• Fellow is built around secure AI meeting intelligence for organizations, while Plaud focuses on capturing conversations anywhere.
• Both delivered highly accurate transcription during my testing, but their strengths go well beyond AI meeting notes.
• Plaud requires dedicated hardware (starting at $159) plus a monthly subscription (starting at $8.33/month), while Fellow is entirely software-based, with pricing starting at $ 7/month
• Unlike Fellow, Plaud doesn’t automatically notify others that a recording is taking place
• Fellow gives admins, IT, and compliance teams granular control over recording policies, data retention, and access, with workspace-level ownership that stays with your organization even when employees leave. Plaud is tied to individual users.

Keep reading, and by the end of this Fellow vs Plaud comparison, you’ll know which tool is the better fit for your workflow.

Verdict

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

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

My ratings: Fellow vs Plaud

Key differences between Fellow and Plaud

Here is a short overview of the key differences I found in the Fellow vs Plaud showdown:

The Scoring System We Used

To keep our reviews and final scores fair and consistent, we evaluate every AI note-taking tool using a standardized testing framework built on real-world usage and hands-on experience.

We evaluate every AI note-taking tool using this weighted framework, based on hands-on testing in real meetings and everyday workflows.

Our scoring breakdown after testing 20+ AI note-takers:

Want a detailed breakdown of how we test each category?

Learn exactly how we test tools → Review methodology

Comparing my day-to-day experience with both tools

In the sections below, I’ll compare Fellow and Plaud based on my hands-on testing, covering their features, pricing, user interface, strengths, weaknesses, and the types of users each tool is best suited for.

My hands-on experience with Fellow

After relying on Fellow for more than a year and comparing it with over 20 AI note-taking tools, I still consider it the most well-rounded solution I’ve tested. It wasn’t just the quality of the transcription that impressed me, but how the platform supported the entire meeting workflow.

During my testing, Fellow consistently delivered transcription accuracy above 95% and produced structured AI summaries just a few minutes after each meeting. Instead of replaying recordings, I could quickly review the key decisions, discussion points, and follow-up tasks.

The platform also helped before the meeting even started. I could review AI-generated meeting briefs, revisit previous conversations, and organize agendas in advance, making it much easier to jump back into ongoing projects.

I also liked Fellow’s flexible recording options. Depending on the situation, I could choose between bot-based and bot-free recording, and both worked reliably across virtual and in-person meetings. Password-protected meeting recaps were another welcome addition, giving organizations more control over how shared meeting summaries are accessed.

Overall, Fellow stood out as the most complete AI meeting intelligence platform I tested, combining accurate meeting notes with collaboration, flexible recording, and enterprise-grade governance.

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

Who should use Fellow

Who should NOT use Fellow

My hands-on experience with Plaud

Plaud genuinely surprised me and exceeded my expectations. Before testing it, I relied on the mobile apps of AI note-takers to capture ideas and meetings, and I didn’t think I needed a dedicated recording device.

After using the NotePin for a few weeks, my perspective changed. The combination of its lightweight design, one-button recording, accurate transcription, and well-structured AI summaries made it much easier to capture conversations and ideas without interrupting the moment.

If your day involves in-person meetings, phone calls, commuting, or capturing ideas on the go, Plaud offers a noticeably smoother experience than reaching for your phone every time.

That said, I also realized Plaud feels much more like a personal productivity tool than an organization-wide meeting platform. It works exceptionally well for individuals, but it doesn’t offer the centralized administration or governance features larger organizations typically expect.

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

When to choose Plaud

When you should skip Plaud

Key features

Below, I’ll walk you through the features that stood out the most during my Fellow vs Plaud testing.

Fellow’s features

Bot-free or bot transcription

One of Fellow’s biggest advantages is that you can choose whether to record meetings with a bot or without one. It supports Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Slack Huddles, automatically recording and transcribing meetings in more than 92 languages.

If you prefer bot-free recording, simply select Record without bot, and Fellow captures the meeting in the background while maintaining the same enterprise-grade privacy and security controls as bot-based recordings.

If you choose to use a bot instead, it always requests permission to join the meeting and appears as a participant, so everyone knows the meeting is being recorded.

Based on my testing, Fellow’s transcriptions were highly accurate, around 95% or higher. They were available within a few minutes and included timestamps and speaker identification.

Security and recording controls

Fellow prioritizes enterprise-grade security with SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance built in. 

What stood out most was the zero-day retention option: Fellow gives you the option for raw recordings and transcripts to be deleted immediately after AI processing, so sensitive content never persists in the system. 

For teams that need to share summaries, password-protected recaps let you lock down meeting notes while keeping the productivity benefits of automated action items and summaries. 

The compliance portal gives admins granular control over recording rules and restrictions, so you can enforce policies across your workspace, whether that’s preventing recordings on certain call types or restricting who can access public recaps. 

I also appreciated that Fellow makes clear that customer meeting data isn’t used to train AI models and remains fully under your ownership. 

For organizations handling MNPI, privileged conversations, or patient data, these features move Fellow from “interesting tool” to “actually compliant solution.”

Recordings library and channels

Fellow automatically records calls, which you can access through your transcription and meeting notes. I found the recordings library valuable, especially for teams or larger organizations. You can organize your previous meetings into custom channels and auto-publish your recordings to the right ones.

Furthermore, you can create new channels for yourself or even your whole company. This library helps you structure your meeting recaps and offers an excellent way to organize your meeting history, and a way to share recaps with people who did not attend those meetings but want access to that information.

For example, the CEO can be a part of the Sales calls channel or the Project Check-In channel even if they didn’t attend those meetings, and then use “Ask Fellow” to ask for insights and updates from those conversations.

AI meeting notes

Fellow automatically generates AI meeting summaries that highlight key discussion points, decisions, and action items. Instead of reading an entire transcript, I could quickly review the summary and immediately understand what happened during the meeting.

I also liked that action items could be assigned directly to team members, making responsibilities clear before everyone left the meeting. Every summary remained connected to its transcript and recording, so finding additional context was always easy.

Meeting agendas

Meeting agendas are one of Fellow’s most distinctive features because they improve meetings before they even begin.

You can build collaborative agendas, ask AI to suggest discussion topics, and use AI-powered pre-meeting briefs that summarize previous meetings, outstanding action items, and participant information. I found these briefs especially valuable when I had back-to-back meetings and very little time to prepare.

Everyone attending the meeting can contribute agenda items, assign talking points or action items, and even create private notes that are only visible to them during the meeting. Fellow’s Agenda Builder can also generate an agenda automatically using the meeting title and calendar description.

Clips

Clips make it easy to capture and share the most important moments from a meeting without sending the entire recording.

After opening a recording, you can select the beginning and end of a clip, save it to your recordings library, or share it directly with teammates.

I also liked that Ask Fellow can generate clips for you. For example, you can ask it to create a clip of a specific customer comment, and it will find and generate that segment automatically.

Ask Fellow

Ask Fellow is much more than a chatbot. It searches the meetings and channels you have access to, even if you didn’t attend them, to answer questions using your organization’s meeting history.

During testing, I used it to ask questions like “What did we decide about this project?” or “What should I follow up on from yesterday’s meeting?” and it quickly surfaced the relevant discussions, decisions, and action items.

Beyond answering questions, Ask Fellow can prepare you for upcoming meetings, summarize priorities, generate follow-up emails, create and edit documents, export content to Google Docs, Notion, or Confluence, generate meeting clips, manage your calendar, and remember your preferences over time.

Team collaboration

What makes Fellow special is that it was designed for the whole organization’s use cases. Whether it’s sales calls, interviews, or one-on-ones, you can implement Fellow in every team. It offers an excellent way to handle both external and internal calls and provides incredibly helpful collaboration features.

It supports collaborative agenda creation, you can assign action items, and easily share the meeting notes with others. Even when you’re using botless recording functionality, internal attendees in your organization will know that they are being recorded.

Similarly, Fellow will always prompt you to invite attendees to the meeting agenda and AI notes if you are recording an impromptu huddle or meeting, always keeping collaboration and alignment in mind.

Unlike Plaud, which is primarily designed around an individual’s device and account, Fellow gives organizations centralized ownership of meeting content. When employees leave the company, recordings, transcripts, and meeting notes remain within the organization’s workspace instead of staying tied to a personal account.

This organization-wide approach also simplifies offboarding because recordings, transcripts, and meeting notes remain within the organization’s workspace instead of staying tied to an individual’s account.

Integrations

Fellow integrates with the tools most teams already use, including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Slack, calendars, project management platforms, and enterprise CRM systems like Salesforce and HubSpot.

Rather than replacing your existing workflow, Fellow integrates into it by connecting meeting notes, recordings, and follow-up tasks to the rest of your productivity stack.

For organizations in highly regulated industries, it also integrates with compliance archiving solutions like Global Relay, making it easier to manage conversations within existing governance and compliance workflows.

Use this link to sign up and get 10% off the paid plans if you upgrade.

Plaud’s features

One-button recording

One thing I quickly appreciated about Plaud was how effortless it was to start recording. Instead of unlocking my phone, opening an app, and starting a recording, I simply pressed the button on the NotePin and started talking.

Compared to most AI note-takers, this was much faster and more convenient, especially while driving or commuting. After a few days, recording with Plaud became second nature, and I found myself capturing ideas far more often simply because the process required almost no effort.

While Fellow works best for scheduled meetings, Plaud excels when conversations happen away from your desk. I found it much easier to capture spontaneous ideas, phone calls, and in-person discussions without opening an app or joining a meeting.

This individual-first approach is one of Plaud’s biggest strengths, but it also defines who it’s best suited for. Since the device and recordings are typically tied to an individual user’s account rather than centrally managed by an organization’s IT team, Plaud is a much better fit for personal productivity than organization-wide deployments.

Accurate AI transcription and summaries

Plaud prepares AI meeting notes with key discussion points, decisions, and next arrangements. Depending on the recording length, it usually took around 5–10 minutes to upload the recording, generate the transcript, and create the AI summary.

The structured notes gave me a quick overview of every conversation without reading the full transcript. I could also edit the summary, rewrite sections, or generate different versions using templates like meeting minutes, highlights, intent analysis, and concept insights.

Since Plaud supports many languages, I also tested it in Hungarian. I was genuinely impressed by how accurately it transcribed conversations and generated summaries despite Hungarian being a challenging language for most AI note-takers.

That said, unlike Fellow, Plaud focuses on summarizing individual conversations rather than helping teams collaborate around them with agendas, shared notes, and follow-up workflows.

Ask Plaud

This is the feature I used the most.

Instead of searching through transcripts manually, I just asked questions like What 3deadlines were mentioned?, What tasks do I need to complete this week?, or What decisions were made during the meeting?

The responses were generated in just a few seconds. What impressed me most was that Plaud didn’t always return long paragraphs. Whenever possible, it organized the answers into tables with priorities, making them much faster to review and act on.

Built-in voice editor

While testing Plaud, I also discovered its built-in voice editor. It lets you trim recordings, remove silence, and delete unnecessary sections before sharing them.

I mainly used it when I wanted to clean up a brainstorming session before sending it to my team. Although I didn’t rely on this feature every day, I still found it a valuable addition because I haven’t seen many AI note-takers include this type of editing directly inside the app.

Mind maps and AI templates

Plaud offers much more than a standard AI summary. Besides generating transcripts and meeting notes, it can also create mind maps from your conversations, which I found useful for visualizing ideas and brainstorming sessions.

I also liked that Plaud offers a wide range of AI templates. Depending on the conversation, I could generate meeting minutes, highlights, quantitative analysis, intent analysis, concept insights, and many other summary formats without rewriting anything manually.

Offline recording

Unlike most AI note-takers I’ve tested, Plaud can record even without an internet connection. I particularly liked this because I could capture ideas anywhere without worrying about connectivity.

Once I was back online, Plaud automatically synced the recording, generated the transcript, and created the AI summary. Combined with the dedicated hardware, this made it one of the easiest tools I’ve used for capturing ideas while traveling or commuting.

Plans & value

Fellow’s cost breakdown

Fellow offers four plans. The Free plan includes access to AI recording, recaps, and transcriptions. Additionally, it provides access to features such as collaborative meeting notes, meeting agendas, meeting timers, and integrations with Zoom, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet.

However, the free tier only includes five recordings per month, so heavy users will likely outgrow it quickly.

The Team plan was developed for small teams and starts with 3 users. It includes all the features in the Free plan with higher limits and offers meeting automation tools and additional integrations with Notion or project management tools.

The Business plan starts with 3 users and provides unlimited recordings, transcription minutes, organization-wide meeting templates, sales AI recap templates, and more integrations. 

The Enterprise plan offers advanced control, security, and AI meeting support. With this plan, you can create customized rules for recording and have more recordings and transcription minutes.

Plaud’s cost breakdown

Before using Plaud, you’ll need to purchase a device, which starts at $159 and goes up to around $189, depending on the model.

The hardware is a one-time investment, while the subscription determines how many transcription minutes and AI features you’ll have access to.

The free plan includes 300 transcription minutes per month, making it a good option if you only record occasionally. Pro costs $8.33/month and increases the monthly limit to 1,200 transcription minutes, which should be enough for most users.

If you record throughout the day, the Unlimited plan removes transcription limits for $19.99/month. Businesses can also choose the Team plan for $20/month, which includes centralized billing, user management, and priority support.

Compared to other AI note-takers, I found Plaud’s subscription pricing competitive. The main consideration is the upfront hardware purchase, which makes it more expensive than software-only alternatives.

However, after carrying the NotePin for a few weeks, I found it more convenient than pulling out my phone every time I wanted to capture an idea or record a conversation. If you regularly have in-person meetings, phone calls, or brainstorm while commuting, the dedicated recorder can easily justify the extra cost.

That hardware-first approach makes a lot of sense for individual professionals, but it may be less practical for organizations looking to standardize AI meeting tools across teams. In those cases, software-based platforms that can be centrally deployed, managed, and governed are often a better fit.

User interface

Fellow’s user interface

Fellow has a simple and clean user interface. It’s particularly great that you can access many features from the homepage with just a few clicks.

I used this tool’s desktop version, which you can easily download from Fellow’s website. The desktop app helps you make the meeting experience smooth from beginning to end.

Use this link to sign up and get 10% off the paid plans if you upgrade.

Plaud’s user interface

The Plaud app itself is really straightforward and has no learning curve at all. Within a few minutes, I knew where everything was.

Nonetheless, the setup process of the Plaud device took more time than I expected. It took me around 10–15 minutes to figure out because the recording button required a firmer press than I anticipated. After my first day of use, it became second nature.

Wins & Trade-Offs of Fellow

Fellow wins

Fellow trade-offs

Pros and cons of Plaud

Plaud pros

Plaud cons

Alternatives to Fellow and Plaud

If you are not sure if Plaud and Fellow are the best choice for you, here are some:

My pick: Fellow vs Plaud

After testing both tools, my pick in this Fellow vs Plaud comparison is Fellow.

It goes beyond AI meeting notes by combining accurate transcription with collaboration, flexible recording options, and organization-wide governance.

That said, Plaud genuinely impressed me with its one-button recording, accurate transcription, and the convenience of carrying a dedicated recorder throughout the day. It’s one of the best solutions I’ve tested for capturing conversations, phone calls, and ideas away from a desk.

The biggest difference comes down to who each product is designed for.

Fellow is built for organizations that need secure AI meeting intelligence, centralized ownership of meeting data, and enterprise governance. Plaud, on the other hand, is built for individuals who want the fastest and most convenient way to capture conversations wherever they happen.

If your work revolves around team meetings and collaboration, choose Fellow. If you regularly record in-person conversations, phone calls, or ideas on the go, Plaud is the better fit.

Why you can trust our reviews

At thebusinessdive.com, our team tests, reviews, and compares hundreds of productivity apps every year — from project management tools to note-taking apps. We dive deep into real-world use cases to help you find the right tools that actually improve your workflow, not just add noise.

Our mission? No fluff, no shortcuts—just honest, hands-on insights from productivity pros.

Discover how we stay transparent, read our review methodology, and let us know about any tools we missed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Plaud Note worth buying over a software-only AI note taker?

It depends on how you work. If you regularly record phone calls, in-person conversations, or capture ideas throughout the day, Plaud Note or Plaud NotePin can be worth the investment because the dedicated voice recorder makes recording much faster than reaching for your phone.

If you mainly attend online meetings and want advanced collaboration features, a software-based AI note taker like Fellow will likely provide better value.

Does Plaud support real-time transcription?

No. Unlike AI meeting assistants that generate real-time transcription during online meetings, Plaud processes the recording after it’s uploaded. During my testing, it usually took around 5–10 minutes to generate accurate transcripts, AI summaries, and meeting notes, depending on the recording length.

Can Fellow and Plaud record phone calls and virtual meetings?

Yes, but they do it differently. Fellow is designed for virtual meetings and integrates with platforms like Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams, while also offering botless desktop capture.

Plaud, on the other hand, is built around dedicated hardware that lets you record phone calls, in-person conversations, and voice notes without relying on meeting bots.

What advanced AI features does Fellow offer that Plaud doesn’t?

Both tools generate meeting notes, transcripts, and AI summaries, but Fellow includes several advanced AI features designed for teams.

These include collaborative meeting agendas, AI meeting briefs, action item management, organization-wide search with Ask Fellow, CRM integrations, and the ability to create meeting clips.

Plaud focuses more on recording conversations and organizing them with summaries, mind maps, and Ask Plaud rather than Fellow’s organization-wide meeting intelligence.

Does Plaud offer a free plan?

Yes. Plaud offers free transcription through its Starter plan, which includes 300 transcription minutes per month.

If you need more recording time, you can upgrade to the Pro plan, which is billed annually, or choose the Unlimited subscription. Keep in mind that you’ll also need to purchase a Plaud device before using the service.

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.

Aron Kantor

Hey there! I am Aron, the founder of Thebusinessdive. I have been testing productivity apps for almost three years now. I reach 25.000 -50.000 people monthly with the mission to help you find the perfect productivity apps. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, newsletter, and social media to hear more about the best productivity tools. Let’s dive in!

thebusinessdive.com

The post Fellow vs Plaud: The Biggest Differences Between a Virtual and a Physical Notetaker appeared first on .

I used it when driving, commuting, or just capturing my ideas. So, basically everywhere.

Stay here, because I will break down how it performed day-to-day and reveal where it worked and where it failed.

Let’s dive in!

TL;DR: Should You Buy or Skip Plaud?

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

How We Test AI Note-Takers

To keep our reviews and final scores fair and consistent, we evaluate every AI note-taking tool using a standardized testing framework built on real-world usage and hands-on experience.

Our scoring breakdown after testing 20+ AI note-takers:

Want a detailed breakdown of how we test each category?

Learn exactly how we test tools → Review methodology

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

What Impressed Me (and What Didn’t)

This is where Plaud genuinely impressed me or saved a lot of time:

This is where Plaud did not perform that well:

How Plaud Fits Into My Daily Workflow (Detailed Review)

Here, I guide you through the daily workflows where I mainly used Plaud.

Recording meetings and phone calls

Where It Saved Me Time

Plaud prepares AI meeting notes with key points and next arrangements. Depending on the recording length, it usually took 5–10 minutes to upload, transcribe, and generate the AI summary.

The structured notes provide you with a quick overview of what you discussed, and Plaud picked up the relevant points from my meetings and phone calls well.

I could add, remove, or rewrite points, and even generate different versions using built-in templates such as meeting minutes, highlights, quantitative analysis, intent analysis, or concept insights. Nevertheless, there are many other templates you can use.

Since Plaud supports many languages, I also tested it in my native language, Hungarian. I was genuinely impressed by how accurately it transcribed conversations and generated summaries, despite Hungarian being a challenging language for most AI note-takers.

Furthermore, Plaud generates mind maps from your discussions, which is a useful feature for visual thinkers. However, the feature I used most is Ask Plaud.

Instead of searching through the transcript manually, I simply asked questions like:

• What deadlines were mentioned?
• What tasks do I need to complete this week?
• What decisions were made during the meeting?

The responses were generated in just a few seconds. What impressed me most was that Plaud didn’t always return long paragraphs. When possible, it organized the answers into tables with priorities, making them much faster to review and act on.

Where It Struggled

In terms of AI-generated summaries and transcription, Plaud did an excellent job. The main feature I missed is a conversational intelligence tool to analyze my calls.

As someone who enjoys analyzing my own meetings, I’d love to see insights such as:

• speaking vs. listening ratio,
• filler words,
• talk time,
• sentiment trends,
• coaching recommendations,
• objection analysis for sales calls.

These kinds of analytics would make Plaud even more valuable for sales professionals, managers, and anyone looking to continuously improve their communication skills.

Brainstorming While Driving

Where It Saved Me Time

Compared to most AI note-takers, which require you to take out your phone, open the app, and start recording, Plaud made capturing ideas much faster. I simply pressed the button on my NotePin and started talking, which felt both quicker and safer, especially while driving.

I often recorded longer monologues with short pauses in between, and Plaud did a great job organizing the transcription into logical blocks instead of one long wall of text.

While the AI notes covered most of what I talked about, the transcription outline helped me find some of the key ideas I had, so I could read them completely and ensure I could follow that line of thinking.

One example was when I came up with a new idea for Floviu while driving and wanted to share it with my developer. This is when I found its built-in voice editor that allows me to remove silence, trim, and delete parts of the voice recording.

Although I did not use this feature more than once, it can still be a valuable addition for these workflows, and no other AI note-takers offer this.

Finally, Plaud let me organize my recordings into different folders. So, I could create folders for different topics and save my brainstorming in the related folder.

Where It Struggled

Honestly, I didn’t run into any significant issues using Plaud to capture ideas while driving. Nonetheless, if you rarely record ideas or conversations throughout the day, you probably won’t benefit from carrying a dedicated device instead of using your phone.

Capturing Ideas on the Go

Where It Saved Me Time

One thing I quickly appreciated about Plaud was how effortless it was to capture ideas. I simply clipped the NotePin to my T-shirt, pressed the record button, and started talking. It just makes it easy and convenient to grasp an idea without unlocking my phone.

I used my NotePin numerous times while commuting, and even in noisy environments, Plaud captured what I said. The transcription accuracy was high, and I particularly valued that Plaud cleaned my transcript, so there were no filler words.

Its summarization features were a huge time-saver for me, since they quickly broke down the key action items from 15-20 minutes of brainstorming, during which at least 10 minutes were irrelevant.

Lastly, I loved that Plaud NotePin can record offline too.

Where It Struggled

The one thing I missed here is the option to quickly assign action points to my team members. For example, sometimes I come up with content ideas, and it would be useful for me to quickly pin my team to work on it.

Design, Battery Life & Everyday Use

As mentioned, I used Plaud NotePin. Its design is minimalist, premium, and subtle. Since I chose a color close to my T-shirts, it blended in nicely instead of drawing attention, which I personally preferred.

The Plaud app itself is really straightforward and has no learning curve at all. Within a few minutes, I knew where everything was.

Nonetheless, the setup process of the Plaud device took more time than I expected. I first had to fully charge the device, and during my first recording, I repeatedly tapped the record button without realizing it required a firmer press to start recording.

Honestly, it took 10-15 minutes to figure out, which was a bit frustrating, but after my first day of use, it became second nature. The device shows the recording status (a red light indicates recording), so you will always know when it’s on.

Based on my experience, the battery life of my Plaud NotePin was somewhere between 20 – 35 hours depending on how much time I recorded. Nonetheless, the device does not show the battery status.

A quick note on shipping. I ordered it from Hungary, Europe, and it took around 5-7 workdays to receive it. I know it can vary significantly depending on your location, but I had a good experience here.

Overall, Plaud has exceptional design, and after a few days, wearing the NotePin became as natural as putting on a watch.

What You Need to Know About Pricing

Before using Plaud, you must purchase the device and select a plan.

Let’s start with the devices!

Devices

The one I used (Plaud NotePin) is the lightweight version that includes a magnetic pin and clip, ideal for everyday wearable capturing. Above, I already described how effortless it was to wear and use it on a daily basis, so I had a great experience with NotePin.

Plaud also offers other device options for different use cases. The NotePin S is a refreshed version of the NotePin with a slightly different design. Since I haven’t tested it myself, I can’t comment on its real-world performance.

For users who frequently record phone calls, Plaud offers the Plaud Note, a card-sized recorder that lets you switch between phone call and in-person recording modes. The Plaud Note Pro is the company’s most advanced AI note taker and comes as a magnetic phone case with additional recording capabilities.

Subscription plans

The free Starter plan includes 300 transcription minutes per month, making it a good option if you only record occasionally.

The Pro plan is $8.33 per month with annual billing and includes 1,200 transcription minutes per month. Based on my experience, it should be enough for most users.

For heavy users, Plaud also offers an Unlimited plan for $19.99/month (annual billing), which removes the transcription limit. This is the plan I used during my testing.

Also, Plaud offers a Team plan for $20 per user per month with annual billing that includes centralized billing, user management, priority support, and more.

Cost vs. value

Compared to other AI transcription tools, Plaud’s subscription pricing is competitive. There are cheaper, but significantly more expensive AI note-takers.

The main consideration is that, unlike purely software-based alternatives, you’ll need to purchase the hardware as well.

While that increases the upfront cost, I found it more convenient to wear a dedicated recorder than to use my phone for call recording. This can be especially useful for professionals who have numerous in-person conversations and phone calls each day.

How Secure Is Plaud?

The short answer: Plaud is a secure AI note-taking platform that complies with major security and privacy standards, including ISO/IEC 27001:2022, ISO/IEC 27701:2019, GDPR, SOC 2 Type II, and HIPAA.

The main consideration isn’t the platform itself, but how you use it. When recording in-person meetings or phone calls, it’s your responsibility to inform participants and comply with applicable local laws and company policies.

Unlike many AI meeting assistants for online meetings, Plaud doesn’t automatically notify others that a recording is taking place.

Final thoughts

Plaud genuinely surprised me and exceeded my expectations. Before testing it, I relied on the mobile apps of AI note-takers to capture ideas and meetings, and I didn’t think I needed a dedicated recording device.

After using the NotePin for a few weeks, my perspective changed. The combination of its lightweight design, one-button recording, accurate transcription, and well-structured AI summaries made it much easier to capture conversations and ideas without interrupting the moment.

If you mainly attend virtual meetings, a traditional AI meeting assistant may already cover your needs. But if your day involves in-person meetings, phone calls, commuting, or capturing ideas on the go, Plaud offers a noticeably smoother experience than reaching for your phone every time.

Why you can trust our reviews

At thebusinessdive.com, our team tests, reviews, and compares hundreds of productivity apps every year — from project management tools to note-taking apps. We dive deep into real-world use cases to help you find the right tools that actually improve your workflow, not just add noise.

Our mission? No fluff, no shortcuts—just honest, hands-on insights from productivity pros.

Discover how we stay transparent, read our review methodology, and let us know about any tools we missed.

Frequently asked questions

Is Plaud Note worth the investment?

I would recommend Plaud to professionals, founders, consultants, and entrepreneurs who regularly have important conversations and want a reliable way to ensure no valuable ideas, action items, or decisions are forgotten.

For them, Plaud Note definitely is worth the investment.

Is using Plaud legal?

Yes, Plaud complies with all the major regulations, including ISO/IEC 27001:2022, ISO/IEC 27701:2019, GDPR, SOC 2 Type II, and HIPAA.

Is Fireflies AI or Plaud better?

The answer completely depends on your use case. If you have numerous in-person meetings, phone calls, and love to capture ideas while commuting or driving, Plaud is a more capable solution, as it can replace your voice memo app and AI note-taker at once.

However, if you only have virtual meetings and don’t want to invest heavily, Fireflies AI is a more practical choice.

Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself, and all opinions expressed here are my 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.

Aron Kantor

Hey there! I am Aron, the founder of Thebusinessdive. I have been testing productivity apps for almost three years now. I reach 25.000 -50.000 people monthly with the mission to help you find the perfect productivity apps. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, newsletter, and social media to hear more about the best productivity tools. Let’s dive in!

thebusinessdive.com

The post What I Learned After Carrying Plaud Every Day (Plaud Review 2026) appeared first on .

So why compare them?

Because even though they solve the same problem, they take very different approaches:

• Fellow is an AI meeting note taker built with security and compliance at its core.
• Jamie focuses on bot-free AI meeting notes.
• Fellow offers collaborative agendas, AI connectors, and integrations with the tools your team already uses.
• Jamie provides a simpler, more lightweight meeting experience.
• Fellow gives you the choice between bot and bot-free recording.
• Jamie hosts data exclusively in the EU
• Jamie deletes the audio immediately after transcription.
• Fellow offers the option to retain video and audio, or delete them entirely, with zero-day retention.
• My personal recommendation is Fellow, as it fits better with my daily use and my data retention preferences.

If one of those approaches already sounds like a better fit, your decision might be easy.

If not, keep reading this Fellow vs Jamie review, where I’ll compare their features, pricing, user interface, strengths, weaknesses, and my hands-on experience with both tools.

Let’s dive in!

Verdict

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

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

My ratings: Fellow vs Jamie

Key differences between Fellow and Jamie

Here is a short overview of the key differences I found in the Fellow vs Jamie showdown:

The Scoring System We Used

To keep our reviews and final scores fair and consistent, we evaluate every AI note-taking tool using a standardized testing framework built on real-world usage and hands-on experience.

We evaluate every AI note-taking tool using this weighted framework, based on hands-on testing in real meetings and everyday workflows.

Our scoring breakdown after testing 20+ AI note-takers:

Want a detailed breakdown of how we test each category?

Learn exactly how we test tools → Review methodology

Comparison: Fellow vs Jamie

In the sections below, I’ll compare Fellow and Jamie based on my hands-on testing, covering their features, pricing, user interface, strengths, weaknesses, and the types of users each tool is best suited for.

Testing Fellow in everyday use

After using Fellow for more than a year and testing over 20 AI note-taking apps, it has become my benchmark for what a complete AI meeting assistant should look like.

It consistently delivers accurate transcriptions, detailed AI meeting summaries, and reliable action items. What really sets it apart, however, is everything that happens before and after the meeting.

In my testing, Fellow transcribed meetings with over 95% accuracy and generated AI meeting summaries within minutes. This made it easy to revisit key discussions without listening to the entire recording.

One new Fellow feature I especially liked was password-protected meeting recaps. It’s a smart security layer for anyone handling sensitive information. You get the productivity gains of automated notes and action items, but the recap itself stays locked down with a password that keeps unauthorized eyes out, and admins can enforce it workspace-wide for public recaps.

I also appreciated the flexibility of Fellow’s recording options. Whether I used bot-based or bot-free recording, it captured conversations reliably across online and in-person meetings.

Overall, Fellow delivered one of the most complete AI meeting experiences I tested.

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

Who should use Fellow

Who should NOT use Fellow

Testing Jamie in everyday use

What I liked most about Jamie was how little it interrupted the meeting itself. Once I clicked Start Jamie, I barely had to interact with the app again. The floating transcript stayed out of the way, but it was always there if I wanted to check that everything was being transcribed correctly.

After the meeting, everything I needed was already organized. Instead of reviewing the recording myself, I could read the summary, check the action items, and ask follow-up questions through AI Chat.

When to choose Jamie

When you should skip Jamie

Key features

Below, I’ll walk you through the features that stood out the most during my Fellow vs Jamie testing.

Fellow’s features

Bot-free or bot transcription

One of Fellow’s biggest advantages is that you can choose whether to record meetings with a bot or without one. It supports Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Slack Huddles, automatically recording and transcribing meetings in more than 92 languages.

If you prefer bot-free recording, simply select Record without bot, and Fellow captures the meeting in the background while maintaining the same enterprise-grade privacy and security controls as bot-based recordings.

If you choose to use a bot instead, it always requests permission to join the meeting and appears as a participant, so everyone knows the meeting is being recorded.

Based on my testing, Fellow’s transcriptions were highly accurate, around 95% or higher. They were available within a few minutes and included timestamps and speaker identification.

Security and recording controls

Fellow prioritizes enterprise-grade security with SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance built in. 

What stood out most was the zero-day retention option: Fellow gives you the option for raw recordings and transcripts to be deleted immediately after AI processing, so sensitive content never persists in the system. 

For teams that need to share summaries, password-protected recaps let you lock down meeting notes while keeping the productivity benefits of automated action items and summaries. 

The compliance portal gives admins granular control over recording rules and restrictions, so you can enforce policies across your workspace, whether that’s preventing recordings on certain call types or restricting who can access public recaps. 

I also appreciated that Fellow makes clear that customer meeting data isn’t used to train AI models and remains fully under your ownership. 

For organizations handling MNPI, privileged conversations, or patient data, these features move Fellow from “interesting tool” to “actually compliant solution.”

Recordings library and channels

Fellow automatically records calls, which you can access through your transcription and meeting notes. I found the recordings library valuable, especially for teams or larger organizations. You can organize your previous meetings into custom channels and auto-publish your recordings to the right ones.

Furthermore, you can create new channels for yourself or even your whole company. This library helps you structure your meeting recaps and offers an excellent way to organize your meeting history, and a way to share recaps with people who did not attend those meetings but want access to that information.

For example, the CEO can be a part of the Sales calls channel or the Project Check-In channel even if they didn’t attend those meetings, and then use “Ask Fellow” to ask for insights and updates from those conversations.

AI meeting notes

Fellow automatically generates AI meeting summaries that highlight key discussion points, decisions, and action items. Instead of reading an entire transcript, I could quickly review the summary and immediately understand what happened during the meeting.

I also liked that action items could be assigned directly to team members, making responsibilities clear before everyone left the meeting. Every summary remained connected to its transcript and recording, so finding additional context was always easy.

Meeting agendas

Meeting agendas are one of Fellow’s most distinctive features because they improve meetings before they even begin.

You can build collaborative agendas, ask AI to suggest discussion topics, and use AI-powered pre-meeting briefs that summarize previous meetings, outstanding action items, and participant information. I found these briefs especially valuable when I had back-to-back meetings and very little time to prepare.

Everyone attending the meeting can contribute agenda items, assign talking points or action items, and even create private notes that are only visible to them during the meeting. Fellow’s Agenda Builder can also generate an agenda automatically using the meeting title and calendar description.

Clips

Clips make it easy to capture and share the most important moments from a meeting without sending the entire recording.

After opening a recording, you can select the beginning and end of a clip, save it to your recordings library, or share it directly with teammates.

I also liked that Ask Fellow can generate clips for you. For example, you can ask it to create a clip of a specific customer comment, and it will find and generate that segment automatically.

Ask Fellow

Ask Fellow is much more than a chatbot. It searches the meetings and channels you have access to, even if you didn’t attend them, to answer questions using your organization’s meeting history.

During testing, I used it to ask questions like “What did we decide about this project?” or “What should I follow up on from yesterday’s meeting?” and it quickly surfaced the relevant discussions, decisions, and action items.

Beyond answering questions, Ask Fellow can prepare you for upcoming meetings, summarize priorities, generate follow-up emails, create and edit documents, export content to Google Docs, Notion, or Confluence, generate meeting clips, manage your calendar, and remember your preferences over time.

Team collaboration

What makes Fellow special is that it was designed for the whole organization’s use cases. Whether it’s sales calls, interviews, or one-on-ones, you can implement Fellow in every team. It offers an excellent way to handle both external and internal calls and provides incredibly helpful collaboration features.

It supports collaborative agenda creation, you can assign action items, and easily share the meeting notes with others. Even when you’re using botless recording functionality, internal attendees in your organization will know that they are being recorded.

Similarly, Fellow will always prompt you to invite attendees to the meeting agenda and AI notes if you are recording an impromptu huddle or meeting, always keeping collaboration and alignment in mind.

Integrations

Fellow integrates with the tools most teams already use, including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Slack, project management platforms, CRMs, and calendars.

For regulated industries, Fellow integrates with Global Relay for compliant archiving, and with Claude for advanced workflows.

Rather than replacing your existing workflow, it connects meeting notes, recordings, and action items with the rest of your productivity stack, making follow-up work much more streamlined.

Use this link to sign up and get 10% off the paid plans if you upgrade.

Jamie’s features

Bot-free AI meeting notes

Jamie doesn’t rely on a meeting bot joining your calls. After installing the desktop app, I simply clicked ‘Start Jamie’, and it started transcribing the meeting directly from my computer.

The transcript was generated in real time as the meeting progressed, so I could follow the conversation without waiting for the recording to finish.

During my test, the transcription was highly accurate (on par with Fellow), even when multiple people were speaking, and timestamps made it easy to jump back to specific parts of the discussion.

While the meeting was running, Jamie displayed a floating transcript window that I could minimize when I needed more screen space or expand to follow the conversation. The window also included quick controls for muting the microphone and stopping the recording, so I never had to switch back to the main app.

Another feature I found useful was Scratchpad, where I could keep personal notes inside Jamie while it handled the transcription. After I stopped the recording, Jamie immediately started processing the meeting, displayed the transcription progress, and generated the meeting notes automatically.

AI summaries with customizable templates

Jamie generated an executive summary almost immediately after the recording finished. Instead of giving me a transcript to organize myself, it highlighted the main discussion points, decisions, and follow-up tasks automatically.

I also liked that the summaries weren’t limited to a single format. Jamie comes with templates for Default, Customer Discovery, Daily Standup, and Interview meetings, and it also lets you create your own.

Action item tracking

Jamie automatically pulled action items from the meeting and placed them in a dedicated Tasks section. Each task included the assignee, due date, and priority, so I could immediately see what needed to be done after the meeting.

The tasks were fully editable, which I appreciated. I could change the assignee, update the due date, adjust the priority, or remove tasks that weren’t relevant. It saved me from manually copying follow-ups into another tool before sharing them with the team.

Ask Jamie AI

Instead of searching through previous transcripts, I could ask Jamie questions in natural language.

I found this much faster than manually searching through transcripts. Even after several meetings, I could ask a question and quickly get the information I was looking for without remembering where it had originally been discussed.

Speaker identification

Jamie automatically separated the transcript by speaker, making the conversation easier to follow. During my test, it correctly identified most participants and clearly showed which speakers had already been matched.

For the two speakers it couldn’t identify, Jamie grouped their comments separately and displayed short audio clips next to each segment. I could listen to those clips, recognize the speaker, and assign the correct name in just a few clicks.

I thought this was a thoughtful touch that made correcting speaker labels much faster than manually searching through the transcript.

Searchable meeting workspace

Jamie stores every meeting in a searchable workspace. I could browse previous meetings, open participant profiles in the People tab, organize conversations with Tags, and review meetings that had been shared with me.

Integrations

Jamie works with the most popular meeting platforms, including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Webex. If you connect your Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar, it can automatically detect upcoming meetings and prepare them for recording.

Beyond meetings, Jamie integrates with Slack, HubSpot, Trello, Monday.com, Gmail, and Outlook. Teams with more advanced automation needs can also connect Jamie through its API and webhooks, including workflows built with Zapier or Make.

Plans & value

Fellow’s cost breakdown

Fellow offers four plans. The Free plan includes access to AI recording, recaps, and transcriptions. Additionally, it provides access to features such as collaborative meeting notes, meeting agendas, meeting timers, and integrations with Zoom, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet. The Free plan is perfect for those who want to try Fellow before purchasing it.

The Team plan was developed for small teams and starts with 3 users. It includes all the features in the Free plan with higher limits and offers meeting automation tools and additional integrations with Notion or project management tools.

The Business plan starts with 3 users and provides unlimited recordings, transcription minutes, organization-wide meeting templates, sales AI recap templates, and more integrations. 

The Enterprise plan offers advanced control, security, and AI meeting support. With this plan, you can create customized rules for recording and have more recordings and transcription minutes.

Jamie’s cost breakdown

Jamie offers a free plan alongside four paid tiers.

The free plan includes 10 AI meeting notes and transcripts per month, with meetings of up to 30 minutes. Despite the usage limits, it still includes core features like AI summaries, action item detection, speaker recognition, Ask Jamie, calendar integrations, and unlimited storage.

Plus starts is €21/month when billed annually and increases the limits to 20 meetings per month with meetings of up to 2 hours. Pro costs €39/month with annual billing and removes the meeting cap while increasing the maximum meeting length to 3 hours. It also adds CRM integrations, unlimited templates, Asana integration, MCP support, and priority support.

The Team plan is €33 per month per seat with annual billing (min 2 seats), and  adds shared workspaces, centralized billing, and admin features, while Enterprise offers custom pricing with SSO, advanced security controls, and dedicated onboarding for larger organizations.

User interface

Fellow’s user interface

Fellow has a simple and clean user interface. It’s particularly great that you can access many features from the homepage with just a few clicks.

I used this tool’s desktop version, which you can easily download from Fellow’s website. The desktop app helps you make the meeting experience smooth from beginning to end.

Use this link to sign up and get 10% off the paid plans if you upgrade.

Jamie’s user interface

Jamie has one of the cleanest interfaces I’ve seen in an AI meeting assistant. The layout is simple, and I had no trouble finding my way around.

I also liked that the recording controls stayed in a small floating window instead of taking over my screen. It let me follow the live transcript, minimize it when I needed more space, and stop the recording without interrupting the meeting.

Pros and cons of Fellow

Pros of Fellow

Cons of Fellow

Pros and cons of Jamie

Jamie pros

Jamie cons

Alternatives to Fellow and Jamie

If you are not sure if Jamie and Fellow are the best choice for you, here are some:

My pick: Fellow vs Jamie

After testing both tools, my pick in this Fellow vs Jamie comparison is Fellow.

It simply offers much more than AI meeting notes. The option to choose between bot and bot-free recording is another advantage that makes it suitable for a wider range of workflows.

Jamie, on the other hand, is an excellent AI note-taker. If your priority is accurate transcription, bot-free recording, and a clean, distraction-free experience, it’s one of the best options I’ve tested. It just doesn’t offer the same meeting management and collaboration features that make Fellow stand out.

Why you can trust our reviews

At thebusinessdive.com, our team tests, reviews, and compares hundreds of productivity apps every year — from project management tools to note-taking apps. We dive deep into real-world use cases to help you find the right tools that actually improve your workflow, not just add noise.

Our mission? No fluff, no shortcuts—just honest, hands-on insights from productivity pros.

Discover how we stay transparent, read our review methodology, and let us know about any tools we missed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better: Fellow or Jamie?

Fellow is the better choice if you’re looking for a secure AI meeting note taker with collaborative agendas, meeting preparation, action item tracking, and extensive integrations. Jamie, on the other hand, is better suited for users who primarily want accurate AI meeting notes, bot-free recording, and AI-powered conversation summaries with minimal setup.

What is the biggest difference between Fellow and Jamie?

The biggest difference is their focus. Fellow combines AI meeting notes with meeting management and security features like collaborative agendas, pre-meeting briefs, password-protected recaps, a compliance portal for IT and chief compliance officers, and team collaboration. Jamie focuses on recording meetings without a bot, generating accurate transcripts, AI summaries, and helping users search past conversations through Ask Jamie AI.

Does Jamie integrate with Outlook and other business tools?

Yes. Jamie integrates with Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook to automatically detect upcoming meetings. It also supports integrations with business tools such as Slack, HubSpot, Trello, and Monday.com, while API and webhook support allow additional automation through platforms like Zapier and Make.

Which tool offers better integrations?

Fellow offers broader integrations overall. In addition to Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Slack, and calendar apps, it connects with CRM systems, project management platforms, archiving tools, and productivity tools to help teams manage meeting notes, action items, and follow-up work. Jamie supports the most common meeting and business integrations but is more focused on AI note-taking than workflow management.

Is Jamie or Fellow better for business teams?

For most business teams, especially teams in private equity, hedge funds, investment banking, legal, and other regulated industries, Fellow is the stronger choice because it combines AI meeting notes with security and compliance, collaboration, meeting preparation, shared agendas, and organization-wide workflows. Jamie works well for individuals and smaller teams that want accurate AI meeting notes and searchable conversation history without adding a meeting bot to every call.

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.

Aron Kantor

Hey there! I am Aron, the founder of Thebusinessdive. I have been testing productivity apps for almost three years now. I reach 25.000 -50.000 people monthly with the mission to help you find the perfect productivity apps. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, newsletter, and social media to hear more about the best productivity tools. Let’s dive in!

thebusinessdive.com

The post Fellow vs Jamie 2026: Head-to-Head appeared first on .

To help you find the right MS Teams AI note taker, we tested and selected the tools that go beyond transcription, generating summaries, identifying key decisions, and keeping meeting information searchable and easy to share.

Here are the AI note-takers we choose from 20+ tested options:

How These MS Teams AI Note Takers Compare

How We Test AI Note-Takers

To keep our reviews and final scores fair and consistent, we evaluate every AI note-taking tool using a standardized testing framework built on real-world usage and hands-on experience.

We reviewed and personally tested every AI note-taker featured in this list, and you will find links to the full review articles for each tool. Based on our hands-on testing, we assigned an overall score using our standardized scoring system.

While these overall review scores influenced the rankings in this article, we also considered specific use cases, workflows, and standout strengths to recommend the best AI note-takers for different needs and teams.

Our scoring breakdown after testing 20+ AI note-takers:

Want a detailed breakdown of how we test each category?

Learn exactly how we test tools → Review methodology

Breaking Down the Best MS Teams AI Note-Takers in 2026

Fellow

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

4.5/5

Fellow is a secure AI meeting assistant and note-taker that captures conversations, turns them into transcripts and summaries, and helps teams manage everything from meeting agendas to follow-ups in one place.

Full Fellow review Visit Fellow

Best overall

Quick verdict

• Best for Teams users who:

Enterprise teams on Microsoft 365 that need bot-free recording, compliance controls, and structured follow-ups.

• Skip it if:

You’re looking for a basic low-cost note-taking tool.

• What stood out in Teams meetings:

Botless recording means no bot joins the call — Fellow captures audio locally, which matters for compliance-sensitive teams. Backed by SOC 2 Type II, SSO, SCIM, and RBAC, with strong action-item tracking and integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, and Jira.

• Main limitation:

Limited free version

Who Fellow is best for

Who Fellow is not ideal for

Fellow highlights

Fellow drawbacks

Use this link to sign up and get 10% off the paid plans if you upgrade

Testing Fellow for Microsoft Teams meetings

I tested Fellow with Microsoft Teams meetings to see whether it could do more than generate transcripts and summaries. While note-taking is one of its core features, I found that Fellow focuses on the entire meeting process, from planning discussions to tracking what happens afterward.

Getting started was straightforward. Fellow joined Teams meetings automatically, recorded the conversation, generated a transcript, and created an AI summary once the meeting ended. The transcripts were highly accurate, even during longer discussions with multiple participants.

One feature I used frequently was meeting agendas. Fellow allows you to prepare discussion points before a meeting and keep notes directly alongside the agenda during the call. Having everything in a single workspace really helped me keep meetings organized.

After each meeting, Fellow automatically generated action items and highlighted key decisions. Instead of reviewing the entire transcript, I could quickly see the next steps and assign tasks to team members. This was one of the most valuable parts of the experience.

I also liked how Fellow organized meeting information. Transcripts, recordings, summaries, action items, and past discussions were stored in a searchable library, so it was easy to find information from previous meetings.

I also spent some time exploring features outside of note-taking. Fellow includes shared agendas, meeting templates, and action item tracking, which helped keep meeting preparation, discussions, and follow-ups in the same workspace instead of spreading them across multiple tools.

Another thing I noticed while researching the platform was its strong focus on security and privacy — Fellow is built for regulated industries, not bolted on as an afterthought. Fellow is SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR compliant, doesn’t train its AI on customer data, and offers controls you rarely see in this category: Zero-Day Retention, which deletes recordings and transcripts after AI processing while preserving the summary and action items, and transcript redaction for stripping out sensitive details. For teams in finance, legal, or healthcare — or anyone who regularly discusses confidential client information in meetings — that level of control is a real differentiator.

Overall, Fellow delivered accurate meeting notes while also helping manage agendas, decisions, and follow-ups. For Microsoft Teams users who want meeting management features alongside AI transcription, it offers a more complete solution than many note-taking tools I’ve tested.

Cost breakdown

• Free plan: AI recording, recaps, transcriptions, collaborative notes, agendas, meeting timers, and integrations with Zoom, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet. Great for testing the platform.
• Team plan ($7/user/month with annual billing): Includes higher limits, meeting automation, and integrations with Notion and project management tools.
• Business plan ($15/user/month with annual billing): Unlimited recordings and transcription minutes, organization-wide templates, sales AI recaps, and expanded integrations.
• Enterprise plan ($25/user/month with annual billing): Advanced security, custom recording controls, governance features, and increased recording and transcription capacity.

Read my full review: Fellow Review: My Thoughts After +12 Months (2026)

Use this link to sign up and get 10% off the paid plans if you upgrade

Krisp

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

4.2/5

Krisp is a bot-free AI note taker that combines meeting transcription and summaries with industry-leading noise cancellation, accent conversion, and real-time audio enhancement.

Full Krisp review Visit Krisp

Best for noise cancellation

Quick verdict

• Best for Teams users who:

Need AI meeting notes and background noise cancellation in a single tool.

• Skip it if:

You’re looking for a free AI note taker or advanced meeting analytics.

• What stood out in Teams meetings:

The combination of accurate AI notes, bot-free recording, and real-time noise cancellation.

• Main limitation:

Noise cancellation is not available on mobile devices.

Who Krisp is best for

Who Krisp is not ideal for

Krisp highlights

Krisp drawbacks

Testing Krisp for Microsoft Teams meetings

One of the main reasons I wanted to try Krisp was its noise cancellation features. I was curious to see how well they worked in real Microsoft Teams meetings and whether they could improve both call quality and transcription accuracy.

The first thing I noticed was how easy it was to get started. Krisp worked quietly in the background and captured meeting content without disrupting the call. The transcription quality was strong throughout my testing, and transcripts were available within minutes after meetings ended. I also liked that transcripts included speaker identification and timestamps.

The AI-generated meeting notes were well structured and covered key discussion points, decisions, and action items. I found the summaries easy to skim, and Krisp did a good job highlighting the most important takeaways from meetings. It also assigned action items to participants, which made follow-ups easier to manage.

I also spent some time using the AI chat feature. Whether I wanted to review decisions, action items, or specific discussion points, the AI chat provided fast answers and helped speed up post-meeting work.

Finally, I tested Krisp’s main differentiator: noise cancellation. During testing, it effectively reduced background sounds and nearby conversations, creating cleaner audio and more accurate transcripts. I also found the accent conversion feature interesting, particularly for teams that regularly collaborate with international clients or colleagues.

Overall, Krisp delivered accurate meeting notes while offering audio features that most competitors don’t provide.

Cost breakdown

• No free plan available, only 7-day free trial
• Core plan ($8/user/month with annual billing): Includes unlimited audio and video recording, AI meeting notes, action items, AI chat, multilingual summaries, and support for in-person meetings.
• Advanced plan ($15/user/month with annual billing): Adds accent conversion, increased storage, SSO/SCIM, manager view, and advanced admin controls.
• Enterprise plan (custom pricing): Includes advanced security features, private on-device transcription, dedicated account management, and usage analytics. 

Read my full review: My Brutal Honest Krisp Review 2026 | Is It Worth It?

Bluedot

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

4.4/5

Bluedot is a bot-free AI note taker that records meetings, generates transcripts and summaries, and helps teams share insights and follow-ups without inviting a meeting bot.

Full Bluedot review Visit Bluedot

Best for botless recording

Quick verdict

• Best for Teams users who:

Want bot-free meeting recording with AI-generated transcripts, summaries, and follow-up tools.

• Skip it if:

You need a generous free plan or prefer local processing over cloud-based note generation.

• What stood out in Teams meetings:

Bot-free recording, accurate transcripts, and well-structured meeting notes with minimal setup.

• Main limitation:

The free plan only includes five lifetime recordings.

Who Bluedot is best for

Who Bluedot is not ideal for

 Bluedot highlights

Bluedot drawbacks

Testing Bluedot for Microsoft Teams meetings

When testing Bluedot with Microsoft Teams, I was most interested in its bot-free approach. Many AI note takers rely on meeting bots to join calls, while Bluedot takes a different route and records meetings without adding another participant to the conversation.

First of all, the transcription quality was strong throughout my testing. Bluedot generated accurate transcripts and organized the meeting notes into clear sections, including summaries, action items, and timestamps. It automatically removed filler words, which made the transcripts easier to review afterward.

One feature I found useful was the ability to switch between meeting templates. Depending on the type of meeting, Bluedot could reorganize notes using different structures, and custom templates made it possible to focus on specific topics or questions.

I also spent some time using the AI chat feature. It allowed me to ask questions about individual meetings and quickly find key information. The responses were fast and included timestamps, allowing me to easily verify information and revisit specific parts of a conversation.

Another feature I appreciated was the follow-up workflow. Bluedot can generate AI-powered follow-up emails based on meeting discussions. Combined with its meeting insights and collaboration features, it offered more functionality than simple transcription alone.

Overall, Bluedot delivered a smooth experience during testing. The bot-free recording, accurate transcripts, flexible meeting templates, and AI-powered follow-up tools make it one of the best options for Microsoft Teams users who prefer not to use meeting bots.

Cost breakdown

• Free plan: Record and transcribe up to five meetings, with support for AI notes plus Slack and Notion integrations. Good for testing the platform, but not for long-term use.
• Basic plan ($14/user/month with annual billing): Includes unlimited recordings and storage, making it suitable for individuals and small teams that regularly rely on AI meeting notes.
• Pro plan ($20/user/month with annual billing): Adds longer recordings and custom meeting templates for more advanced workflows.
• Business plan ($32/user/month with annual billing): Unlocks HubSpot and Salesforce integrations, along with unlimited imports for teams that want to connect meeting data with their CRM.
• Enterprise plan (custom pricing): Includes SSO, advanced admin controls, custom retention policies, and other enterprise-grade security features. 

Read my full review: My Honest Bluedot Review After Testing 25+ AI Note-Takers

Fireflies AI

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

4.4/5

Fireflies AI is an AI meeting assistant that records conversations, generates transcripts and summaries, and helps teams collaborate through meeting insights, analytics, and integrations.

Full Fireflies AI review Visit Fireflies AI

Best budget-friendly

Quick verdict

• Best for Teams users who:

Want a budget-friendly AI note taker with reliable transcription, collaboration features, and broad platform support.

• Skip it if:

You need the highest transcription accuracy or a feature-rich free plan.

• What stood out in Teams meetings:

The balance between transcription quality, collaboration features, integrations, and pricing.

• Main limitation:

The free plan is more limited than some competing AI note takers.

Who Fireflies AI is best for

Who Fireflies AI is not ideal for

Fireflies AI highlights

Fireflies AI drawbacks

Testing Fireflies AI for Microsoft Teams meetings

My experience with Fireflies AI in Microsoft Teams meetings was consistently solid. While it wasn’t the most advanced tool I tested, it offered a strong combination of transcription quality, collaboration features, and affordability.

Fireflies automatically joined my MS Teams meetings, recorded the conversations, and generated transcripts and meeting summaries afterward. While the transcription accuracy wasn’t quite on the same level as some of the best-performing tools I tested, it was consistently reliable.

The meeting summaries were another highlight. Fireflies organized discussions into key points, action items, and timestamps. I also liked that meeting notes could be edited and shared with other team members in just a few clicks.

I also spent some time using Fireflies’ collaboration and analytics features. Team members can comment on transcripts, leave reactions, and collaborate on meeting notes, while conversation intelligence provides insights such as speaker talk time and meeting sentiment.

Another feature I found useful was Fireflies’ AI assistant, Fred. It allowed me to ask questions about meetings and quickly find specific information. I also liked the Soundbites feature, which makes it possible to create and share short clips from longer conversations.

Overall, Fireflies AI delivered a dependable MS Teams experience with reliable transcription, strong collaboration tools, useful meeting analytics, and affordable pricing. While it may not lead the market in any single category, it offers one of the best overall value propositions among the AI note takers I tested.

Cost breakdown

• Free plan: Includes unlimited storage and transcription for shared bot meetings, but advanced features and file transcription limits make it better suited for occasional use.
• Pro plan ($10/user/month with annual billing): Includes unlimited transcription minutes, meeting recaps, AI assistant access, and advanced search capabilities.
• Business plan ($19/user/month with annual billing): Adds conversation intelligence, meeting analytics, team insights, and advanced collaboration features.
• Enterprise plan ($39/user/month with annual billing): Includes dedicated onboarding, enhanced support, and enterprise-grade administration capabilities.

Read my full review: Fireflies AI Review: Why is EVERYONE using it for meeting notes?

Microsoft Copilot

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

4.3/5

Microsoft Copilot is Microsoft’s built-in AI assistant that helps Teams users generate meeting summaries, identify action items, answer questions about discussions, and catch up on missed meetings.

Visit Microsoft Copilot

Best built-in option

Quick verdict

• Best for Teams users who:

Already use Microsoft 365 and want AI meeting assistance built directly into Teams.

• Skip it if:

You want a budget-friendly AI note taker or don’t work primarily inside the Microsoft ecosystem.

• What stood out in Teams meetings:

Native Teams integration and the ability to ask questions about meetings during and after calls.

• Main limitation:

Full functionality requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot license on top of an eligible Microsoft 365 subscription.

Who Microsoft Copilot is best for

Who Microsoft Copilot is not ideal for

Microsoft Copilot highlights

Microsoft Copilot drawbacks

Testing Microsoft Copilot for Teams meetings

Since Microsoft Copilot is built directly into Microsoft Teams, I could access AI features from the same place where I was already joining meetings, checking chats, and reviewing recaps. This created a more seamless experience than using a third-party tool.

One of the most useful features was the ability to ask Copilot questions about a meeting. During and after meetings, I could ask for a summary of what had been discussed, key decisions that had been made, or action items that were assigned.

After meetings ended, Copilot generated structured recaps that highlighted discussion points, decisions, and follow-up tasks. I also liked how it highlighted action items and follow-up tasks mentioned during conversations and surfaced them alongside the meeting recap.

One of Microsoft Copilot’s biggest advantages is its deep integration with Microsoft 365. Teams that already rely on Microsoft tools will likely get the most value from it.

While it doesn’t offer some of the dedicated meeting management features found in specialized AI note takers, its native Teams integration, meeting recaps, action item tracking, and conversational AI capabilities make it a compelling choice for Microsoft 365 users.

Cost breakdown

• Free plan: Included with eligible Microsoft 365 subscriptions, and offers secure AI chat.
• Microsoft 365 Copilot Business ($18/user/month with annual billing):Includes Copilot in Teams, Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft 365 apps.
• Microsoft 365 Copilot ($30/user/month): Enterprise-focused plan for larger organizations that want Copilot across Microsoft 365.
• Enterprise deployments: Additional security, compliance, governance, and administration capabilities are available depending on your Microsoft 365 licensing setup and organization size.

Granola

Rating: 4 out of 5.

3.6/5

Granola is a lightweight, bot-free AI note taker that transcribes meetings, generates AI notes, and turns your own meeting notes into structured summaries.

Full Granola review Visit Granola

Best for simplicity

Quick verdict

• Best for Teams users who:

Want a simple, distraction-free AI note taker without meeting bots.

• Skip it if:

You need meeting recordings, advanced collaboration features, or deeper meeting analytics.

• What stood out in Teams meetings:

The clean interface and the ability to combine personal notes with AI-generated summaries.

• Main limitation:

Doesn’t offer meeting recording capabilities.

Who Granola is best for

Who Granola is not ideal for

Granola highlights

Granola drawbacks

Testing Granola for Microsoft Teams meetings

The first thing I noticed right away while testing Granola was how little there was to learn. Instead of trying to be an all-in-one meeting assistant, it focuses on a simpler experience centered around transcription and AI notes.

After installing the desktop app, Granola transcribes meetings without requiring a bot to join the call. The transcripts were accurate, and real-time transcription was useful for following discussions as they happened.

The feature that impressed me most was Granola’s note-taking workflow. It combines your own notes with the meeting transcript to create structured AI summaries. I often take quick notes during meetings, and Granola did a surprisingly good job turning them into structured summaries afterward.

I also tested Ask Granola, the platform’s AI assistant. It helped me find information from meetings, identify action items, and draft follow-ups. The responses were fast and generally relevant to the questions I asked.

Another feature I liked was the template system. Granola includes templates for different meeting types and allows you to customize them by adding or removing sections.

The biggest limitation I encountered was the lack of recording functionality. Unlike many competing AI note takers, Granola doesn’t provide meeting recordings or support audio and video uploads. Depending on your workflow, that may be a dealbreaker.

Overall, Granola delivered a simple and distraction-free Microsoft Teams experience.

Cost breakdown

• Free plan: Includes AI meeting notes, Ask Granola, shared folders, custom note templates, and multi-language support. Meeting history is limited, but the free plan is generous enough to thoroughly test the platform.
• Business plan ($14/user/month): Includes unlimited meeting history and notes, advanced AI models, integrations, and consolidated billing.
• Enterprise plan ($35/user/month): Adds SSO, enterprise-grade security, priority support, usage analytics, and advanced administrative controls.

Read my full review: Granola Review 2026: Why It Won’t Work for Everyone

Bottom line

MS Teams has improved its own meeting capabilities over the years, but for many teams, built-in recaps still aren’t enough. Dedicated AI note takers can provide more detailed summaries, stronger search capabilities, better collaboration features, and clearer follow-ups after meetings.

The good news is that there’s now an MS Teams AI note taker for almost every workflow, team, and budget.

I hope this list helped you narrow down your options and find a tool that fits the way you work. Wishing you more productive Microsoft Teams meetings!

Why you can trust our reviews

At thebusinessdive.com, our team tests, reviews, and compares hundreds of productivity apps every year — from project management tools to note-taking apps. We dive deep into real-world use cases to help you find the right tools that actually improve your workflow, not just add noise.

Our mission? No fluff, no shortcuts—just honest, hands-on insights from productivity pros.

Discover how we stay transparent, read our review methodology, and let us know about any tools we missed.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best AI note taker for Microsoft Teams?

The best AI note taker for Microsoft Teams depends on your workflow. Some tools focus on automatic meeting notes and AI-generated summaries, while others offer advanced follow-ups, meeting insights, noise cancellation, or collaboration features.

If you regularly participate in Microsoft Teams meetings, a dedicated AI note-taking app can save time by capturing conversations and organizing key information automatically.

Can an AI note taker replace manual note taking in Teams meetings?

In many cases, yes. Modern AI note takers can generate meeting transcripts, summarize key points, identify action items, and create structured notes automatically.

While some users still prefer to add manual notes during important discussions, AI-generated notes can significantly reduce the amount of manual note taking required after meetings.

Do Microsoft Teams AI note takers work with Google Meet and other platforms?

Many AI note-taking apps support more than just Microsoft Teams. Depending on the tool, you may also be able to use it with Google Meet, Zoom, Webex, and other virtual meetings platforms. This can be useful for teams that collaborate with external clients or use multiple meeting tools.

Can AI note takers help with follow-up meetings and future meetings?

Yes. Most AI note takers generate meeting summaries, action items, and follow-ups that can be shared with team members after a meeting ends. Some tools also maintain meeting history, making it easier to review past meetings, prepare for upcoming meetings, and keep track of decisions across multiple discussions.

What features should I look for in a Microsoft Teams AI note taker?

The most important features depend on your needs, but common options include real-time transcription, AI-generated summaries, meeting highlights, meeting transcripts, cross-meeting search, meeting audio capture, and integrations with your Teams calendar.

Customer success teams, revenue teams, and other organizations that spend a lot of time in meetings may also benefit from analytics, conversation insights, and automatic meeting recaps.

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.

Jovana Simić

Hey! I’m Jovana, a content writer who loves writing, researching, and testing new productivity apps. With a background in philosophy, I bring a thoughtful but no-bullshit approach to everything I do. Let’s connect on Linkedin!

The post 6 AI Note-Takers I’d Use for Microsoft Teams Meetings After Real Meetings appeared first on .

After testing 20+ AI note-taking apps, I found Fellow to be the best overall Fireflies AI alternative thanks to its structured meeting notes, collaboration features, and complete meeting workflow.

However, I also tested several other Fireflies AI alternatives that may be a better fit depending on your budget, team size, and meeting workflow.

Let’s dive in!

Quick Answer: Which Fireflies AI Alternative Should You Choose?

How We Test AI Note-Takers

Our scoring breakdown after testing 20+ AI note-takers:

While the overall review scores influenced the rankings in this article, we also considered specific use cases, workflows, and standout strengths to recommend the best AI note-takers for different needs and teams.

Want a detailed breakdown of how we test each category?

Learn exactly how we test tools → Review methodology

How These Fireflies AI Alternatives Compare

My Experience Testing These Fireflies AI Alternatives

Fellow

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

4.5/5

Fellow is an AI-powered meeting assistant designed to help before, during, and after meetings. It is an ideal alternative for teams, leaders, and professionals who need not just transcription, but a secure, comprehensive meeting assistant.

Full Fellow review Visit Fellow

Best for teams

MY TAKE AFTER TESTING

• Better than Fireflies AI for:

Teams that need stronger meeting collaboration and productivity workflows

• Not ideal for:

Users who only need a budget-friendly meeting transcription tool

• What stood out most:

Meeting agendas, action items, privacy controls, and highly accurate transcripts

• Biggest tradeoff:

The free plan is limited for regular use

When to consider Fellow to replace Fireflies AI

When another alternative may work better

My real-world experience with Fellow

When comparing Fellow to Fireflies AI, I found that Fellow has more accurate transcription & more structured meeting notes. While Fireflies AI is a well-balanced AI note-taker, it lacks some advanced role and permission controls, which are important for teams.

In addition, Fellow is full of features to make all stages of the meeting more efficient. For example, it allows you to prepare a meeting agenda before meetings, or you can use Ask Fellow to create follow-up emails in seconds.

All things considered, Fellow is a more complete meeting management platform than Fireflies AI, making it a practical choice for teams.

Where Fellow Excels

Where Fellow Falls Short

Use this link to sign up and get 10% off the paid plans if you upgrade.

Fellow Feature Breakdown

Fellow’s pricing

• Free plan: Available
• Solo plan: $19/month per user
• Team plan: $7/month per user
• Business plan: $15/month per user
• Enterprise plan: $25/month per user

Read my full Fellow Review: My Thoughts After +12 Months (2026)

Use this link to sign up and get 10% off the paid plans if you upgrade.

Fathom

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

4.4/5

Fathom suits users who need the essential features for free and a simple AI note-taker.  It supports 38 languages and captures calls on Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Google Meet.

Full Fathom review Visit Fathom

Best free Fireflies AI alternative

MY TAKE AFTER TESTING

• Better than Fireflies AI for:

Users who want a generous free AI note-taker

• Not ideal for:

Teams needing advanced meeting workflows and collaboration features

• What stood out most:

Unlimited free recordings, simple setup, and accurate meeting notes

• Biggest tradeoff:

Lacks some advanced meeting analytics and workflow features

When to consider Fathom to replace Fireflies AI

When another alternative may work better

My real-world experience with Fathom

Fathom is an easy-to-use AI note-taker that works on Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. It has an outstanding free plan and supports 38 languages.

In terms of features, Fathom might not have the most extensive feature set, but they have all the essential tools you need to improve your online meetings’ efficiency.

I appreciated how it works during meetings. That said, there is a small widget up there that shows Fathom is recording and transcribing your call. You can quickly pause or stop the recording.

In addition, you can capture what the speaker is saying with clips. You can manually end the highlight or turn on the auto-end after the current speaker. Furthermore, you can add a marker or an action item to the current moment of the call.

Compared to other AI note-takers, Fathom’s free plan is outstanding thanks to unlimited recordings, transcriptions, and summaries, making it ideal for personal use.

If you want to try out Fathom, use this link to get FREE 3 months of premium features without extra cost. This way, you can have 3X more time to test Fathom’s advanced features and decide whether to upgrade or stay with the free plan.

Where Fathom Excels

Where Fathom Falls Short

Fathom Feature Breakdown

Fathom’s pricing

• Free plan: Available
• Premium plan: $16/month per user
• Team plan: $14/month per user
• Business plan: $20/month per user

Read my full review: My Honest Fathom Review After Using It For +3 Months (2026)

If you want to try out Fathom, use this link to get FREE 3 months of premium features without extra cost. This way, you can have 3X more time to test Fathom’s advanced features and decide whether to upgrade or stay with the free plan.

StudyX

Unlike other AI note-taking apps, StudyX was not designed for professionals, but for students. If you are a student and need an AI note-taking app, one of the best alternatives I tried is StudyX.

Visit StudyX

Best alternative for students

MY TAKE AFTER TESTING

• Better than Fireflies AI for:

Students who need AI notes for studying

• Not ideal for:

Professionals, teams, or anyone who needs a traditional AI note-taker for calls instead of a study tool

• What stood out most:

AI-powered study notes and learning-focused features

• Biggest tradeoff:

Not built around professional meeting workflows

When to consider StudyX to replace Fireflies AI

When another alternative may work better

My real-world experience with StudyX

StudyX is an easy-to-use tool packed with useful features for students. Although I am no longer a student, I could use it to learn some topics faster when I did not want to watch through a YouTube video.

Overall, I think StudyX is an ideal Fireflies AI alternative for students who do not need business meeting management features but want to turn lectures, recordings, and learning materials into useful notes.

Where StudyX Excels