If you have ever been in a lecture where you had to take notes, you know how annoying it can be.
It’s just challenging trying to capture everything said while writing it down in a way that makes sense.
That’s where Otter.ai can be a huge help. It’s a great AI tool that makes meetings more productive and allows you to automate a significant part of your day.
In this Otter.ai review, I’ll:
- explore features,
- weigh its pros and cons,
- and show how to use Otter.ai to elevate your online conversations.
Let’s get to it.
Otter.ai Review: What is it?
Otter.ai is an AI assistant that can help you with real-time automated transcription and meeting management. You can use it to create notes, transcriptions, and summaries during meetings, discussions, and other conversations.
The key feature of Otter.ai is its AI Meeting Assistant, which transcribes meetings in real-time. This involves recording audio, capturing slides with AI, extracting action items, and generating meeting summaries.
Who is Otter.ai for?
It’s a great fit for:
- Students and Teachers: You can use Otter for note-taking and transcribing lectures. It transforms academic discussions into organized, accessible text.
- Businesses: Business teams can use Otter for more streamlined meeting management and documentation.
- Sales Teams: OtterPilot for Sales offers features like automatically extracting sales insights, writing follow-up emails, and integrating with CRM tools.
- Media Professionals: Otter can also help media teams with precise transcriptions for interviews.
The best part? It integrates with popular meeting platforms like Google Meet, Teams, and Zoom. Plus, there’s a mobile app for both Android and iOS.
All of this lets Otter turn long meetings into organized, accessible info that you can actually use.
How to Start With Otter.ai?
So, how do you start with Otter? The process is very simple.
First, you need to create an account on the Otter website. You can try out the free version, which works with the three most popular meeting platforms: Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Zoom.
Next, you will be asked which platforms you use and whether you want to share your notes.
Once you click continue, Otter will automatically connect your calendar with their tool. This step is crucial because it gives Otter access to all your meeting history.
Now, you can review your meetings and choose which ones you want Otter to attend.
How to Use Otter.ai? Best Features
Otter.ai aims to improve the productivity of your meetings in multiple ways. Let’s talk about its core features in more detail.
Creating Automated Notes
One of the most important tools that Otter offers is real-time note-taking. This way, you can concentrate on the discussion without worrying about taking notes.
By connecting Otter.ai to your calendar, it joins and records your Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet sessions. This feature is incredibly handy, especially when you’re juggling multiple meetings or classes.
Adding Otter to your meetings is very easy. You only need to click one button, and the AI bot will join your meetings to listen and create summaries.
Otter can also be of great help in virtual classes by capturing lecture slides and integrating them into your notes.
This means you get the full context, and it’s easier to remember the details later.
Plus, Otter is customizable, so you can highlight, comment, and add images to your notes, making searching for past notes much quicker.
After each lecture, Otter can automatically summarize it for you. This is a game-changer for students, as it helps you focus on key moments without sifting through the entire transcript.
Creating Transcriptions
But if you want to get the entire transcript – you have this option as well.
Otter.ai offers a transcribing feature that accurately captures every word spoken during your meetings. This means that you can get a complete, word-for-word record of your session.
Here is an example of what transcribed conversations may look like. I had to make a few adjustments, but the transcript looked very solid.
It can be more helpful if you want to get the full picture of what was discussed instead of just taking notes.
The best part is that you can revisit the transcript whenever you need to, so you don’t miss any important points discussed during your meeting. You will also have access to speaker names and timestamps.
If you’re more of a visual learner and love watching YouTube videos, Otter.ai can transcribe any YouTube video for you. All you have to do is play your video and hit record in Otter.
This makes browsing your meeting transcripts very simple and ensures you get everything from your meetings.
Collaboration Features
You can easily collaborate on your notes with Otter.ai, using features like highlighting, commenting, and inserting images.
All your highlighted notes appear in the takeaways panel, allowing you to tag your friends and ask questions without disrupting the discussion.
Sharing your notes with others is also very easy – you just need to click one button.
That means Otter.ai does more than take meeting notes. It also helps you edit them and remember every detail by collaborating with your colleagues.
Otter.ai Pricing
Otter provides four different pricing plans. There is also a free trial option available:
- Basic: This plan is free and allows you to try Otter. It offers 300 monthly transcription minutes and lets you create records and transcriptions.
- Pro: This plan costs $10 per user per month, giving you more advanced features like increased transcription minutes or advanced search.
- Business: This plan costs $20 per user/month and includes additional admin features and a higher number of transcription minutes.
- Enterprise: This option offers advanced options that are specifically designed for teams and organizations.
Otter.ai Pros and Cons
Here’s what I enjoyed the most about Otter.ai:
- Otter automatically joins meetings and provides real-time summaries and notes for faster learning.
- This tool eliminates the need to write everything down, allowing me to focus on the conversation.
- There are many integrations with popular meeting tools, like Google Meet or Teams.
- Otter simplifies collaboration on generated notes with others.
Here is what I think could be added to make it even better:
- Currently, Otter only supports English and regional accents. I think that expanding to more languages would make it accessible to a wider audience.
Otter.ai Alternatives
Otter can be a huge help in your everyday tasks, but it’s not the only AI meeting assistant available. Let’s take a look at alternatives.
Fireflies.ai
Fireflies is an AI-powered note-taking tool that can be extremely useful for searching, transcribing, and recording your conversations.
With Fireflies, you can share and search for summaries of meetings, making the process much faster. You can also identify action items, tasks, questions, and actionable bullet points.
Fireflies provides a mobile app and a Chrome extension. It also integrates with apps like Google Docs or Zapier.
Here are the main features of Fireflies:
- Fireflies can automatically join your meetings and provide you with summaries, making it easier to focus on the conversation without worrying about note-taking.
- You can quickly review your meetings and identify tasks that need to be completed, allowing you to stay on top of your workload.
- You can use voice commands, for example, to schedule the next call.
- Fireflies has a mobile application, which means you can access your recordings on the go.
Meetjamie
Jamie is an AI meeting assistant that can help you create meeting summaries or notes in your language.
Jamie also provides you with a ChatGPT-like interface to review your previous meetings and get valuable insights.
You can also find all the important information, like past meeting summaries and upcoming events, on your jamie dashboard. It’s an easy way to get a good overview of your notes.
Here are the main features of jamie:
- Concise summaries: Jamie offers high-quality auto-generated notes and summaries of your meetings. It can also recognize different speakers.
- Native application: Jamie is a native app, and it works across all meeting tools, including offline meetings.
- Ask jamie anything: This feature allows you to ask about past meetings and receive relevant answers.
Tl;dv
Tl;dv is an easy-to-use AI-powered meeting assistant that can automatically record and transcribe conversations in Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams calls in over 30 languages.
It’s designed to help you stay focused on your conversation by instantly summarizing the topic.
You can also record your meetings and easily create clips from longer calls with just a few clicks. This makes it a great option for those who want to have a visual aspect of their meetings.
Here are the main features of tl;dv:
- AI-Powered Transcription: tl;dv provides automated, precise AI transcription services in more than 25 languages, making it an excellent choice for multilingual meetings.
- Clips: Creating timestamped notes can make referencing and sharing specific meeting segments easier.
- Generous free plan: The tl;dv free plan offers unlimited recordings without any cost.
I have written about some more Otter.ai alternatives here.
FAQs
Is Otter.ai Free?
You can use the basic plan for free. This plan includes the AI meeting assistant feature, which records, transcribes, captures slides, and generates summaries in real time. You can also upload and transcribe 3 video or audio files.
However, there is a limit of 300 monthly transcription minutes and 30 minutes per conversation. If you need more than that, you may want to consider upgrading to a paid subscription.
What Languages Does Otter.ai Support?
At the moment, Otter only has language support for English (U.S. and U.K.) and regional accents.
Are AI Meeting Assistants Worth It?
If you’re always stuck in meetings and feel like you’re missing out on important details, AI meeting assistants can be a huge help.
They generate notes, summaries, and tasks for you so you can focus on the discussion. That means you don’t have to worry about missing anything important anymore.
Conclusion: My Take on Otter.ai
It’s amazing how much time and energy AI note-taking tools like Otter.ai can save you.
Especially if you’re a student, they can help you get more organized and productive by automating the note-taking process.
But Otter can be used everywhere, from online classes to business meetings. If you’re interested in trying it out for yourself, click the button below to get started.
Now that you know how to use Otter.ai, you can take your productivity to the next level.
