to-dos) from video content
A need to not take notes manually
So why not corporate meetings that suck the time of senior executives, to lead the way? They have the willingness to pay because the potential amount of time recovered is immense. Hence, it makes sense that product in this young field followed the money.
1. Vowel
Oh Vowel, I loved you the first time I saw your URL in someone else’s meeting. I enjoyed every moment of my free trial until it expired.
Then I discovered… gasp! Competitors.
Pros
The transcriptions were quite accurate!
Talk time for users is useful. One person I was meeting with said he started feeling bad for talking 70% of the time! Interesting subtle nudge mid-meeting.
The AI summaries were useful! I didn’t think all of the points that were mentioned needed to be there, but at least I could pick and choose
Having a space to write notes and share links with my meeting participants was great. It felt more collaborative than dumping links over chat, as is often the process on other meeting platforms.
The real-time transcription was pretty cool. That said, I only looked at it to make sure it was running. It made me self-conscious of what I said if I stared at it as I talked.
Cons
Language limitations. I’m not sure if English is the primary transcription language and others are not supported but calls in Japanese didn’t look great.
The meeting needs to be taken outside of Google Meet or Zoom, our regular meeting tools. That said, the browser plugin made it easy to replace the Google Meet links with Vowel ones. This won’t work if your team needs to use a specific tool, though.
The 40-minute cap on the free plan, among other limitations. I understand their positioning is to compare with Zoom, but the fear of getting a meeting cut short due to the system possibly booting you has made me schedule less with Vowel. And… why, oh why, would you make my notes progressively unavailable? That’s taking away value of staying on the platform…
*Truth: I was ready to whip out my company credit card if I hadn’t seen all these similar products.
2. Fireflies.ai
I saw this tool mentioned a couple of times and decided to try it out. In my view, this is the battleship of AI meeting note-takers. There are lots (and I mean lots) of features.
Pros
The transcription quality is quite good!
Talk time for users is useful.
Sentiment filters look very interesting.
The AI filters for meeting notes look intriguing, but alas, behind a pro plan. Perhaps they should simply start your free trial upon signup without you having to click a button (hint, hint).
The meeting outline looks useful.
The audio snippet scrubber is also pretty cool.
Overall, the capabilities look (potentially) very meaty and useful if accurate.
Cons
An AI joins your meeting. In my world, it’s a con, because it’s a tad bit creepy. But perhaps it’s a pro for some, as it clearly states that this meeting is being transcribed, without you verbally mentioning that.
It catches all of my “ums” and “ahs.” This might be a pro for people trying to improve the way they speak, but it makes the transcript a bit more annoying to parse through.
The visual design feels a bit busy and corporate to me—everything is too close together for my taste, without much whitespace. But then again, it’s chock-full of features—maybe that’s a great look for their ideal user!
It doesn’t auto-identify meeting participants, just as Speaker 1, 2, 3.
Limit of 3 transcriptions on the free plan, which limited my usage to 3 meetings.
3. Supernormal
You’ve read this far. This is my winner today.
Pros
It’s seamless! It hides in your Google Meet and auto-transcribes without video recording your meeting, unless you tell it not to. Because, frankly, I don’t want to watch the meeting video—transcription is plenty.
It cuts most of the filler words! Yay, a clean transcript!
The meeting notes are concise and useful.
Speakers’ names are auto-tagged on transcripts.
The pricing for a pro plan looks reasonable at the time of this writing, at $6/person/month.
30 meetings per month limit for a free plan is generous compared to competitors.
Cons
I just had a two-hour meeting. The notes look like a novel! I don’t want to read them. Perhaps I need to throw it to ChatGPT to condense it further?
It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that Fireflies.ai might have, so someone looking for expanded functionality might enjoy that more. That said, for someone who’s just looking for simple notes and to-dos, this could be a great fit!
Didn’t find Japanese language transcription, which would’ve been nice, but is not critical.
“Where do you find all these tools?”
I’ve gotten this question a lot, probably because there is often an AI friend in my calls.
One source is ProductHunt. We’ve launched a couple of apps there, and there’s a good stream of new launches every day. I’ve also encountered a couple on our community Slack channel at Creative Tokyo.
The truth is, I’ve tried a lot more AI meeting note-taker tools than these three, but in my humble opinion, the quality was not good enough to write home about. Among the ones I’ve tested are actually a few well-known ones, but I’m not here to throw products under the bus. The three above are the only ones I’ve considered paying for.
But I’m always on the lookout for the new and audacious. Do you have a recommendation? I’m all ears!
Privacy and future directions
My co-founder once mentioned that these AI tools are taking all our data, which is true. Is there an ounce of privacy? I’m not sure, to be totally honest. “If you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product” is a common notion in the land of tech. Would I feel comfortable having a highly private call with AI friends listening? Er, maybe not.
My mind is happy to go off the rails and imagine something scary that could happen using acquired meeting data, but I won’t say it because I’m afraid it might actually happen.
So onwards we go, headlong into the weird world of AI and all of its beautiful, and slightly frightening, possibilities. What a time to be alive.