Blog
Notes on private, on-device AI. How local transcription actually works, and how to tell real privacy from a privacy policy.
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How to record a Teams meeting, and what to do when you're a guest
How to record a Teams meeting, checked 13 November 2026: who can press Record, where it saves, how to download it, when it expires, and options for guests.
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How to record a Zoom meeting, including when you're not the host
How to record a Zoom meeting, checked 12 November 2026: computer vs cloud recording, how a participant gets permission, where files save, and options without it.
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How to record Google Meet: who can, where it saves, and what works on a free account
How to record Google Meet, checked 11 November 2026: which plans have the record button, who can use it, where files go, and how to record on a free account.
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Webex transcription: how to get a transcript, with or without recording
Webex transcription in 2026: the three ways Webex makes a transcript, who can download each one, why the option goes missing, and what works when it does.
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Is Krisp safe? What stays on your computer and what goes to Krisp's cloud
Is Krisp safe? The noise filter runs on your device and Krisp says no audio leaves it. With the note taker on, transcripts, summaries and recordings sit in Krisp's cloud on AWS. What Krisp publishes, its March 2026 incident, and how to decide.
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Does Zoom have an AI note taker? My Notes, AI Companion, and the privacy catch
Yes: Zoom My Notes (and Meeting Summary, still often called AI Companion) can transcribe and summarise Zoom, third-party, and in-person meetings. Basic gets a few uses a month; paid Workplace and standalone My Notes include unlimited. Notes live in Zoom's cloud. What each feature needs, and when an on-device app fits better.
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Fathom vs Fireflies (2026): which is cheaper, and what each does with your calls
Fathom vs Fireflies, checked 5 November 2026: Fireflies is cheaper for one person and on Business, Fathom on Enterprise and for a HIPAA BAA. Free plans and bots compared.
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Google Meet transcription: which plans have it, and how to transcribe without recording
Google Meet transcription, checked 3 November 2026: which plans include it, where the transcript is saved, and how to get one without recording.
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Fathom vs Otter (2026): which is cheaper, and what each does with your calls
Fathom vs Otter, checked 2 November 2026: Fathom's free plan has no minute cap, Otter Pro is the cheaper paid seat. Bots, bot-free recording and AI training compared.
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Read AI pricing (2026): is Read AI free, and what Pro and Enterprise cost
Read AI pricing, checked 30 October 2026: Free is $0 for 5 meetings a month, Pro is $19.75 a user a month or $15 billed annually, Enterprise is $29.75 or $22.50, and Enterprise+ is $39.75 or $29.75 with a 5-license minimum. The trial, upload credits, EDU plans and refunds explained.
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Otter vs Fireflies (2026): which one to pay for, and what each does with your calls
Otter vs Fireflies, checked 29 October 2026: Otter Pro is cheaper for one person, Fireflies Business for a team. Free plans, bots, AI training and lawsuits compared.
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Fireflies.ai pricing (2026): is Fireflies free, and what Pro and Business cost
Fireflies pricing, checked 27 October 2026: Free is $0 with 400 minutes of storage, Pro is $18 per seat a month or $10 billed annually, Business is $29 or $19, and Enterprise is $39 a seat on annual billing only. What the free plan really includes, how AI credits work, and the trial and refund rules.
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Krisp pricing (2026): is Krisp still free, and what Core and Advanced cost
Krisp pricing, checked 26 October 2026: there is no free plan now, only a 7-day trial with no card. Core is $16 per user a month or $8 billed annually, Advanced is $30 or $15, and Enterprise is by quote. What each plan adds and what happens when the trial ends.
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Granola pricing (2026): what the free plan limits are and what Business and Enterprise cost
Granola pricing, checked 23 October 2026: Basic is free with 30 days of note history, Business is $14 per user a month billed monthly, and Enterprise is $35 per user a month. What each plan adds, what a team pays, and the student and nonprofit offers.
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Otter.ai pricing (2026): what the free plan limits are and what Pro and Business cost
Otter.ai pricing, checked 22 October 2026: Basic is free with 300 minutes a month and a 30-minute cap per conversation. Pro is $16.99 a month or $8.33 billed annually, Business is $30 or $19.99 per user, and Enterprise is by quote.
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Fathom pricing (2026): what the free plan includes and what each paid plan costs
Fathom's pricing page, checked 5 November 2026: a free plan for individuals, Premium at $20 a month, Team at $19 and Business at $34 per user with a 2-user minimum, and Enterprise at $35 per user billed annually. What each tier adds and what a 5-person team pays.
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Avoma review (2026): meeting intelligence for revenue teams
Avoma records, transcribes, and writes CRM-ready notes for sales teams, with a bot or without one. A sourced look at recorder-seat pricing, the coaching add-ons, and why it is not a local notetaker.
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Fellow review (2026): meeting agendas, with an AI note taker on top
Fellow is a meeting workspace: agendas, notes, and an AI note taker that can join as a bot or record from the desktop app. A sourced look at the free plan, Team pricing, and what stays in Fellow's cloud.
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Jamie review (2026): bot-free meeting notes, processed in the EU
Jamie records on your computer without a bot, transcribes in the EU, and deletes the audio. A sourced review of that privacy design, the pricing-page mismatch, and how it differs from on-device notes.
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Krisp review (2026): noise cancellation, plus a note taker on the same plan
Krisp is still a noise cancellation app, and the paid plans now include bot-free meeting notes stored in Krisp. A sourced look at Core pricing, on-device English transcription, and when a local notetaker fits instead.
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Fathom AI review (2026): the free plan is real, and the recordings live on Fathom
Fathom's free plan for individuals includes unlimited recordings and transcription, with a bot in the call and storage on Fathom's servers. A sourced review of the price, the BAA, and when a local app fits better.
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Fireflies.ai review (2026): the team system, and what the bot costs you
Fireflies.ai is a team meeting system: Fred joins the call, recordings live in Fireflies' cloud, and transcripts can sync to a CRM. A sourced review of the security posture, the Enterprise HIPAA gate, and who should skip it.
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Granola AI review (2026): what it's great at, and where privacy stops
Granola AI captures meetings on your Mac with no bot, and it still sends audio to cloud AI. Transcripts and notes live in Granola's cloud. A sourced review of who it's for, and who should look at an on-device app.
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Mac Note Taker review (2026): local Mac meeting notes, if you bring the model
Mac Note Taker records mic and system audio on Apple Silicon, transcribes on the Mac, and writes summaries through Ollama or your own API key. $149 once for up to three Macs. A sourced review, including where it is Mac-only.
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MacWhisper review (2026): excellent local transcripts, and a separate step for notes
MacWhisper runs Whisper on your Mac, records calls without a bot, and sells Pro as a one-time purchase. AI summaries are optional and often use your own cloud API key. A review of when it is the right tool.
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Meetily review (2026): the open-source notetaker, and the setup it still asks for
Meetily's Community Edition is free and MIT-licensed, with local transcription on Mac and Windows. Summaries stay on the device only if you point them at a local model. A sourced review of when open source is the right requirement.
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Meeting-Rec review (2026): a Mac App Store capture app that keeps the tape
Meeting-Rec records audio and video on a Mac, transcribes with on-device WhisperKit, and writes notes with a built-in local model. Free tier plus a $69 lifetime Pro. A sourced review of what the Mac-only app actually covers.
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Otter.ai review (2026): what it's great at, and where your meetings go
Otter.ai still sets the expectation for AI meeting notes: a live transcript, a visible bot, and search across the team. Meetings are processed and stored on Otter's servers. Who that suits, and who should skip it.
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Pandecho review (2026): a local Mac and Windows notetaker, priced once or at $10 a month
Pandecho transcribes and summarizes on your computer, with no meeting bot, on macOS and Windows. Lifetime licences start at $79 for one device, or $10 a month. A sourced review of a real local peer, including where it differs from Private Notetaker.
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MimicScribe review (2026): free on-device transcripts, cloud summaries by default
MimicScribe records and transcribes on an Apple Silicon Mac for free. Default summaries send transcript text, not audio, to Google Gemini. You can point AI at a local model instead. A sourced review of the plans and the privacy toggle.
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Read AI review (2026): the meeting report, and the assistant in the room
Read AI joins the meeting, writes a transcript and summary, and stores the meeting in your Read account. HIPAA is listed on Enterprise+ only. A sourced review of the bot, the pricing, and the local alternative.
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AI note takers for recruiters: candidate calls without a bot
Screening calls are the most sensitive routine meetings in a company: a candidate's current employer, salary, health, and reasons for leaving, said to a stranger. What an AI notetaker needs to do for recruiters, why a bot is the wrong shape for that call, and what the ATS-native, bot, and local options each cost you.
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AI note takers that don't record: transcribing vs recording, and why it matters
People searching for a note taker that doesn't record usually mean one of three things: no audio file kept, no bot in the call, or nothing leaving the device. Each is a different property, most tools have one and not the others, and none of them lowers the consent bar. Here is how to tell which one you need.
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AI note takers without a subscription: what one-time pricing actually costs
Almost every AI notetaker is a monthly seat. A handful sell a licence outright. What the one-time options are, what free tiers really cost you, and the maths on when buying beats renting.
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The best AI note takers for in-person meetings (and what a laptop mic can't do)
Across a table there is no call for a bot to join, so the choice is a laptop app, a dedicated recorder like Plaud, or a phone app like Otter. Which captures better audio, which keeps the conversation in the room, what each costs, and the honest limits of a laptop microphone.
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Does Google Meet have an AI note taker? Gemini notes, tiers, and the alternative
Yes: 'Take notes for me', powered by Gemini, writes a summary into a Google Doc. It only works if the organiser's Workspace edition includes it, it tells every participant, and it runs on Google's servers. What it needs, what the free account gets, and what to do in a meeting you didn't organise.
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Does Microsoft Teams have an AI note taker? What Copilot actually needs
Yes, in three layers: live transcription, Intelligent recap, and Copilot. Each has a different price and a different licence, all of them run in Microsoft's cloud, and all of them belong to the organiser's tenant. What each layer costs, what it needs, and what to do when the meeting isn't yours.
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Granola AI vs Fathom: bot-free and free are different promises
Fathom's free plan records unlimited meetings with a bot in the call. Granola captures on your device with no bot and stores transcripts but not audio. Both process your meetings in the cloud. A sourced comparison of what each actually does, and who each is for.
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Granola AI vs Fireflies: personal notes or a team system
Fireflies sends Fred into the call, stores the recording, and pipes everything into a CRM. Granola captures on your device, keeps no audio, and writes notes for one person. Both process in the cloud. A sourced comparison, and where each one stops.
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Granola AI vs Otter: the difference is architecture, not features
Otter sends a bot and stores your recordings. Granola AI captures on your device and stores transcripts but not audio. Both process in the cloud. A sourced comparison of what each one actually does with your meetings.
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HIPAA and AI note takers: what compliance actually requires
There is no government HIPAA certification, SOC 2 is not HIPAA, and most notetakers gate their BAA behind an enterprise plan. What a practitioner actually needs, and why local processing changes the question rather than answering it.
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Is Fireflies.ai safe? The security posture, and the tier that catches people out
Fireflies holds SOC 2 Type II, does not train on your data, and enforces zero-day retention with its vendors. HIPAA coverage is Enterprise only, which is the detail that catches out solo practitioners.
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MacWhisper alternatives: when you need meeting notes, not a transcript
MacWhisper is excellent at local transcription and is Mac only, and its AI summaries call cloud providers with your own API keys. What to use instead depending on which of those three things is your problem.
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Open source, self-hosted, or local-only: three things people mean by private
Meetily, Anarlog and Whisper get recommended interchangeably to anyone asking for a private AI notetaker. They solve different problems. What each term actually guarantees, and which one you need.
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How to stop Otter, Read AI and Fireflies bots from joining your meetings
The bot is in your meeting because a calendar, a browser extension or a colleague's account invited it. The exact steps to remove Otter Notetaker, Read and Fred from a live call, stop them auto-joining, cut the calendar access at the source, and what Zoom admins can and cannot block.
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How to transcribe a Teams meeting without recording it
Teams can transcribe a meeting with no recording at all, and Microsoft documents exactly how. It also notifies everyone, stores the file in the organiser's OneDrive, and only works if you have the right plan and role. Here is that route, and the one that works when it doesn't.
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Which AI notetakers are HIPAA compliant, and on which plan
Otter, Fireflies, Fathom and Granola all say they are HIPAA compliant. Three put the BAA on Enterprise only, and Fathom now offers one from its Team plan. What each vendor's own pages say, what the plan below Enterprise gets you, and why a local tool sits outside the question.
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How to transcribe a Zoom meeting without recording it
Zoom has two transcript features that people mix up. One needs a cloud recording. The other runs live in the meeting and saves a file to your computer, but only if you are the host on a paid plan and an admin has enabled it. Here is the difference, and what to do when neither applies.
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AI note takers that don't join your meeting: how they work
Bot-free notetakers capture audio from your device instead of dialling into the call. That solves the awkwardness, and it is a separate question from whether your audio still goes to the cloud. Here is how each approach actually works.
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Is Granola AI safe? What local-first actually covers
Granola AI is bot-free and does not store your meeting audio, which puts it ahead of most cloud notetakers. Your audio still goes to Deepgram, AssemblyAI, OpenAI and Anthropic to be processed. Here is the sourced version.
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Is Otter.ai safe? What actually happens to your recordings
Otter holds SOC 2 Type 2 and encrypts everything, and it is also defending a federal wiretap case over how its notetaker joins meetings. Here is what Otter publishes, what the litigation alleges, and how to decide.
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Two-party consent states, and what the lists get wrong
Most articles give you a clean list of two-party consent states. The clean list is the problem: counts range from 11 to 12, Michigan has a participant exception, and Oregon and Connecticut split by conversation type. Here is the honest version.
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Local AI transcription on a Mac: what actually runs on your machine
How on-device transcription works on a Mac, what the models cost you in disk and battery, and how to check whether a tool that claims to be local really is.