The Desk · AI resource
Which AI Note Taker Should You Use?
“Which AI note taker should I use?” It’s one of the questions people ask me most in the WhatsApp communities I’m part of.
My answer always starts the same way: it depends on how you meet. Some tools are brilliant on a Zoom call and useless across a coffee table. And it also matters when it comes to your workflow.
Here’s how I think about it, the tools I know well, and a few more to consider.
First, what do you need it for?
A note taker can do three different jobs, and most tools are only good at one or two of them:
- Online meetings: Zoom, Google Meet, Teams.
- In-person meetings and interviews: the conversation across the table, or a client interview you want every word of.
- Quick dictation: a WhatsApp voice note turned into text, an email you’d rather say than type, a thought you want to catch on the go.
There’s also another question to consider for the first two: does the tool show up in the meeting? Some join as a visible guest that asks to be let into the room. Plenty of people don’t mind. Some do, and it can change the feel of a first call with a new client.
The four I know well
Wispr Flow
Wispr Flow is great for quick dictation on a phone. It’s set up as an overlay which sits over whatever app you’re in, so you can dictate a WhatsApp reply or an email without switching windows.
It’s also good for online meetings, because it doesn’t show up as a request to be let into the meeting room. Some people don’t like a bot joining their call, and with Wispr Flow nobody sees one. I also really like the scratchpad function where you can jot your own thoughts in the middle of a meeting.
Where it’s not great is in-person meetings and interviews. It’s an overlay, and funnily there’s no native transcribe button in the app to press when you sit down across from someone. Wispr team, if you’re reading this, please add that function.
Granola
Granola is good but I only tried it for a short while before I switched to Wispr. I’d always thought of it as desktop only, but it now runs on Mac, Windows and iPhone, and the iPhone app can record an in-person meeting. There’s no Android app yet. Like Wispr Flow, it listens from your own device rather than joining the call as a guest.
Fireflies
Fireflies is good for both in-person and online meetings. The catch is that on a video call it asks to be let into the room, and everyone can see it’s there.
It’s not so good for quick dictation. There’s no overlay like Wispr Flow’s, so it’s not the tool you reach for to reply to a message.
Otter
Otter is okay for in-person and online meetings, but it also needs to be let into the room, so it has the same drawback as Fireflies. It’s not easy to reach for quick dictation either, like a WhatsApp note or an email, unless you don’t mind a lot of copy-pasting back and forth.
At a glance
Here’s how they compare, with three more I cover further down.
| Tool | Online meetings | In-person meetings | Quick dictation | Visible in the call | Connects to Claude |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wispr Flow | Good | Not really | Great | No | Yes |
| Granola | Good | Good, on iPhone | Not really | No | Yes, paid plan |
| Fireflies | Good | Good | Not really | Yes | Yes |
| Otter | Okay | Okay | Not really | Yes | Yes, free plan too |
| Fathom | Good | Not really | Not really | Yes | Yes |
| tl;dv | Good | Not really | Not really | Yes | Yes, Pro plan |
| Notion AI meeting notes | Good | Okay | Not really | No | Yes |
My Fireflies hack
If you have a lot of in-person meetings to transcribe, Fireflies is still the one I’d use, even on the free plan.
The free plan gives you unlimited transcription, but the AI extras (smart summaries, recaps, action items) run on a small allowance of credits. So I don’t lean on Fireflies for the summary. I connect Fireflies to Claude and let Claude write the digest instead.
It looks like this:
- Record the meeting in Fireflies as usual.
- Connect Fireflies to Claude: in Claude, go to Settings, then Connectors, find Fireflies and sign in.
- Ask Claude for the summary. Something like:
Read my Fireflies transcript from today's meeting with [name]. Give me a short summary, the decisions we made, and every action item with who owns it. Then draft a friendly follow-up email I can send them.Claude writes the digest the way you like it, and it can connect what was said to everything else it knows about your work.
If you set up Claude skills that call on Fireflies as a tool (e.g. for contact briefings, morning briefings etc), it will pull context from Fireflies for those skills. Very useful if you need to know who to follow up with, or a conversation history with a client.
One thing to check if you’re new to Fireflies: for accounts made after 1 September 2026, unlimited transcription needs the auto-join setting switched on. Otherwise it stops after three meetings.
The question that matters most: does it connect to Claude?
This is the one most people skip, but it’s the one I’d put first.
Your note taker records your meetings. That means it’s quietly collecting context about your tasks, your projects and the people you work with. If it can connect to Claude, or whichever AI tool you use every day, all of that becomes something Claude can draw on. It starts to understand your business and your routines, and its help gets more specific to you.
Here’s what that looks like for me. Because Claude can read my meetings, it has context about my projects and the people I work with. That feeds my daily morning briefing, where it tells me about my clients, the projects I have on and where the ball is in my court. It also tells me which leads I need to follow up with, because it knows all about the meetings and the follow-up actions I’m supposed to do.
It can be very powerful if you choose the right one.
The good news is that most of the well-known note takers now have a Claude connector (Claude’s name for an integration you switch on in its settings). Wispr Flow, Fireflies, Otter, and Fathom all connect, and so does Notion. Otter’s works on its free plan. Granola’s needs a paid Granola plan, and tl;dv’s needs its Pro plan. Most connectors only let Claude read your meetings, which is what you want: it can look, but it can’t change anything.
To check a tool you’re considering, open Claude, go to Settings, then Connectors, and search for it.
A few more to consider
These come up often enough that they belong here too.
- Fathom: one of the most generous free plans for online meetings, with unlimited recording and transcription. It joins your call as a guest, like Fireflies.
- tl;dv: a strong free plan for Zoom, Google Meet and Teams. Also joins as a guest. Its Claude connector needs the Pro plan.
- Notion AI meeting notes: if you already live in Notion, it can take notes inside the page where the rest of your work sits.
How to choose
Start with how you meet, then check the connector:
- Mostly online, and you’d rather nobody sees a bot join: Wispr Flow or Granola.
- Lots of in-person meetings: Fireflies (with my hack above) or Granola on your iPhone.
- You mostly want to talk instead of type: Wispr Flow.
- Whatever you choose: make sure it connects to Claude before you commit. That’s what turns a pile of transcripts into something that helps you run your business.
Want it set up for you?
In my own setup, Claude briefs me before a meeting on who I’m meeting and our history, and drafts the proposal from what we said afterwards. A connected note taker is what makes that possible. If you’d like that built around how you work, I’ll set it up with you.
