Leave the meeting notes to AI

If you’ve ever asked that question— or been asked that question— you might want to check out AI notetakers. These new tools utilize artificial intelligence to automatically capture meeting notes and action items, freeing you up to focus on the discussion.

Let’s take a look at two popular AI notetakers - Fireflies and Plaud - and explore how they can benefit your business. We are not affiliated with either of these tools— this is just our take on another use for AI in the workplace.

What are AI Notetakers?

AI notetakers are software applications that use speech recognition and natural language processing to transcribe meetings in real-time. They can capture not just the spoken words, but context, action items, and decisions made during the discussion— and they can do this (alarmingly?) well.

Two leading AI notetakers

Fireflies

Fireflies uses AI to record, transcribe, and summarize meetings. It can automatically identify action items, highlight key decisions, and even generate meeting summaries. Fireflies integrates with popular productivity tools like Salesforce, Asana, and Trello to help you seamlessly track and follow up on action items. Fireflies does offer a “free forever” version for individuals, which allows you to record up to 800 minutes and annotate Zoom, Meet, Teams meetings, and more.

Plaud

Plaud is an AI assistant that joins your meetings to record, transcribe, and take notes. It can identify speakers, extract action items and decisions, and provide a detailed meeting summary. Plaud also offers features like real-time sentiment analysis to gauge how participants are feeling throughout the discussion. Plaud’s free version includes up to 300 monthly minutes. The company is also piloting a wearable which will operate as virtual/AI assistant.

How Do They Work?

Both Fireflies and Plaud leverage advanced speech recognition and natural language processing models to transform audio recordings into structured, searchable meeting notes. Here's a quick overview of how they work.

1. Audio Capture

The AI notetaker app connects to your video conferencing or phone call and begins recording the audio.

2. Speech Recognition

The app transcribes the spoken words using AI-powered speech recognition.

3. Natural Language Processing

The transcription is then analyzed to identify key details like action items, decisions, and important topics discussed.

4. Structuring and Summarization

The raw transcript is organized into a clean, easy-to-navigate meeting summary, often with highlights, action items, and other contextual information.

5. Integration and Collaboration

The meeting notes are automatically synced to your preferred productivity apps and shared with attendees.

Pros and Cons of AI Notetakers

Like any technology, AI notetakers have their advantages and disadvantages. Let's take a look at the key pros and cons.

Pros

Time Savings: Eliminate the need to manually take notes, allowing you to be fully present in meetings.

• Accuracy: AI-generated notes are typically more accurate and comprehensive than human notes. 
• Organization: Meeting summaries are neatly structured and easily searchable.
• Collaboration: Notes are automatically shared with attendees, keeping everyone on the same page.

Cons

• Privacy Concerns: Some users may be uncomfortable with having their meetings recorded and transcribed by AI.
• Contextual Limitations: AI can struggle to fully capture the nuance and emotion of a discussion.
• Reliance on Technology: If the AI notetaker fails or there are technical issues, you lose the meeting notes.
  

Conclusion

Tools that can save you time and improve productivity are invaluable. AI notetakers like Fireflies and Plaud offer a compelling solution, automatically capturing meeting insights so you can focus on more strategic priorities.

Here at NOC, we love to try new technology, and yes, of course— we have tested AI notetakers.

And the verdict is? We love using Fireflies in our meetings. While we still jot down some of our own essential personal notes, we really appreciate the way Fireflies pulls out the action items from our leadership meetings to help us remember what we said we were going to tackle. It’s also great for when a team member misses a meeting. We just pass along the notes, saving them time while catching them up to speed. (Bonus! It's fun to mess with the teammate who didn't make it. Just make sure to call out a crazy idea or action item for them and it will land in the official meeting notes.)