The Best Free AI Note Takers in 2026 (Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and In-Person)

For a free transcript you can keep, start with Fathom if a bot may join the call. Start with Granola if it may not. Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams each have a free caption or transcript control, and those controls are not the same as a notetaker with a summary and a library. Otter’s free plan is real and tight. tl;dv’s free plan records without a tight recording cap and limits the AI notes.

Notetaker prices and caps were taken from vendor pages on October 16, 2026. Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams help pages were read October 24, 2026. We did not score transcription accuracy. Tell people before you record. This is not legal advice.

Free options by meeting type

Meeting	Best free keep-and-search option	Built-in free option	Hard cap to know
Zoom	Fathom Free, unlimited recordings and transcripts	In-meeting Transcript, save as .TXT, if the control is enabled. Cloud transcripts need a paid Zoom plan	A bot joins on Fathom
Google Meet	Fathom, tl;dv, or Otter, same products	Live captions for all users. Saved Meet transcripts need a paid Workspace edition	Captions are not a saved transcript
Microsoft Teams	The same three notetakers	Live captions on Teams Free, visible to you during the call	A saved Teams transcript is not the free-caption feature
In person	Otter’s app, or Granola on a phone or laptop in the room	Your own notes	Otter Free: 300 minutes/month and 30 minutes per conversation
You refuse every bot	Granola Basic	Local Zoom recording, then upload	Granola Free keeps 30 days of history

Figure (capture diagram, not a product screenshot). Alt: Three rooms. Zoom, Meet, and Teams can each host a bot from Fathom, Otter, or tl;dv. Granola sits outside the participant list and uses computer audio. Built-in captions sit on the screen and, except for Zoom’s save-transcript control, are not the archive. In-person audio uses the phone or laptop, not the meeting bot.

Paid seat math for Otter, Fireflies, Fathom, and Granola is in best AI meeting notetakers. The Zoom-only steps are in how to transcribe a Zoom meeting for free.

Fathom Free: the widest published free library

Fathom joins Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams. The free plan includes unlimited recordings, transcripts, instant summaries, clips, and search. Premium is $16/month billed annually ($20 monthly) and adds advanced summaries and action items. You can take the transcript and the instant summary without Premium.

This is the default free notetaker when the other people in the meeting will tolerate a bot and you want more than one call stored. It is a poor default for a confidential client who has banned bots, and for a company that requires an enterprise agreement you have not signed. Fathom is part of Superhuman. The meeting product and Grammarly are not one subscription. Grammarly’s own price is discussed in is Grammarly Pro worth it.

Otter Free: fine for short calls, wrong for workshops

Otter Basic is 300 transcription minutes per user per month and 30 minutes per conversation. Pro is $8.33/user/month billed annually ($16.99 monthly) with 1,200 minutes and 90 minutes per conversation. Business is the unlimited-meetings tier, at $19.99/user/month annual in the October 16 price list.

Otter’s agent can join Zoom, Meet, or Teams, or record in person from the app. Use the free plan for standups and short interviews. A class, a sales call over half an hour, or a workshop will hit the per-conversation wall even if you have minutes left in the month. Five hours is the whole monthly pool.

tl;dv Free: unlimited recordings, limited AI

tl;dv’s free plan, in our October 16 check, includes unlimited recordings and transcription, 10 AI-note meetings, and 10 Ask AI queries. The upgrade price on the page we saw was shown in a local currency rather than a confirmed USD list price, so it is not quoted here. Open the pricing page and read the USD column before you compare it with Fathom Premium.

Use tl;dv Free when you need the words for many meetings and you will only ask the AI to summarize a few of them. Use Fathom Free when you want the summary on every call without counting toward a note cap.

Granola Basic: no bot, 30 days

Granola does not join as a participant. It transcribes computer audio while you type, then rewrites your notes with the transcript. Basic is free, with AI notes, chat, 30 days of history, and Slack. Business is $14/user/month for unlimited history. Apps exist for iPhone, Android, and Apple Watch, which is why it is the in-person option that does not depend on a conference-room bot.

Thirty days is the trade. If you need last quarter’s decision, Basic will not be the archive. Export anything you must keep, or pay for Business. Notes are private by default in Granola’s pitch. The microphone is still on. Say so.

What Zoom, Meet, and Teams give you at $0

Zoom. Computer recording is included on the free Basic plan, on desktop, and it does not transcribe. Cloud audio transcription requires Pro or above. The separate Meeting transcript control (More, then Transcript, then Save transcript) writes a .TXT file, and the help article does not list a paid plan in its requirements. Admins can hide it. The walkthrough is how to transcribe a Zoom meeting for free.

Google Meet. Live captions run during the meeting for the person who turns them on. Saved Transcripts are documented for Workspace Individual, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Starter, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade. A free Gmail host is outside that edition list, so the Transcribe control is a paid-Workspace feature. Scrolling caption history is still captions. The file Meet saves to Drive is the Transcripts feature.

Teams. Microsoft’s support page for Teams Free documents live captions during the call, visible when you turn them on, processed by Microsoft speech services. That page does not describe a downloadable transcript library. If you need the file afterward, use Fathom, Otter, tl;dv, or Granola, within the caps above. Microsoft Copilot meeting features inside Teams sit on Microsoft 365 plans, not on the free caption switch. Copilot’s consumer plans start at $9.99/month for Personal. They are a different purchase, mapped in which AI subscription is worth paying for.

Read AI and Fireflies, so the free caps are not a surprise

Read AI Free includes 5 meeting transcripts a month and unlimited search. Pro is $15/user/month billed annually. Use it when five meetings is your month and you also want search across other Read surfaces. It is the wrong “unlimited” pick. Fathom is the one that uses that word for recordings.

Fireflies has a free plan and lists Pro at $10/user/month annual. The knowledge-base page we used did not state the free minute cap. Treat Fireflies Free as “confirm the cap on the pricing page,” not as an unlimited pool.

Fit on the free tier only

	Fathom Free	Otter Basic	tl;dv Free	Granola Basic	Built-in captions
Zoom, Meet, and Teams	Strong, with a bot	Strong, with a bot, until the minute cap	Strong for the recording	Strong, no bot, via computer audio	Partial. Captions or a Zoom text save
In person	No, unless the room is on a call	Strong, via the app, 30-minute conversations	Not the in-room product	Strong, phone or laptop	No
Summary on every call	Strong	Partial, inside the caps	Limited to 10 AI-note meetings	Strong, for 30 days	No
Searchable history	Strong	Partial	Partial	30 days	No
No extra participant	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Dollar price to remove the cap that hurts	Premium $16/month annual	Pro $8.33/user/month annual	See the USD price on the vendor page	Business $14/user/month	A paid Zoom or Workspace plan, which buys a different feature

How to pick in one meeting

1. If a bot is allowed and you want notes every time, install Fathom and run one real call.
2. If a bot is not allowed, run Granola on that same kind of call, or save Zoom’s .TXT if you only need the words.
3. If the calls are short and you already like Otter, stay on Basic until a 30-minute wall costs you a meeting.
4. Add a second tool only when the first one failed a rule (bot, history, or language), not because the second homepage looked generous.

After the notes exist, copying action items into a CRM or a task list is optional automation. The comparison is Zapier vs Make vs n8n.

FAQ

What is the best free AI notetaker for Zoom?

Fathom Free, if a bot can join: unlimited recordings, transcripts, and instant summaries. If a bot cannot join, save Zoom’s meeting transcript when the control is there, or record locally and use Granola or an upload to Otter within Otter’s 30-minute conversation cap.

Does Google Meet transcribe for free?

Live captions are the free feature, and they are for the person who turns them on. Google’s saved Transcripts feature is documented on paid Workspace editions, not on free Gmail. A notetaker such as Fathom or tl;dv is the free path to a file you keep.

What about in-person meetings?

Otter’s app records in the room and counts against 300 minutes and 30 minutes per conversation on the free plan. Granola runs on a phone or computer in the room without adding a bot, and the free plan keeps 30 days of history. Say that you are recording either way.

Last verified

October 24, 2026 for Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams help pages. October 16, 2026 for Fathom, Otter, tl;dv, Granola, Read AI, and Fireflies caps and prices. tl;dv’s paid USD price was not confirmed. Recheck free-tier minute caps before you roll a tool out to a team. Vendors change them without renaming the plan.

Sources: Fathom pricing, Otter pricing, Granola pricing, Read AI pricing, Google Meet live captions, Google Meet transcripts, Live captions in Microsoft Teams Free, Zoom meeting transcripts.

More tools are in the meetings and transcription directory. Directory pages may use affiliate links. A purchase through them may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you.