Meetings are tricky, even in a world packed with amazing collaboration apps. Whenever I’m in a meeting, I’m constantly forced to multi-task. I need to pay attention to what the other person (or people) are saying, respond appropriately, and take notes.
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It’s tough, particularly if, like me (and many others), you’re constantly distracted by your own video feed. Fortunately, an AI meeting assistant can help. They can record calls for you to check later, transcribe audio, summarize conversations, highlight action items, and more. Some even spruce up your meeting quality for you or translate conversations with live captions.
The question is, which AI meeting assistant is best?
I’ve tested some of the top options to bring you this comprehensive guide.
What is an AI Meeting Assistant?
An AI meeting assistant is a tool or program that uses artificial intelligence to enhance various aspects of online meetings. Basically, it’s an intelligent tool that takes a lot of extra work off your plate, like summarizing meetings and taking notes.
These tools have become extremely popular in the age of generative AI and conversational AI. They can use things like natural language processing to actually understand what’s going on in a meeting, pinpoint action items, and save teams a lot of time.
However, not all meeting assistants are the same. Some are essentially speech recognition and transcription tools that convert conversations into a readable format. Others can help schedule meetings for you at the right time, like Microsoft’s Copilot in Places or Zoom’s Scheduler.
Some assistants can surface valuable information during a conversation, assign action items, or translate conversations into other languages. There are even meeting assistants who can draw insights from conversations to help you plan better sessions in the future.
What to Look for in an AI Meeting Assistant
So, how do you define the best AI meeting assistant for your needs? Well, that all depends on what matters most to you regarding features, budget, and other factors. When I created the list below, these are the main areas I focused on:
- Simplicity: No one wants yet another meeting tool that’s difficult to use. The best assistants should easily connect to your existing tools (video conferencing software, calendars, and databases), and be simple to interact with, through natural language prompts.
- Exceptional AI: Why settle for anything less than the best generative AI functionality? Look for accurate transcription, fast-paced summarization, insights, sentiment analysis, and other handy tools to make your meetings easier.
- Time-saving features: Anything that saves you time in a meeting is worth having. A great meeting assistant can help create agendas, schedule meetings based on specific criteria, automatically transcribe and translate content, and more.
- Integrations: Great assistants need to work with the tools you already use. I already mentioned communication tools and calendars, but it makes sense to look for integrations with all the task, workplace management, and productivity tools you use.
- Security: Generative AI has its risks. When choosing AI meeting tools, make sure you maintain control over your data, have access to end-to-end encryption, and know how the system stores and uses information.
Do You Need an AI Meeting Assistant?
Before I dive into my list of the best AI assistants out there for collaboration, it’s worth noting you might not need one. If you’re already using a UCaaS or collaboration platform like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google, for instance, you may already have AI baked in.
Zoom offers its AI companion on even the lowest-paid plans, giving you access to summaries, transcription, smart chapters, content generation, and more. Microsoft Teams offers access to Copilot, though you will need to pay an extra fee. The good news is that Copilot’s Microsoft 365 plan does give you an assistant across all of your productivity apps.
Google Meet is even adding Gemini functionality, which means you’ll have access to summarization, transcription, and translation features in your meetings. Again, however, there’s an extra fee to add this functionality to Google Workspace.
So, basically, you only really need an extra AI meeting assistant if you’re having meetings across multiple platforms and want to access insights and record data in the same place. You might also find a meeting assistant useful for accessing additional conversation analytics and tools, or if you don’t use any of the platforms above.
The Best AI Meeting Assistants for Teams
With all that out of the way, let’s dive into my list of the best AI meeting assistants around for businesses today.
1. Otter: Best for Meeting Insights
Pros:
- Excellent cross-channel functionality
- Useful meeting insights
- Transcription for audio and video
Cons:
- Slight issues understanding technical language
Otter is a handy AI meeting assistant I’ve used a few times with tools like Microsoft Teams and Webex. It’s essentially a real-time note-taking and transcription tool with a few bonus features. With Otter, you can transcribe meetings instantly, record audio and slide content, extract action items from conversations, and generate meeting summaries.
The app works with Microsoft Teams, Webex, and Zoom and can answer plenty of useful questions about your conversations. You ask the bot things like “Who mentioned me in this meeting?” or “What were the key takeaways from this meeting?”
There’s also a handy feature called “AI Channels,” which can combine live conversations with asynchronous discussions to give you a complete overview of project progress.
2. Fireflies.AI: Best Transcription Capabilities
Pros:
- Great generative AI features
- Custom speech models
- Excellent recording capabilities
Cons:
- Slightly cluttered user interface
Fireflies.ai is a brilliant tool for companies that spend a lot of time in important meetings. The app can transcribe everything that everyone says in a meeting, isolating specific speakers, dates, times, metrics mentioned, and more. It can also create lists of attendees, run sentiment analysis in real time, and track specific topics mentioned in conversations.
Plus, there’s even a free plan with unlimited transcription. The solution works with Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and more. It offers real-time search within meetings, transcription for more than 69 languages, and even a handy mobile app.
One feature I particularly love is the ability to create “sound bites” within the app. This means you can share short snippets from each meeting with your team in an instant.
3. Avoma: Best AI Meeting Assistant for Analytics
Pros:
- Exceptional conversational intelligence
- Easy to use interface
- Tools for before, during, and after meetings.
Cons:
- Expensive pricing
Avoma is an app that works with various meeting platforms and tools, including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, BlueJeans, Lifesize, and more. What I really like about this app is that it supports you with all stages of the meeting process.
Before the meeting, it can help with scheduling and creating agenda templates. During a conversation it can automatically record and transcribe meetings, with live bookmarking. Plus, after the meeting, you can access a host of AI-generated notes, snippets, comments, playlists, and more.
Additionally, Avoma gives you in-depth insights into everything from engagement levels to common topics, talking-to-listening ratios, and revenue intelligence. It even has specific tools for sales teams to help them improve conversions.
4. Tl;dv: Best Search Functionality
Pros:
- Excellent free plan
- Integrations with a range of tools
- Tools for creating video clips
Cons:
- Slightly annoying setup
Tl;dv is a user-friendly AI meeting assistant offering a range of excellent features. Even on the free plan, you get unlimited AI meetings, viewers, and moment summaries. Plus, you can transcribe conversations in more than 30 languages, record videos, automatically recognize speakers, and create moment clips to share with teams.
The AI tool can collaborate with you in meetings, answering questions in chat mode, it can also create multi-meeting reports, which you can add notes to before sharing with your team. Plus, there are robust speaker insights covering everything from talking time to engagement.
On paid plans, you can integrate the system with more than 5,000 tools, create email follow-ups for team members and access AI coaching features.
5. Sembly: Best for Meeting Minutes
Pros:
- Excellent automatic summaries with meeting minutes
- Video and audio recording
- AI task assignment and automation
Cons:
- Limited free plan
The Sembly AI meeting assistant makes managing team conversations easy, with automatic AI meeting notes and transcriptions that include meeting minutes. It can add a chatbot to your meeting, answering questions throughout the conversation. Plus, you can link the tool with various apps and create robust automated workflows.
Sembly’s toolkit also includes access to workspace analytics, which provide useful insights into work and resource management. The solution can automate follow-ups with team members, recall previous meetings, and support translation into 32+ languages.
Plus, you maintain full control over customizing your meeting notes and recordings, so you can add elements before you share them with your team.
6. Equal Time: Best Inclusive AI Meeting Assistant
Pros:
- Attendance tracking for hybrid meetings
- Engagement and inclusivity insights
- Integrated sentiment analysis
Cons:
- Slightly clunky interface
If, like many companies, you want to create a more inclusive company culture, particularly in the hybrid workplace, Sembly could be perfect for you. This AI meeting assistant doesn’t just help with common tasks like transcription and recording.
With Sembly, you can track everything from speaking time to employee sentiment, as well as trends and patterns in conversations. You’ll be able to leverage advanced security and compliance controls, team-wide metrics, and valuable suggestions for improving your workplace.
There’s even an “inclusion” score for each meeting, so you can get an insight into how many people have a voice within your conferences.
7. Rewatch: Best for video meetings
Pros:
- Excellent in-depth search tools
- AI-powered notetaker and screen recorder
- Collaborative video hub
Cons:
- Slight learning curve
If your meetings regularly include video, I’d definitely recommend checking out Rewatch. This solution integrates with your existing meeting tools, like Google Meet and Zoom, and automatically transcribes everything. You can generate AI meeting notes, and teams can collaborate on each transcript, highlighting action items and topics.
The AI meeting assistant also comes with a video wiki tool. This tool allows you to create pages for every topic, team, and project and add all the videos you like. Teams can subscribe to the pages and get notifications when new videos are posted.
Another great feature is the ability to create a “video series,” which allows everyone to add their own meeting and video clips into a single unified workspace. This could be an effective way to host more “asynchronous” video conferences.
8. Krisp: Best for Audio Improvements
Pros:
- Excellent noise cancellation and echo removal
- Cross channel support
- Integrated meeting notes and transcriptions
Cons:
- Limited analytical tools
I love using Krisp’s AI tools to improve the audio quality of video meetings. It instantly eliminates unnecessary background noise and echo, so your attendees are more likely to understand what you’re saying.
The tool works with any conferencing app and includes AI-generated meeting transcriptions, note-taking features, and recording for all your content. You can add it to your contact center if you need help optimizing customer conversations.
Although Krisp might not give you many insights into your meetings, it does make it easy to convert high-quality into convenient transcriptions. Plus, there’s a free plan that’s great for individuals and smaller teams with limited needs.
9. Nyota: Best AI Meeting Assistant for Feature Scope
Pros:
- Excellent team and project management tools
- Automatic ticket and agenda creation
- Useful insights and productivity metrics
Cons:
- Expensive pricing
If you’re looking for a feature-rich AI meeting assistant, Nyota is a great pick. Like most of its competitors, this tool can transcribe meetings, extract notes, offer insights into key takeaways, and share action items. It can also track sentiment, time spent in meetings, and group topics from conversations into specific categories.
Nyota even sends automated emails to team members each morning, outlining all of their meetings with intelligent agendas to help them prepare. You can also use the tool to generate comprehensive meeting agendas for team members.
Nyota also gives you much control over how you use AI in your meetings. For instance, you can access the app in team calls, one-on-one conversations, or customer interactions.
10. ClickUp: Best for Project Management
Pros:
- Integrated project management capabilities
- Instant conversion of topics into action items
- Meeting agenda creation
Cons:
- Not available on mobile apps
ClickUp is a tool I’ve used frequently for project management. It’s a great resource for keeping all of your teams on track. Recently, the company introduced its new collection of AI tools, which includes an AI meeting assistant for transcription, translation, and more.
ClickUp AI can summarize your conversations, create a list of action items based on topics discussed, and even transform those actions into tasks for your team. Plus, you can use the tool to create agendas for conversations, manage to-do lists, and create content for team members.
ClickUp AI is very easy to use, although its not included on the company’s free plan, and currently doesn’t offer support for mobile apps.
11. Fellow: Best for Integrations
Pros:
- Integrates with a huge selection of apps
- Great agenda-creation tools
- AI meeting summaries with key talking points
Cons:
- Some issues with the desktop app
Fellow is a comprehensive AI meeting assistant and productivity platform. You can use the tool to organize schedules, create meeting agendas, and even time meetings. The solution comes with powerful meeting transcription tools, which allow you to draw key action items from each discussion and offer exportable notes.
With Fellow, you can also automate various meeting processes, like summarizing conversations and uploading notes to your CRM or knowledgebase. The platform can even integrate with project management tools, making it easy to assign team tasks after conversations.
Plus, you get excellent security features, like note locking, and access to dozens of meeting templates to ensure conversations run smoothly.
12. Fathom AI: Best Free AI Meeting Assistant
Pros:
- Comprehensive forever-free plan
- Excellent security and compliance
- Clip sharing features
Cons:
- Limited analytics
Low on budget for your collaboration tools? No problem. Fathom AI gives you an intelligent meeting assistant for free. The tool includes all the basic features you might expect, including comprehensive transcription and AI summarization. It works with various tools, from Asana, to Microsoft Teams, and can instantly sync to HubSpot.
Fathom supports more than 28 languages, offers excellent security and compliance (it’s even compliant with HIPAA guidelines), and allows you to create clips from meetings in seconds. The solution even ensures you can copy and paste transcripts with all their metadata in seconds.
If you do decide to upgrade from the free plan, the “Team” plan includes access to customizable alerts for keywords and a range of advanced automation features.
Transform Conferencing with an AI Meeting Assistant
An AI meeting assistant can be one of the most valuable tools for your team, particularly if your collaboration platform doesn’t already have AI built-in. With these tools, you can transcribe conversations into text, take notes automatically, summarize conversations and more.
You could even access better insights into team productivity and engagement or use AI to analyze sentiment, translate conversations into new languages, and create action items.
If the constant slog of endless meetings harms your team’s productivity, consider investing in an AI meeting app. Your employees will thank you.
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