Best AI for meeting notes
You have a recording of a call and you want what came out of it - who said what, what was decided, who owes what by when - without an assistant quietly adding things. We recorded a short call with a known script, gave it to nine assistants and three meeting apps, and checked every line.
People also look for this as meeting minutes, zoom notes, call summaries or meeting transcription.
Our picks, side by side
Rated for this task · 0–3
Measured
Quality
Effort
Cost
Free tier
From
Why
★ Best overall
Perplexity
$20/mo · free tier: usableMeasured4 of 6 phrases · 5 of 5 decisions · 6 of 6 actions · 10 of 10 numbers · 0 invented
Quality
Effort
Cost
Free tierUnlimited basic searches with a weekly cap on Pro-model searches
From$20/mo
Why
The only tool that did the whole brief from the audio and got it right. A near-verbatim transcript with the three speakers split correctly, every decision, all six action items with the right owner and the right date, all ten numbers, and nothing that was not said - in about a minute, on the free plan. Two catches - it heard "Gin Gin" for Ginjinha and "Aleria Baira" for the supplier, and it lists more than it should - four things that were not decisions and two that were not assignments. Read it as a superset and cross out. It labels the speakers A, B and C and only names Rui and Marta in the owner column; that is fair, since the host's name is never said.
Best if you want notes without asking
Fireflies
$18/mo · free tier: usableMeasured3 of 6 phrases · 5 of 5 decisions as bullets · 2 of 6 actions owned · 8 of 10 numbers
Quality
Effort
Cost
Free tier800 minutes of storage, limited uploads, no downloads
From$18/mo
Why
You upload the recording and two minutes later there are notes, with no brief to write - a timestamped outline with every number and every date right, a transcript, and a talk-time chart. What it does not do is say who owns what - eight action items, two assigned to Marta because she was named, six "Unassigned" - or call a decision a decision. It refused our m4a and took the mp3, and the free plan will not let you download anything. Good for the record; you write the assignments.
Best transcript, if you'll fix the speakers yourself
Descript
$12/mo · free tier: usableMeasured5 of 6 phrases · 5 of 5 decisions · 4 of 6 actions owned right · 10 of 10 numbers
Quality
Effort
Cost
Free tier1 hour of transcription a month, watermarked video export
From$12/mo
Why
The cleanest transcript of the twelve - "Ginjinha", "pastel de nata" and the spelled-out supplier name all right, one miss in the whole call - and none of it attributed to anyone, because Descript leaves speakers to you. Its assistant, Underlord, took the brief, said plainly that it was guessing who spoke, marked every guess, and still gave two of the host's jobs to Rui. Every decision and every number right, nothing invented. Use it when the words matter and you were in the room.
Evidence
4 of 6 planted phrases; 3 speakers, labelled Unknown Speaker A/B/C; decisions 5 of 5 (plus 4 extras); action items 6 of 6 with owner and date (plus 2 extras); numbers 10 of 10; 0 invented; ~1 min.
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All 12 tools we tested
Rated for this task only · 0–3| Tool | Quality | Effort | Cost | Free tier | Measured | From |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PerplexityFree: Unlimited basic searches with a weekly cap on Pro-model searches | 4 of 6 phrases · 5 of 5 decisions · 6 of 6 actions · 10 of 10 numbers · 0 invented | $20/mo | ||||
| ChatGPTFree: Unlimited text chat on the default model, with limits on uploads, images, voice and deep research | took the file · no speech-to-text · honest refusal in 23 s | $8/mo | ||||
| ClaudeFree: Chat with web search and file uploads, with a usage cap per five-hour session | took the file · cannot listen · honest refusal | $20/mo | ||||
| GeminiFree: The default model with usage limits, plus Gemini inside Maps, Gmail and Docs on a free Google account | 0 of 6 phrases · 0 of 10 numbers · a different meeting, invented whole | $19.99/mo | ||||
| Microsoft CopilotFree: The Copilot app on web, Windows and mobile with usage limits | cannot take audio · file type not supported | $19.99/mo | ||||
| DeepSeekFree: The full chat app with web search and file uploads; there is no paid consumer tier | cannot take audio · no audio type in its upload | Free | ||||
| GrokFree: Chat with web and X search within generous limits, no card required | 5 of 6 phrases · 5 of 6 actions · cut off before the numbers · 7 s | $30/mo | ||||
| QwenFree: The full chat app; there is no paid consumer tier | never attached the file · four tries | Free | ||||
| KimiFree: Unlimited basic chat, file upload and web access on the free plan | took the file · awaiting processing for 20 min · never sent | $19/mo | ||||
| OtterFree: 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation | 2 of 6 phrases · 5 of 5 decisions · 6 of 6 actions dated, owners in prose · 2 soft inventions | $16.99/mo | ||||
| FirefliesFree: 800 minutes of storage, limited uploads, no downloads | 3 of 6 phrases · 5 of 5 decisions as bullets · 2 of 6 actions owned · 8 of 10 numbers | $18/mo | ||||
| DescriptFree: 1 hour of transcription a month, watermarked video export | 5 of 6 phrases · 5 of 5 decisions · 4 of 6 actions owned right · 10 of 10 numbers | $12/mo |
How we tested
One recording - a three-and-a-half-minute planning call for a fictional Lisbon shop, three speakers read by the Mac's own voices from a script we wrote - so every word, every number and every decision has a known right answer. The script plants six traps a sloppy transcript will miss - a supplier's name spelled out letter by letter, a number corrected mid-sentence, a price proposed and rejected, two Portuguese words, a question answered "just duplicated in the file". The host is never named; Rui and Marta are.
The same message to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Grok, Qwen and Kimi with the file attached, asking for a labelled transcript, a summary, every decision, every action item with owner and due date, every number, and nothing added. The recording went into Otter, Fireflies and Descript through their apps, and their own notes were scored; Descript's assistant got the brief, since it is a chat. A tool that cannot take audio was not given the transcript as text - turning the recording into notes is the job.
Four could not take the file at all - Copilot and DeepSeek accept documents and code only, Qwen's composer never attached it, Kimi held it at "awaiting processing" for twenty minutes. ChatGPT and Claude took it and said honestly that they cannot hear audio. Gemini took it and returned a confident transcript, summary, decisions and action items for a meeting that is not on the recording - a $45,000 marketing budget, a website launch, people called Sarah and Mark. Perplexity returned the whole brief right. Grok got most of it right in seven seconds and stopped mid-list. Otter and Fireflies produced good notes on their own with the owners missing; Descript produced the best transcript with no speakers on it.
The test was run by, or under the direction of, the one person who runs this site, with AI assistance, and every output and fact-check was reviewed by them. The surrounding text was drafted with AI assistance from our own ratings and evidence, then checked and edited by the same person. If something here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it and say so.
Questions people ask
Which AI is best for turning a recording into meeting notes?
Perplexity, on this test - transcript, decisions, action items with owners and dates, every number, nothing invented, from the audio, in a minute. Otter and Fireflies get you notes without writing a prompt, and both got the facts and dates right, but neither says who owns an action unless the name was spoken next to it. Descript writes the cleanest transcript and leaves the speakers to you.
Can ChatGPT or Claude transcribe a meeting recording?
Not on the free web apps we tested. Both took the file and said, in as many words, that they have no way to hear it - ChatGPT even ran a check for speech-recognition packages first. Both offered to make notes from a transcript you paste in, which is a fair offer and a different job.
Will any of them make things up?
Gemini did, completely - it returned a full transcript of a different meeting, with names, budgets and dates, and every section of the brief filled in. Nothing else invented a fact; Otter softened two ("approximately 120 orders", "low regional engagement"), and Perplexity, Grok and Descript listed things as decisions or actions that were not. Read the transcript before you trust the notes.
Do the meeting apps beat the chatbots?
Not this time. Their transcripts were worse than Perplexity's and Descript's - "Jinjinha", "1490", "pastel di nada" - and their action lists lacked the one thing you most want, the owner. What they have that a chatbot does not is the workflow - they join calls, keep every recording, and make notes without being asked.