Motion vs Granola

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

• 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.

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.

• Incredibly easy to use
• AI notes save a lot of cleanup after calls
• Records more than just scheduled meetings
• Less invasive than meeting bots that join calls
• Full transcripts are searchable and actually useful
• You can add your own notes and Granola will build around them
• Great for founders and small teams documenting ideas, meetings, and processes

• iOS only right now (Android coming soon)
• Integrations are limited
• No audio or video recording (if you care about that)

This is the first thing that made Granola click for us. When we use meeting bots, there's usually friction involved. They have to join your call and announce itself, and sometimes they accidentally get kicked out. Granola is just always available. You bring it up, you click record, and you can go. It'll just sit quietly in the background and record your transcript. The whole thing just feels way lighter and way less invasive.

We still use meeting bots when we need full recordings, but day to day, Granola's what actually gets used.

When we first started using Granola, it was for scheduled meetings, but then we started using it for in-person meetings and chats.

Just the other day, Alex and I were out on a walk when we started brainstorming. I literally paused to pull out Granola so we could start recording our conversation. Later, I took those notes and dropped them into AI to quickly turn them into a deck for a team presentation.

And that's exactly why we always say, "If it's not in granola, it didn't happen!"

Granola transcribes everything everyone says, live, word for word, and then turns it into organized notes once I hit Generate Notes. And I love that it still gives me the full transcript too. It's really useful for when I need to pull exact quotes or check on what was actually said, or if I need to go back and drop parts of the conversation into a document later.

We also really like that Granola's AI doesn't take too much control away from you. I always pop in notes while a meeting is happening, and Granola builds around them instead of replacing them. So your final notes still feel like your notes, just way more organized.

The AI here is actually useful. The AI assistant in Granola has actually saved me a couple of times. Sometimes during a meeting, I might need to pop out for a couple of seconds, and instead of having to interrupt everyone and play catch-up, I can just pop into Granola's chat and ask, "What did I miss?" and it'll give me a quick recap. That's the kind of thing that is genuinely helpful.

Granola has an MCP that connects with Claude that allows us to build workflows.

Here are some common workflows we use:

• Draft follow-up emails from all my sales calls this week and place them in Superhuman Mail
• Create a slide deck for our team meeting based on this week’s exec team meeting
• Create Linear tickets for all the bugs we talked about on our call today

While we'd love Granola to take action for us on its own, the MCP is a happy middle ground for now. For example, we'd love to finish an engineering call and have Granola recommend tickets or push action items somewhere useful without us having to trigger it in the MCP.

That said, we pair Viktor AI with Granola and get Viktor to take most of the action for us now 😉

• Basic: $0 per month. Best for individuals who want to try Granola and see if it fits into their workflow before committing.
• Business: $14/user/mo. Best for individuals or small teams who want unlimited meetings and collaboration within a shared space.
• Enterprise: $35/user/mo. Best for larger teams that need more admin permissions and privacy control options.