Here Are 3 Free AI Assistants to Make Your Team Meetings Easier
Meetings may already seem to take up a lot of your time but fear no. There are some incredibly useful AI tools available that can improve the effectiveness of meetings. These apps can take notes for you, record your meetings, capture every word spoken and even summarize lengthy conversations into bite-sized chunks. What's the best thing? Many of them are completely free of charge!
Otter.ai: Best transcriptions
For automated meeting note-taking, Otter.ai is a great option, especially with its AI-powered OtterPilot features that will be available in 2023. It is known for transcribing documents quickly and accurately, yet it has trouble with short audio files. For now, it's now only available in English. Like many other AI meeting assistants, Otter.ai's OtterPilot bot can join, record, and transcribe meetings on its own even if you're not there.
It works with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, and there's a Chrome extension to make things easier. Up to 300 minutes can be recorded and transcribed each month with the free plan, which is adequate for sporadic meetings but not as extensive as other services that provide unlimited transcriptions. One other restriction is that during the duration of your account, you are only allowed to upload three audio files for transcription; this cap is not reset every month. On the other hand, the transcription quality is superb. For most freelancers, the free plan should be plenty to get started. For only $10 per month, the Pro plan provides up to 1200 transcription minutes, should you require more.
Fireflies.ai : Free AI summaries
Fireflies.ai is a terrific option for endless transcriptions and excellent AI summaries. Its auto-generated meeting notes and action items are part of the free plan. Similar to Otter, Fireflies.ai supports Webex, Skype, GoToMeeting, Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and more. It also works flawlessly with these platforms. As many audio files as you need can be uploaded.
Fireflies.ai processes your meeting, creates notes and action items, adds timestamps, and divides it into chapters. The standard summary is free, but there are fees for other services such as the ChatGPT AI chatbot. For better outcomes, you might choose to use ChatGPT's most recent versions.
Although there are limitations, such as the free plan only offering the default summary, the quality of transcriptions is excellent. Fireflies.ai supports over 60 languages though each meeting can only be in one language, with a potential drop in quality for non-English transcriptions. With a generous free plan, Fireflies.ai is ideal for freelancers, but note that "unlimited" transcriptions start getting deleted after surpassing the 800-minute storage cap. For more features, plans start at just $10 a month.
Fathom AI: The most user-friendly
Among AI meeting note apps, Fathom is known for having an intuitive user experience. The desktop application must be downloaded for setup, but it is easy to use. The software invites you to invite Fathom's AI bot to meetings. Highlighting important details is simple. After that, Fathom quickly produces AI-generated notes and transcripts that are prioritized by color. Numerous languages, including French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, and German, are supported by Fathom. Nevertheless, the functionality is limited to Zoom, Google Meet, and MS Teams meetings; the ability to upload audio files is absent. However, unlimited transcriptions and recordings are available for free accounts.
Zapier integration is one of the advanced capabilities available in paid plans, which start at $12 per month. The free plan is sufficient for hassle-free meeting notes for independent contractors.