Best AI Note-Takers 2026

Picking a meeting note-taker used to come down to price and integrations. In 2026, the real dividing line is language support. Some tools still work in a handful of languages. Others quietly cover more than a hundred. That gap matters a lot if your team isn’t purely English-speaking.

Here’s a short, practical rundown of five popular options: Otter, Fireflies, Google Meet’s built-in Gemini notes, Granola, and Atlassian’s meeting notes feature inside Loom and Confluence.

Quick summary

Otter covers just six languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese Simplified) — no Farsi/Persian support.

Fireflies transcribes 100+ languages and can even auto-detect several languages spoken in the same call.

Google Meet’s “Take notes for me” works in 8 languages and needs a paid Workspace or Google AI plan.

Granola supports around 10-17 languages depending on platform (desktop vs. mobile).

Atlassian’s Loom transcribes 50+ languages, but the AI-written recap itself is currently English only.

Otter: solid for English teams, thin everywhere else

Otter built its name on fast, accurate English transcription, and it’s still good at that. But its language list is short. As of its latest documentation, Otter transcribes English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Chinese (Simplified). That’s it, one language at a time, no mixing languages in a single meeting.

So if your team speaks Farsi (Persian), Arabic, Hindi, or most other languages, Otter simply won’t transcribe the call correctly. Beyond transcription, Otter offers automated summaries, speaker labels, and integrations with Zoom, Google Meet, and Slack. It’s a reasonable pick for a mostly English or Western-European office, less so for a global one.

👉 Try Otter.ai

Fireflies: the widest language coverage of the group

Fireflies is the clear leader here. It transcribes and summarizes meetings in over 100 languages, including regional variants, and offers three English accent options (US, UK, Australian). Set a default language, or let Fireflies auto-detect what’s being spoken.

There’s also a Multi-Language Mode that covers 60+ languages within a single conversation, useful if people switch languages mid-call. Fireflies joins Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams as a visible bot, records the call, and produces a transcript, summary, and action items afterward, with a generous free tier.

👉 Try Fireflies.ai

Google Meet (Gemini): built in, but language-limited

Google’s “Take notes for me” lives right inside Meet and writes notes straight into a Google Doc, with real-time summaries and toggles for Decisions, Next steps, and Details. Convenient if you already live in Workspace.

The catch: it only supports 8 languages (English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish), one at a time, and it requires a paid Google Workspace edition or a Google AI Pro/Ultra plan. It also only works on live Meet calls; you can’t upload a past recording for it to process.

Granola: great for solo operators, narrower language list

Granola takes a different approach. It runs locally on your computer and doesn’t join meetings as a visible bot, building notes from a mix of AI transcription and whatever you typed yourself. People like this because it feels less robotic in client calls.

On desktop, Granola currently supports around ten languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese, Russian, and Hindi. The iOS and Android apps add a few more, like Mandarin, Korean, Polish, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese. Worth checking Granola’s own docs before you rely on it for a non-English meeting, since coverage still varies by platform.

Atlassian (Loom + Confluence): transcription is broad, but AI notes lag behind

Atlassian’s note-taking lives inside Loom, paired with Confluence’s Meeting Insights Reporter agent for search and recap. Loom’s raw transcription supports 50+ languages, which sounds competitive. But the AI-generated summary, titles, and action items are currently English only, with Atlassian saying more languages are planned.

That means non-English teams can get a transcript, just not yet an AI summary in their own language. It’s worth it mainly if you’re already deep in the Atlassian ecosystem (Jira, Confluence, Loom), since the meeting notes plug directly into that workflow, including auto-created Jira tickets from action items.

👉 Try Atlassian’s AI meeting notes (Loom)

Price comparison

Pricing changes often, and most vendors bill per user per month on annual terms (monthly billing usually costs more). Here’s roughly where things stand:

Tool	Free plan	Entry paid tier	Mid tier	Top tier
Otter	Yes, limited minutes	Pro: ~$8–17/user/mo	Business: ~$20–30/user/mo	Enterprise: custom
Fireflies	Yes, 800 min storage	Pro: ~$10–18/user/mo	Business: ~$19–29/user/mo	Enterprise: ~$39/user/mo
Google Meet (Gemini notes)	No standalone free tier*	Workspace Business Standard: ~$14–18/user/mo	Business Plus: ~$22–28/user/mo	Google AI Pro/Ultra: ~$20+/mo (individual)
Granola	Yes, capped history	Business: ~$14/user/mo	—	Enterprise: ~$35/user/mo
Atlassian (Loom + Confluence)	Yes, Starter (25 videos)	Business: ~$18/user/mo	Business + AI: ~$24/user/mo	Enterprise: custom

*Google’s “Take notes for me” needs a paid Workspace edition or a Google AI Pro/Ultra subscription; there’s no free way to use it.

Fireflies and Otter are the closest apples-to-apples comparison, since both are dedicated meeting bots with similar tier structures. Granola and Loom price per feature bundle rather than pure note-taking, so compare what’s actually included, not just the sticker price. Always check the vendor’s own pricing page before buying, since these numbers shift throughout the year.

Which one should you use?

If language coverage is your priority, Fireflies is hard to beat right now. If you’re fully inside Google Workspace or Atlassian already, their built-in options save you an extra subscription, just check the language list first. Otter and Granola both work fine for smaller, mostly English or Western-European teams.

I personally use Fireflies for my own meetings, and I’m not being paid to say so. This post isn’t sponsored; it’s just what’s worked for me and what I found comparing the options.

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