Select
FTC
Efficient App laurels

9 Best AI Note Takers in 2026

Updated Mar 19, 2026

See how our top 6 picks compare across the 9 AI note takers we evaluated.

Explore what each does best, where it falls short, and why it earned a spot on our 2026 list.

Alex Bass Headshot
Alex Bass
Andra Vomir Headshot
Andra Vomir

    Best AI Note Takers at a Glance

    9 apps and 4 deals
  1. Granola
    Granola

    Best virtual and in-person AI note taker

    Best virtual and in-person AI note taker
  2. Motion
    Motion

    Busy teams needing AI meeting notes and task management

    Busy teams needing AI meeting notes and task management
  3. Littlebird
    Littlebird

    The only full-context AI

    The only full-context AI
  4. Amie
    Amie

    Best for AI notes and creating tasks on your calendar

    Best for AI notes and creating tasks on your calendar
  5. tl;dv
    tl;dv

    Best for low-friction setup that records video

    Best for low-friction setup that records video
  6. Fireflies
    Fireflies

    Best for deep CRM integrations

    Best for deep CRM integrations
  7. Gong
    Gong

    Best for enterprise sales teams who need to analyze data

    Best for enterprise sales teams who need to analyze data
  8. Otter
    Otter

    For quick meeting transcription and notes

    For quick meeting transcription and notes
  9. Cluely
    Cluely

    For proactive suggestions during calls

    For proactive suggestions during calls
    Notable Mentions
  1. Google Meet
    Google Meet
    Communication

    Best for quick low-friction meeting recordings

    Best for quick low-friction meeting recordings
  2. Dialpad Meetings
    Dialpad Meetings
    Communication

    Works only if you're already in the Dialpad ecosystem

    Works only if you're already in the Dialpad ecosystem
  3. Fyxer AI
    Fyxer AI
    AI Email Assistant

    Best for those who want AI help without switching email clients

    Best for those who want AI help without switching email clients
  4. Dialpad
    Dialpad
    VoIP

    Best for recording phone calls (if already using Dialpad)

    Best for recording phone calls (if already using Dialpad)

How We Evaluate These AI Note Takers

We score each AI note taker across effortless recording, clear summaries and action items, search and recall, sharing and collaboration, user experience, and hands-on expert evaluation

  • Effortless Recording
    Record meetings in one click and start taking notes instantly.
  • Clear Summaries and Action Items
    Provides quick summaries that highlight decisions and action items in seconds.
  • Search and Recall
    Uses AI to search meetings and answer questions in natural language.
  • Sharing and Collaboration
    Easily share clean, readable notes with teammates and stakeholders.
  • User Experience
    Easy and enjoyable to use with a modern interface.
  • Expert Evaluation
    Curated by
    Alex
    and
    Andra
    , our rankings reflect in-depth testing, industry insights, and hands-on experience.
1
Granola

Granola

Best virtual and in-person AI note taker

Best virtual and in-person AI note taker

Granola is essentially an always-on listening assistant (primarily for meetings), allowing for perfect recollection, along with meeting assistance (call context question/answers mid-call), no meeting bot required.

Granola has become the meeting repository for all internal (in-person) and external meetings and brainstorming sessions. We have a new rule at Efficient App: if Granola wasn't there, it didn't happen.

Granola
Go to Granola site

What is Granola?

What is Granola?

Granola is a meeting recorder tool that doesn't require those annoying bots to join. In-fact the people you're on the call with don't even have to know you're using it.

Interestingly enough, this isn't any different than just having a note taker on the call, because they don't allow you to playback the audio. What you can do is ask Granola's AI Chatbot questions about the call, or any calls you've had across the company.

You can even ask Granola questions mid-call, which uses full context of the call up to that point, or can even come up with contextual questions to ask to help the conversation flowing. It's really as if you have an active note taking assistant on the call alongside you, helping you keep the conversation flowing, and researching further context details when needed.

We make sure to always have Granola recording our meetings (even in-person team meetings and brainstorming meetings), even if we have one of the best AI note taker bots joining the call as well. It's just a more lightweight solution that can't be kicked from calls and is less invasive.

Subscribe for updates

Get the latest rankings and insights on top AI Note Taker apps—delivered to your inbox. Stay ahead with our expert picks and updates.

2
Motion

Motion

Busy teams needing AI meeting notes and task management

Busy teams needing AI meeting notes and task management

Motion is the most innovative AI-powered project management tool for individuals and teams who want to fully embrace AI to get work done.

It uses AI to take all of your team's projects, tasks, priorities, deadlines, and dependencies to build the perfect day for you and your team, time blocking tasks right on your calendar. They also have AI Docs, & an AI Note Taker, helping you get work done faster.

We've been using it for 5 years and is core to how we manage our time and projects!

Motion
Go to Motion site

What Is Motion?

What Is Motion?

Firstly, it’s important to understand that Motion's AI Notetaker is a feature WITHIN Motion. Motion is a full-blown project and task management tool, so to use this feature you'd need to commit to using their full tool.

So if you have Motion and haven’t tried the AI Notetaker, you’re not getting the most out of your purchase! Motion’s AI notetaker is great, but if you’re looking for more of a standalone option, we would suggest a tool like Granola.

Okay, now to why Motion's AI Notetaker is worth considering:

The biggest problem isn’t remembering what was said during a meeting; just about every AI Notetaker can record and transcribe, but does that even matter if nothing actually gets done? If you’re having tons of calls but no follow-through, then Motion is worth considering.

Motion AI Notetaker is similar to other meeting bots that join your Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams calls. It records video, audio, and transcribe conversations. Then at the end of your call, it generates structured summaries with key points, decisions, and action items. 

But it doesn’t just stop at just notes, it takes action for you.

Motion’s AI notetaker extracts action items and turns them into prioritized tasks. Then it goes even a step further and schedules those tasks directly onto our team’s calendar using their AI auto-scheduling.

Before using Motion our client meetings would end, then we’d play the waiting game, hoping the transcription notates our follow-up plan because who remembers every detail? But now, all we need to do is approve/reject tasks and the work is already planning on our entire teams schedules.

When we first started using Motion, our entire team was blown away by the accuracy of the notes. One of our engineers even said, "At my old job, we had two employees on every call just to take notes. Motion did a better job than I ever could."

So while it does mean adopting a new project management tool, it did take our meeting-to-execution system to a new level. If you're not opposed to that fact, then it’s worth learning more through our full Motion Review.

Pros and Cons

Pros and Cons

You should consider Motion AI Notetaker if:

  • You already use Motion for calendar/task management (otherwise you're paying for features you won't fully use)
  • Your team constantly forgets small commitments made in meetings
  • You're tired of manually creating tasks from meeting notes
  • You want accountability built in, everyone sees what they're assigned and when

Skip Motion AI Notetaker if:

  • You want a standalone notetaker without committing to Motion's full ecosystem
  • You juggle multiple calendars regularly (freelance + full-time, multiple businesses, etc.), the notetaker only works with one primary calendar at a time

We personally use other features Motion has to offer, so we loved the fact that we didn't have to add another tool to our stack. All we had to do was take advantage of a unique feature already included. 

Motion Key Features

Motion Key Features

Human-Quality Summaries

Human-Quality Summaries

When we started using Motion’s notetaker, we noticed it thought like the “perfect” assistant, focusing on attendees, key points, decisions, action items, and context.

When you have important information being discussed QUICKLY in every client, stakeholder, and team meeting, it’s important to have a tool that takes notes better than a human, and that’s been our exact experience with this notetaker.

Automatic Task Creation & Assignment

Automatic Task Creation & Assignment

Lists are great, but without action, they are useless. So it’s always a sigh of relief to us when all those tasks get assigned to specific team members the moment our meeting ends. All you need to do is to accept, reject, and edit tasks as needed, so you get all the control without having to do the grunt work.

Auto-Schedule Tasks From Meetings

Auto-Schedule Tasks From Meetings

Task creation is super helpful, but Motion takes it a step further by automatically scheduling every approved task directly onto everyone’s calendar at the end of the meeting so it gets done.

Pricing

Pricing
  • Motion runs roughly $19–$34 per month (Individual to Team plans), and the AI Notetaker is included within that broader system. But first, you can start with their 7-day free trial.
Superhuman Mail
Superhuman Mail
Featured

Get through your inbox 2x as fast (for teams of all sizes).

3
Littlebird

Littlebird

The only full-context AI

The only full-context AI

Littlebird is an AI assistant that actually knows what you're doing, from your meetings (via their AI note taker), calendar, email, and actually pulling context from on-screen activity. The thesis is that the best AI assistants will be the ones that have the most context.

Littlebird
Go to Littlebird site

What is Littlebird AI?

What is Littlebird AI?

Littlebird is an AI assistant that records meetings, takes context from what you do on your computer, and aids you in recalling and getting work done.

While they're positioning themselves as more of an AI productivity app, it's clear that they've been seeing the explosive growth of Granola, and are focusing their sights on AI note taker meets context aware AI assistant.

Final Verdict

Final Verdict

If you're comfortable with Littlebird having access to your on-screen activity, then you'll immediately see what makes Littlebird special, with what is unlocked when an AI assistant has access to what you've done throughout the day. Definitely grab it for free, and worth locking in the Littlebird discount now if you ever want to upgrade in the future.

But if you're not yet comfortable with a relatively new startup having access to the data it collects, then you might be better off looking at a more privacy-first AI note taker, and should check out our Granola review for now.

4
Amie

Amie

Best for AI notes and creating tasks on your calendar

Best for AI notes and creating tasks on your calendar

Amie has pivoted recently to more of an AI Notetaker (while it does still have calendar and to-do built in, they aren't prioritizing it anymore). If you're looking for a solid AI note taker and don't want a meeting bot to join your call, then Amie is a great option.

Amie
Go to Amie site

What is Amie?

What is Amie?

Amie has recently pivoted from a calendar/task/email app to a Meeting Recorder. Unlike other meeting recorder bots, Amie doesn't join the call as a bot, it just listens to your computer audio and microphone like that of Granola.

From there, it summarizes your meetings, creates tasks, and will even mock-up follow-up emails and send them off for you if you'd like.

Pricing

Pricing
  • Pro: $20/mo (annual) or $25/mo (monthly)
  • Business: $40/mo (annual) or $50/mo (monthly)
Superhuman Mail
Superhuman Mail
Featured

Get through your inbox 2x as fast (for teams of all sizes).

5
tl;dv

tl;dv

Best for low-friction setup that records video

Best for low-friction setup that records video

TL;DV lets you and your team take meeting notes in a floating pop-up during calls, automatically adds timestamps, and instantly shares everything with participants or just your team. If you want everyone to see and collaborate on call notes as they happen, especially with Slack integration, this is a solid pick, though it currently lacks deep CRM integrations.

tl;dv
Go to tl;dv site

What is tl;dv?

What is tl;dv?

What we love most about tl;dv is that you can take all of your meeting notes directly from a floating pop-up right within the meeting you're in.

As you type the notes, tl;dv automatically timestamps your message and your entire team can also see the notes as they are being written.

No more do we need to find where to take collaborative call notes of which would otherwise not even be connected to the call recording itself.

All of the most important notes and timestamps are automatically sent to everyone on the call (or just your team), and they even have a nifty Slack integration as well.

We do wish it natively integrated with more CRMs though, but know the team is working on opening up the API to allow for it.

6
Fireflies

Fireflies

Best for deep CRM integrations

Best for deep CRM integrations

Fireflies records meetings by joining as a guest in Google Meet or Zoom, gives you a ton of AI-powered features, deep integrations, and unique tools for organizing call snippets, but the sheer number of options makes it feel overwhelming and buggy for regular use. If you need advanced audio meeting analysis and love organizing soundbites for specific teams or industry use, it's worth a look, but for most people who just want simple, reliable video recording and storage without constant upsells or feature clutter, it's not the best fit.

Fireflies
Go to Fireflies site

What is Fireflies?

What is Fireflies?

Fireflies was actually one of the first meeting recorder solutions on the market. They managed to build remote tooling that would actually join in existing meetings, like in Google Meet or Zoom, act like a guest, and record the audio.

This was super impressive, back when online video conferencing software was more restrictive, and Google Meet for example didn't even have native video meeting recorder functionality.

We actually used Fireflies almost exclusively for years, super early days back in 2017, and it has come a long way since, moving more into that of a AI meeting assistant.

Key Features

Key Features

Soundbites & Playlists

Soundbites & Playlists

They've built out a unique feature-set around being able to create snippets of calls, and tag them to a specific playlist, to then reference later or share with your team or others:

It's a really cool idea, it's just in practice, how often will you really be using it? I could see this being more useful for very specific industry verticals or teams, but not most, and not in the way we use a meeting recorder tool in our day-to-day.

All-in-all, they give you a lot of tools to organize your online meetings. But that's where I sorta wish I could just do less. I'm already organizing so many other facets to my life, from file storage in Google Drive, to channels and notes in Slite. I really just want to record meetings, have them log to my CRM, and forget about them unless I need to reference them.

Thing is, if you aren't staying on-top of organizing your calls though, it almost feels like you're just not taking full advantage of what Fireflies has built, which honestly stresses me out. 😅

User Interface

User Interface

Fireflies is pretty clean overall—it looks decently nice, it's just that there's a lot vying for your attention even just on the call review page:

Do you view the AI summary? Create Soundbites? Maybe AskFred? Or a Smart Search? Maybe you just want to make a comment? 🤷

It's just a bit overwhelming until you get used to the interface, but overall design-wise, it is clean.

API & Integrations

API & Integrations

This is an area that we really have to hand it to Fireflies—they have focused on integrations quite deeply out of the gate. For example, they integrate with most of the best CRM tools on the market.

Pricing

Pricing

Fireflies’ pricing looks typical at first, but in practice it is fairly restrictive.

  • Free tier is extremely limited with only 3 transcription credits, 800 minutes of storage per seat, and audio-only recording.
  • To unlock integrations you must upgrade to the $18/user/mo Pro plan, which includes 8,000 minutes of storage but still does not offer video recording. With moderate usage, around 30 calls per month, that storage only lasts roughly 4–5 months before you are pushed to the highest tier if you want to keep historical recordings.

Because video recording is locked behind the top plan, many teams will need the most expensive tier immediately.

Superhuman Mail
Superhuman Mail
Featured

Get through your inbox 2x as fast (for teams of all sizes).

7
Gong

Gong

Best for enterprise sales teams who need to analyze data

Best for enterprise sales teams who need to analyze data

Gong is for enterprise sales teams that want more clarity around their sales process. It analyzes sales calls, emails, and meetings to help you understand what’s actually working vs what's not.

If you run a large sales team and need visibility into what’s happening in deals beyond what's logged in your CRM, Gong is worth considering. But for smaller teams or simpler sales cycles, it’s not worth it.

Gong
Go to Gong site

What is Gong?

What is Gong?

Gong used to be a meeting recorder. It would record sales calls, transcribe them, and let managers review what happened. But then with the rise of AI they pivoted.

Now recording is just the input layer. Gong captures calls, emails, and meetings, then builds a data model around your deals and customer interactions. On top of that, it runs analysis, surfaces risks, and suggests what to do next.

So instead of being a tool that tells you "here’s your call," it’s trying to tell you "this deal is slipping, here’s why, and here’s how to fix it."

The simplest way to think about it now is: Gong is an AI layer on top of your sales process, and recording is just how it gets the data.

8
Otter

Otter

For quick meeting transcription and notes

For quick meeting transcription and notes

Otter transcribes calls and meetings live and works well for personal use like recording doctor's appointments or casual conversations, since you can just hit record and drop your phone in your pocket. For business, we recommend checking out other options (despite all their marketing being geared to businesses now).

Otter
Go to Otter site

What is Otter?

What is Otter?

Otter was one of the original note takers. It would transcribe your calls and meetings live, and we used it for years before the whole AI notetaker boom.

We mostly found it more useful for personal use than business use. It was great for things like recording doctor's appointments or casual conversations, since you could just hit record and drop your phone in your pocket.

Now there are a lot more competitors on the market, and Otter has adapted by adding more AI-powered note-taking features. But we still view it as a simple tool for transcribing conversations, not quite a tool we'd bring into the business.

Superhuman Mail
Superhuman Mail
Featured

Get through your inbox 2x as fast (for teams of all sizes).

9
Cluely

Cluely

For proactive suggestions during calls

For proactive suggestions during calls

Cluely has taken the world by storm via their rage-bait marketing on platforms like X, and while they have some unique and interesting features, it just doesn't feel as baked out as some of their more refined counterparts like Granola.

Cluely
Go to Cluely site

What is Cluely?

What is Cluely?

Cluely is just another AI chat wrapper as many others. The main differentiation is its ability to persist across calls and actively listen, while supplying recommended questions as the meeting goes on.

To explain this in a more tangible way, in comparing Cluely vs Granola (one of the best meeting recorder tools on the market), Granola ultimately sits in the background recording the call and only presents itself when a meeting is active. It then summarizes the transcript afterward and enriches any notes taken, allowing for perfect recollection of what was said in the conversation. Cluely on the other hand makes itself an active participant in the call.

For example, say you're on a call and the topic of another software product comes up, Cluely will begin recommending information to search that will give you more context without leaving the call:

Embedded Image

The context of Windsurf came up, so it recommends relevant questions to search

The reality here is that it's no different than using the ChatGPT desktop app, pressing "CMD + Spacebar" and just writing a question. It's just that it's more preemptive taking the entire context of the call into consideration, and most specifically what was said in that moment to suggest showing information that might be relevant.

What they really do best is marketing via viral and rage-bait tactics. Trying to make their "hidden UI" and proactive prompting come off as being able to "cheat on everything". It's really just a feature decision, and creative messaging more than anything.

Pricing

Pricing
  • Starter Tier: Free (with limited access to lower-end AI models - GPT 4.1, GPT o4-mini)
  • Pro Tier: $20/mo (with unlimited access to paid AI models - e.g. GPT 5, Claude 4)
  • Enterprise Tier: $200/mo (everything in Pro + custom integrations, RBAC, post-call analytics, SSO, centralized billing, and usage analytics & reporting dashboard)

Our Final Verdict

1
Granola

Granola

Best virtual and in-person AI note taker

Best virtual and in-person AI note taker
2
Motion

Motion

Busy teams needing AI meeting notes and task management

Busy teams needing AI meeting notes and task management
Discover More Efficient Apps Lists

Explore the best apps across different categories and find the perfect tools to stay productive.

Superhuman Mail
Missive
Notion Mail
Spark
Gmail
Tatem
Hey
Outlook
Skiff
Email

9 apps and 0 deals

Motion
Linear
Asana
Monday
ClickUp
Wrike
Trello
Jira
Shortcut
Project Management

9 apps and 0 deals

Related app comparisons
Browse Categories