Otter.ai joins your meetings, transcribes what is said, and produces a written summary with the action items people agreed on. You can also record in person from a phone or desktop without a bot sitting in the call. It is most useful if you attend a lot of meetings and lose track of who promised what, or if you interview people and need accurate quotes to work from later.
What you actually get
After a call, Otter gives you a searchable transcript with speakers labelled, a short summary, and a list of next steps. You can ask questions across your past meetings — "what did the client say about the deadline?" — and get an answer with a link back to the moment it came from. Transcriptions sync to tools like Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Slack, and some CRMs, so notes can flow into where your team already works.
How to use it well
Set it up before the meeting, not during. If you record bot-free from your own device, you control when it starts; if you send the bot, tell people first. A shared folder or channel keeps recordings from piling up where nobody looks. Add a sentence to your calendar invite or opening remarks so everyone knows a recording is being made. Afterwards, skim the summary and fix names, numbers, and decisions — the transcript is a draft, not a legal record.
Honest limitations
Transcription is strong in English and weaker in other languages, and heavy accents, crosstalk, and poor audio all hurt accuracy. Anything important — a price, a date, a commitment — should be checked against the recording. Recording colleagues, clients, or interviewees may carry consent or data-protection obligations depending on where you live; make sure you're compliant. Free and paid plans differ in how many minutes and features you get, and that changes, so confirm details on the official Otter site.
If you want a meeting assistant with a bigger focus on analytics, see our Fireflies overview. For automating the follow-up work across your other apps, look at Zapier AI. Our AI tool guide can help you compare.
