Best AI meeting-note tools (2026)
By Will
AI meeting-note tools join your Zoom, Google Meet or Teams calls, transcribe them automatically, and turn the recording into a summary, action items and a searchable transcript. The three most established options are Fireflies, Otter and Fathom, and while they overlap heavily, each one is genuinely better suited to a different kind of user.
In short: Fireflies is the best all-round pick for teams that live in a CRM, Otter is the strongest choice if live captions matter to you, and Fathom has the most generous free plan of the three by some distance.
How we compared
- Transcription accuracy and whether captions appear live or only after the call.
- What is actually included on the free plan, and how limited it is.
- Summary quality and how easy it is to search or query past meetings.
- Pricing per seat and whether there are team minimums.
| # | Tool | Best for | Rating | Pricing | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | FirefliesBest all-round | Sales teams, Recruiters | Free plan (400 min storage); Pro from $10/seat/mo billed annually | Visit | |
| 2 | OtterBest for live transcription | Students and journalists, Teams that want live captions | Free plan (300 min/mo); Pro from $8.33/user/mo billed annually | Visit | |
| 3 | FathomBest free plan | Solo users and small teams, Budget-conscious teams | Free plan (unlimited); Premium from $16/user/mo billed annually | Visit |
#1 · Best all-round
Fireflies
Unlimited transcription on every plan, a genuinely useful AI assistant for querying old meetings, and the widest CRM and app integration list of the three.
#2 · Best for live transcription
Otter
The most accurate real-time captions of the group, which matters if you want to read along during the call rather than just review notes afterwards.
#3 · Best free plan
Fathom
A genuinely unlimited free tier with no minute cap, making it the obvious starting point for solo users and small teams on a budget.
How to choose the right one
If your team already lives inside a CRM and wants meeting notes to feed straight into deal records, Fireflies has the broadest set of native integrations and unlimited transcription even on its free plan. If you or your team need to follow along with captions during the call itself, rather than just reading a summary afterwards, Otter's live transcription is the most accurate of the three, though its free plan is the tightest on minutes. If cost is the deciding factor, Fathom's free plan has no minute cap at all, which makes it the easiest to justify for a solo user or a small team that is not ready to pay for a meeting tool yet.
Which should you choose?
Choose Fireflies if you want one tool that plugs into your existing CRM and sales stack, and you are prepared to pay for the AI credits that unlock its more advanced summaries.
Choose Otter if live captions during the call matter more to you than anything else, and you are comfortable with a tighter free-plan minute limit.
Choose Fathom if budget is the priority. Its free plan is unlimited, and the Premium tier is the cheapest paid option of the three if you outgrow it.
Frequently asked questions
Which of these has the best free plan?
Fathom, by a clear margin. Its free plan has no monthly minute cap, while Fireflies limits free-tier storage to 400 minutes per team and Otter caps free use at 300 minutes a month.
Is Otter more accurate than Fireflies or Fathom?
For live, real-time captions during a call, yes, Otter is generally considered the most accurate of the three. For post-call transcription and summaries, all three are close, and Fireflies and Fathom both do a good job.
Can I use more than one of these at once?
Technically yes, since most video call tools only allow one recording bot per meeting at a time, but there is little reason to. Pick the one that matches how you will actually use it: live captions, CRM integration, or a free unlimited plan.