Granola Review 2026: Why It Won’t Work for Everyone

During my Granola review, I had many ups and downs. After testing more than 20 AI note-takers, Granola felt completely different from almost every tool I tried.

Instead of offering dozens of features, Granola focuses on one thing: lightweight, bot-free AI note-taking.

Sometimes, that simplicity genuinely impressed me. Other times, it felt far too limited compared to tools like Fellow, Fireflies AI, or MeetGeek.

In this Granola review, I’ll break down where the minimalist approach works surprisingly well, where it becomes frustrating, and whether Granola is actually worth paying for in 2026.

Verdict

Here’s the quick verdict if you don’t want to read the full review:

✅ Tested with our review & scoring methodology ✅ Real-world testing ✅ Unbiased evaluation

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Short on time? Here’s a quick overview of Granola

What is Granola?

Granola is a lightweight and minimalistic bot-less AI note-taker for online meetings. This is one of its main strengths, but also a weakness, and later I will tell you exactly why I come to this conclusion.

It works on all the video conferencing platforms, including Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams. To utilize Granola, you need to download its desktop app (Windows or Mac).

Ultimately, it was designed for people with back-to-back meetings, helping them stay engaged and focus on the discussion rather than taking notes.

How Granola performed in my daily workflow

During my Granola review, I had some ups and downs. Let me break this down.

From the positive side, Granola provided accurate transcriptions. It impressed me with the meeting notes and the way it converts my own notes into AI-generated summaries. The desktop app is intuitive and straightforward, and the meeting tool ultimately has a short learning curve.

On the other hand, Granola lacks workflow depth. The missing recording feature was probably the biggest downside for me.

Granola’s pricing feels fair, but not especially competitive. Don’t get me wrong, it provides a good value for this money, but still, there might be some better options out there for the same price.

To summarize, Granola is a lightweight AI note-taker for those who only need transcription and AI notes. After using it for weeks, Granola fell short for me due to its feature depth and did not make it to the list of best AI note-takers.

Why Granola scored 3.6 out of 5

Granola delivers solid core performance, with good ratings in meeting notes (4/5). It also stands out with a clean user interface (4.5/5) and strong integrations (4.5/5), making it very easy to use in day-to-day workflows.

However, the biggest drawback is its limited feature depth, reflected in lower scores for collaboration features (2.5/5) and especially other capabilities (2/5). Missing features, such as recording or advanced analytics, reduced Granola’s overall score.

When Granola makes the most sense

When to consider alternatives to Granola

The parts of Granola that mattered most

What using Granola actually felt like in meetings

Bot-free transcription

The reason why I loved Granola is that this AI note-taking app does not use meeting bots to transcribe calls. Essentially, it means that it only listens to your device’s audio, and no bots join your meeting.

I noticed people acted more naturally during meetings because there wasn’t another “participant” sitting silently in the call, so the bot-less approach is definitely the right approach for many cases.

The meeting transcript is very simple, as you can see. Granola transcribes meetings in real time. That said, you only need to hit the button to see the live transcript. The transcript looks similar to Krisp, but Granola feels more basic and offers fewer options to work with the transcription.

Once someone else starts to talk, speaker recognition is turned on, and it will organize transcripts accordingly. However, there is no advanced speaker identification, and the real-time transcription will identify speakers as Speaker A, Speaker B, and so on.

If I compare it with other bot-less options, for instance, Bluedot, Granola seems too minimalist. While I understand it was designed as a lightweight AI note-taker, there are certain features that are a must-have for me.

So, first, when I reviewed a past meeting with Granola, I looked for the recording, but did not find it. I said “okay, it’s quite a frustrating one, but I will survive”.

After working with the transcript, I noticed it lacked advanced speaker differentiation, which made the review process more burdensome.

To wrap it up, Granola only earned 3 stars out of 5 due to limited options for working with the transcript and the missing video recording feature.

AI notes

Granola’s AI-generated notes work a bit differently compared to other meeting tools. Besides analyzing the transcript, it converts your own notes from the meeting into an AI-generated summary.

If you take a closer look at the picture, you will see text in black. Now, that’s my own notes, while all the other bullet points are written by Granola.

To convert your own notes into AI-generated notes, you only need to click on the “Enhance notes” option, and Granola will take care of the rest.

This was probably the moment where Granola impressed me the most. I often write messy shorthand notes during meetings, and Granola surprisingly turned them into structured summaries that actually sounded usable afterward.

Granola’s lightweight approach also narrows its use cases compared to tools like Fellow or MeetGeek, where I get more advanced meeting notes and can get more value from them.

That said, giving 4 stars out of 5 is a fair approach here, I think.

Ask Granola

The Ask Granola feature works like an AI chatbot for your meetings. In day-to-day use, I asked questions, asked to write follow-ups, or identify action items.

Ask Granola provided me with relevant outputs, and it was pretty fast. It was great to see that Granola included this feature in the Free plan.

Ultimately, it is a helpful feature to quickly access the key points about your meetings or perform some meeting-related tasks faster.

Templates

With Granola, you can choose from numerous meeting templates. Based on the template you choose, it will organize your meeting notes accordingly.

That said, it offers meeting templates for 1:1 meetings, customer calls, and more. An additional plus for me is that you can add and remove sections when customizing or creating a new meeting template.

This way, you can fully personalize the templates for your meetings. It is definitely a useful feature for many users!

Team features

Finally, Granola has some team features for small businesses. It is useful that you can share the meeting notes with a few clicks through email, Slack, a link, or by copying the text.

Also, you can create shared folders with your teams, so you can centralize your meeting summaries in one place and organize them into different folders, like sales calls or team meetings.

However, I would still not recommend Granola for teams, as it lacks advanced team collaboration features such as chat, advanced permissions, roles, and more. While it is ideal for individuals, if you need an AI note-taker for teams, I would consider Fellow, MeetGeek, or Fireflies AI.

Given the available collaboration features, Granola earned 2.5 stars out of 5.

Granola’s integrations and compatibility

In the course of my Granola review, I discovered that it is excellent in terms of integrations, as you can connect it with some of the most popular apps like Google Workspace, HubSpot, Slack, and Zapier.

Also, I recommend adding Granola to your Google Calendar & your Google Workspace account for a better user experience.

Granola’s design and usability

In short, Granola has a simple and intuitive user interface. On the left side, you will access your notes, folders, account information, and more.

Probably, one of the most straightforward interfaces I saw in the past three years was when testing AI note-taking apps.

What does it cost?

Granola offers a Basic plan (i.e., Free plan) and two paid plans.

Let me break them down for you!

Basic plan

Granola provides a free Basic plan with features like AI meeting notes, Ask Granola, shared folders, customized note templates, and multi-language support. However, your meeting notes will stay viewable for a limited time.

The free tier is ideal for those who want to give Granola a try but are not sure if it is for them.

Business plan

The Business plan is $14 per user per month, and includes everything in the Basic plan. Additionally, you will get unlimited meeting history and notes, consolidated billing, access to the advanced AI models, and you can connect Granola with Slack, Hubspot, Notion, Zapier, Attio, and Affinity.

Enterprise plan

Finally, Granola offers an Enterprise plan for larger companies for $35 per user per month. It covers enterprise-grade security, SSO, priority support, usage analytics, and more. So, this plan is for businesses with higher compliance and security requirements.

With these pricing plans, I expected more features and functionality, such as recording. That’s where Granola became difficult for me to justify compared to tools like Fireflies AI or Fellow.

Granola’s security

After using Granola for several meetings, I took a deep dive into its security and privacy policy. Also, I did some research on the web to see if there are any red flags about this AI note-taking app.

Granola is SOC 2 and GDPR compliant, and it does not allow third parties to use your data to train their AI models. So, all looks good on paper.

However, I found some past reports of Granola allowing anyone to download other users’ transcripts without authentication. It was around May, but since then, I have not found any red flags.

Personally, I wouldn’t consider this a dealbreaker today for most of you, but it did make me pause before trusting the platform with sensitive meetings.

Where It Excels & Where It Falls Short

To summarize my experience, these are the biggest wins and compromises when using Granola day-to-day.

What Granola does well

Where Granola still feels limited

Granola alternatives

If you are still unsure whether Granola is the right AI note-taker for you, check out these alternatives:

Granola vs alternatives

My final thoughts on Granola

After my Granola review, it became clear to me that it intentionally sacrifices depth for simplicity.

I can absolutely see why some people love Granola. If all you want is lightweight, distraction-free AI note-taking, it does a great job.

However, as someone who has tested numerous AI note-takers, I kept running into moments where I wanted Granola to deliver more.

So while Granola is a solid minimalist AI note-taker, I personally wouldn’t replace my current setup with it.

Related articles:

• Best Granola Alternatives 2026 | My Top 6 After Testing 25+ Tools
• Best 5 Otter AI Alternatives | 20+ Personally Tested Apps (2025)
• 5 Best Bot-Free AI Note-Takers In 2026 (NOT What You’d Think)

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is Granola AI safe?

Granola is SOC 2 and GDPR compliant, and does not allow AI model training on your data. Nevertheless, I found some reports from the past when Granola allowed anyone to download other users’ transcripts without authentication.

Does Granola AI work in person?

If you turn on your desktop app, then yes, you can utilize Granola AI for in-person meetings.

Is Granola AI free?

Granola has a free tier with extensive features, but it’s not unlimited. It is sufficient to test Granola for yourself before purchasing it. With the paid plans, you will access unlimited meetings, integrations, and more.

Is Granola better than Otter?

It is a tough question. While Otter AI offers a more robust feature set, I preferred using Granola. That being said, if you need a simple solution without a bot, Granola is a better choice for me. Alternatively, if you need something more robust, Otter AI could be the right choice.

Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself, and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links that, at no additional cost to you, may earn a small commission. Read the full privacy policy here.