Otter.ai Review

Otter is the meeting transcription service from Otter.ai, a company founded in 2016 that launched its free app in 2018. It records in person or joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet calls on its own, produces a live transcript split by speaker, captures the slides, and ends with a summary and action items. Otter AI Chat answers questions about what was said, and the OtterPilot agent will sit in on meetings you cannot attend.

Reviewers rank it among the best tools for meetings for its convenience: connect your calendar once and it simply works, on the web, iOS and Android. The free Basic plan allows 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation and three lifetime file imports. Pro costs 8.33 dollars a month billed yearly or 16.99 monthly; Business is 19.99 per user. Accuracy is good rather than flawless, so check quotes against the recording.

The larger worry is consent. Recording calls automatically clashes with all party consent laws, which led the University of Massachusetts to ban it, and a 2025 federal class action in California alleges that Otter recorded people without permission to train its models. It writes no code, hence the lowest grade on that axis. For anyone buried in meetings it saves real hours; just make sure everyone knows it is there.