Otter.ai

Otter.ai is one of the most popular AI meeting-transcription tools, automatically recording and transcribing meetings, lectures and interviews in real time, then generating summaries and action items. It joins your Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams calls, produces a live transcript you can follow as people speak, identifies different speakers, and afterward delivers a searchable transcript plus an AI summary highlighting key points and decisions — so you can focus on the conversation instead of scribbling notes.

Otter's AI features go beyond transcription: OtterPilot joins meetings automatically, generates summaries, captures action items, and can even answer questions about what was discussed. It integrates with Slack, Salesforce, HubSpot and other tools, syncing meeting insights into your workflow, and offers live captioning valuable for accessibility.

Otter offers a free plan (with monthly transcription-minute limits), and paid tiers (Pro, Business, Enterprise) that raise limits, add advanced summaries, team features and integrations, priced per user.

Strengths: fast, accurate real-time transcription, useful AI summaries and action items, a genuinely usable free tier, and strong integrations for teams. Weaknesses: accuracy dips with heavy accents, crosstalk or poor audio; free-tier minutes run out quickly for heavy users; and participants should be told they're being recorded (consent laws vary by region).

For professionals in back-to-back meetings, students transcribing lectures, journalists recording interviews, and teams wanting searchable meeting records with summaries, Otter.ai is a leading choice — one of the original AI notetakers and still among the best, especially for those who want transcription and summaries without paying for a premium tool from day one.