Best AI Meeting Assistants in 2026: Fathom, Fireflies, Otter, Granola
We compared the best AI meeting assistants of 2026: Fathom, Fireflies, Otter, Granola and tl;dv. Free plan limits, real pricing, and which fits your job.
An AI meeting assistant records your calls, transcribes them, and turns the transcript into a summary with action items. The good ones also push notes into your CRM or project tool so the meeting actually produces follow-up instead of a forgotten recording. The category has matured fast: free plans are generous now, and the real differences are about how the tool joins your calls and where the notes end up.
Here are the five worth considering in 2026, based on hands-on testing and current pricing.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Free plan | Paid from | Joins call as | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fathom | Unlimited recordings, 5 AI summaries/mo | ~$15/user/mo annual | Visible bot | Solo users, best free tier |
| Fireflies | 800 min storage, limited credits | $10/user/mo annual | Visible bot | Sales teams, CRM logging |
| Otter | 300 min/mo, 30 min per meeting | $8.33/user/mo annual | Visible bot | Budget buyers, students |
| Granola | Basic free plan | $14/user/mo | No bot (runs on your device) | People who hate meeting bots |
| tl;dv | Limited free recordings | ~$18/user/mo | Visible bot | Async teams, clip sharing |
Prices shift, so confirm on each vendor’s pricing page. The structure has been stable though: Otter is the cheapest entry, Fireflies discounts annual billing hard, and Granola charges a premium for its bot-free approach.
Fathom: the best free plan in the category
Fathom records and transcribes unlimited meetings free, with the cap sitting on AI summaries (5 per month on the free tier). For anyone who mainly wants a searchable record of calls, that free plan is hard to argue with. Summaries are accurate, the highlight feature (mark a moment during the call, get a clip after) is the kind of thing you use more than you expect, and the paid Premium tier at around $15 a month adds unlimited summaries and CRM sync.
Downsides: it joins as a visible bot, and team features cost more (Team Edition runs about $19 to $29 per user monthly). For a freelancer or consultant running client calls, Fathom is the default recommendation.
Fireflies: the one for sales teams
Fireflies transcribes in over 100 languages and its whole design points at pipeline review: talk-time analytics, topic trackers, and automatic logging into HubSpot or Salesforce. The Pro plan at $10 per user per month (annual) is among the cheapest paid tiers, and Business at $19 adds conversation intelligence.
The free plan is more of a trial: 800 minutes of storage with limited AI credits. If your team runs on CRM discipline, Fireflies logging calls automatically is worth more than any summary quality difference. If you just want notes, it’s more tool than you need.
Otter: cheapest paid entry, aging product
Otter has been doing live transcription the longest, and the Pro plan at $8.33 per user per month (annual) is the lowest entry price among the big names. Live transcription you can watch during the meeting is still its signature feature, and students get a discount.
The catch is the free plan’s 30-minute per-conversation cap, which makes it useless for real meetings, and an interface that has grown cluttered with an AI chatbot layered over everything. Otter is the budget pick, not the quality pick.
Granola: no bot in the room
Granola works differently: it runs on your device and captures audio from your system, so nothing joins the call. Clients never see a “Notetaker has joined” banner. You type rough notes during the meeting and Granola merges them with the transcript into polished notes afterward, which produces summaries shaped by what you thought mattered.
Business runs $14 per user per month with no annual discount. If you work with clients who find bots off-putting (lawyers, executives, therapists, anyone in sales late-stage), the bot-free design is the entire purchase decision. It’s Mac-first, which remains its biggest limitation.
tl;dv: for async teams
tl;dv leans into clips: mark moments, cut highlight reels, and share them in Slack so people who missed the meeting watch 90 seconds instead of an hour. Free plan covers limited recordings; paid runs about $18 per user monthly. It’s the pick when your real problem is too many people attending meetings that could have been a clip.
How to choose
Start with the bot question. If a visible bot joining calls is fine, Fathom for individuals and Fireflies for sales teams cover most cases. If it isn’t, Granola.
Then check where notes need to land. CRM sync quality varies a lot; Fireflies and Fathom Premium are strongest for HubSpot and Salesforce. If notes go to Notion or Slack, all five manage.
And test with real calls for two weeks before rolling out to a team. Accents, crosstalk, and domain jargon affect transcript quality more than vendor demos suggest.
Meeting assistants also pair naturally with the rest of an AI stack. Executives drowning in follow-ups should see our guide to AI assistants for executives, and small teams building out their toolkit can start with the best AI tools for small businesses.
FAQs
Are AI meeting assistants legal to use?
Recording laws vary by region. Many US states and most of the EU require participants to be informed. Visible bots handle consent implicitly by announcing themselves; with bot-free tools like Granola, telling participants you’re taking AI notes is on you. Check your local rules for client calls.
Which AI meeting assistant has the best free plan?
Fathom, clearly. Unlimited recording and transcription free, with only AI summaries capped. Otter’s 30-minute conversation cap and Fireflies’ storage limits make their free tiers trial-grade by comparison.
Do these tools work with Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams?
All five support the big three platforms. Granola works with anything that produces audio on your device, including phone calls, which the bot-based tools can’t touch.
Can the AI join a meeting without me?
Fireflies, Otter, and tl;dv can send their bot to meetings you skip and deliver notes afterward. Whether attending by bot is acceptable is a judgment call your colleagues will make for you quickly.
