An AI meeting-notes tool isn't really about whether it can record — it's about who does the write-up work after the meeting. Before choosing, answer two questions: how many meetings do you have per week, and are the notes for yourself or to send out and track action items? Different answers, different tools.
Sort yourself first: three groups, three different needs
One or two meetings a week: record occasionally, transcribe, get a summary of the key points — the free tier is enough, just open the web or app version when needed. Living in meetings all day: manual recording and uploading will eventually slip, so the key is calendar integration, automatic joining and full transcription, with minutes archived automatically and searchable across meetings. Organizers who send out minutes and track tasks: a transcript alone isn't enough — whether action items can be auto-extracted, assigned, and pushed into a task system is what matters.
Four tools compared: transcription, summaries, and action items in one table
| Tool | Best for | Transcription | Summaries & action items | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feishu Minutes | People whose company runs on Feishu | Real-time in-meeting transcription, Chinese/English/Japanese | Visual summaries, one-click action items into Feishu Tasks and the knowledge base | Included with Feishu |
| Tongyi Tingwu | Individuals with light, occasional needs | Real-time recording on web or app, plus audio upload; Chinese/Japanese/English/Cantonese, speaker ID by voiceprint | Chapter overviews, full summaries, action-item lists | Free |
| Otter | Remote teams working in English | OtterPilot auto-joins Zoom, Meet, and Teams from your calendar | Auto summaries, action-item extraction, cross-meeting search | Free plan: 300 min/month, 30 min per session |
| Notion AI | People whose notes already live in Notion | No standalone recording; import text first | Summarize, extract action items, and search right inside your notes | Included with Notion subscription |
Who should skip each one
Feishu Minutes: skip it if your company doesn't use Feishu — its task flow, knowledge-base archiving, and cross-meeting Q&A all live inside the Feishu ecosystem; on its own it's just another transcription app. Tongyi Tingwu: skip if you expect auto-join — you have to start recording or upload audio manually; no calendar-linked auto-join. Otter: skip for all-Chinese meetings — its Chinese transcription lags local tools, and the free plan's 30-minute per-session cap won't fit long meetings. Notion AI: skip if you want "record while the meeting runs" — it can't record or transcribe live audio; it's a processing layer for text notes, and you have to import the transcript yourself.
Three pitfalls before you commit
First, free tiers have double caps: check both the monthly total and the per-session limit — a 90-minute review meeting can get cut off mid-recording. Second, know where your data goes: for confidential meetings, prefer the office suite your company already pays for; don't upload client calls to a personal free account. Third, transcription isn't 100% accurate: spend two minutes checking key decisions and numbers against the recording.
Q: Can these tools handle offline meetings or audio from a voice recorder?
A: Yes. Tongyi Tingwu accepts uploaded audio files; Otter also imports recordings, but the free plan allows only 3 lifetime imports; Feishu Minutes is built for live recording inside Feishu meetings — check upload support for offline audio first.
Q: Can action items sync automatically to my task app?
A: It depends on the ecosystem. Feishu Minutes turns action items into Feishu Tasks with assignees in one click; Otter syncs with some CRMs and task tools; Tongyi Tingwu and Notion AI mostly generate action-item lists, so moving them to an external system means copy-paste or an API.
Your meeting frequency decides how much "automation" is worth paying for; where the notes end up decides whether a tool is worth it — choose in that order and you won't go wrong.
