Digiotouch AI Team
7 Oct 2026
Can NotebookLM (now Gemini Notebook) take meeting notes?
Meeting Productivity
SUMMARY SNIPPET
- Yes: Otter, Fireflies, Granola, Notta and Digiotouch AI all run permanent free plans, but each one caps something different, from minutes per conversation to note history, export and storage.
- The assistants most people try first are not free for meeting notes: ChatGPT Record, Gemini's "Take notes for me" and Microsoft Teams recording all need a paid plan or licence.
- Before you rely on a free plan, check four things: the per-meeting cap, how long notes stay visible, whether you can export them, and whether your meetings are used to train AI.
- The Digiotouch AI Free plan includes summaries, action items, video and PDF and Word export, keeps EU users' data in the EU and never trains AI on your meetings, while the full transcript starts at the Essential plan.
Table of Contents
Yes: Otter, Fireflies, Granola, Notta and Digiotouch AI all run permanent free plans, but each one caps something different, from minutes per conversation to note history, export and storage. The assistants most people try first are not free for meeting notes: ChatGPT Record, Gemini's "Take notes for me" and Microsoft Teams recording all need a paid plan or licence. Before you rely on a free plan, check four things: the per-meeting cap, how long notes stay visible, whether you can export them, and whether your meetings are used to train AI. The Digiotouch AI Free plan includes summaries, action items, video and PDF and Word export, keeps EU users' data in the EU and never trains AI on your meetings, while the full transcript starts at the Essential plan.
Marta runs operations at a twelve-person design studio in Tallinn and wanted AI meeting notes without adding another subscription. The first free note taker she tried stopped transcribing half an hour into the weekly planning meeting, and the notes it did produce could not be exported for the client. The second one kept her notes, but only the last month of them stayed visible. She is happy to pay later; first she wants to know which free plan will hold up long enough to decide.
Why is it hard to tell what a free AI note taker includes?
Demand is not the problem. In a Digiotouch AI survey of 43 professionals, 69.8% said they would use a secure AI tool that writes their meeting notes (Digiotouch AI, 2024). The difficulty is that "free" means something different at every vendor, and the limits that matter often sit in help articles and policies rather than on the plan card. One vendor's pricing page advertises unlimited transcription on its free plan, while its help center adds that this applies only when automatic meeting joining is switched on.
Two offers also share the word: a free plan stays free and caps what you can do, while a free trial unlocks a paid plan for a set period and often asks for a card up front. And the meeting tools many teams already pay for gate their AI notes behind specific licences: Google's Take notes for me depends on the meeting organiser's Workspace edition, and Microsoft's intelligent recap needs Teams Premium or a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence.
What do free AI note takers actually include?
Volume is where most free plans stop you first, and the per-meeting cap matters more than the monthly total. Otter's free Basic plan includes 300 transcription minutes a month but stops each conversation at 30 minutes, so an hour-long meeting is only half transcribed. Notta's free plan includes 120 minutes a month with a cap of 3 minutes per conversation. Fireflies records meetings of up to 2 hours on its free plan and transcribes without a monthly limit when auto-join is switched on, but storage is capped at 400 minutes in total, pooled across the team, until you delete older meetings.
History and export come next. Granola's free Basic plan states no meeting cap, but only notes from the last 30 days stay visible, and older notes stay locked until you upgrade. Otter's Basic plan keeps your 25 most recent conversations and does not export to PDF or Word. Fireflies does not allow downloads or exports on its free plan, and video recording starts on its paid Pro plan.
How Digiotouch AI handles this: The Digiotouch AI Free plan gives you a summary and action items for every meeting, records video as well as audio, exports to PDF and Word, and imports existing recordings. Sessions run up to 4 hours on every plan, and Free works in the desktop, mobile and web apps. Minutes, storage, assistant questions and workflows are capped; current allowances are on the pricing page.
Do free AI note takers use your meetings to train AI?
Some do, and the setting is rarely on the plan card. Otter's privacy policy lists training its AI on de-identified audio recordings and transcriptions, on the basis of consent or legitimate interests, and describes the right to object under users' rights. Granola's help center says it may use anonymised data to improve its models by default; on the free Basic plan and the paid Business plan, each user has to switch this off in their own settings, and only Enterprise workspaces are opted out by default.
Neither practice is hidden, but both sit in policy pages rather than the sign-up flow. If you plan to record client calls, read the training section before the first recording.
How Digiotouch AI handles this: Digiotouch AI does not train AI models on customer meeting content, on any plan, including Free. EU users' data is stored in the EU from the Free plan, at no extra cost.
Are ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot free for meeting notes?
No. This is the assumption many people start with, and it takes the longest to discover on your own.
- ChatGPT: Record is available on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu workspaces, and only in the macOS desktop app. OpenAI's newer Meetings plugin, now in beta, is limited to Pro and Business on macOS. Neither is on the free plan.
- Gemini in Google Meet: Take notes for me needs an eligible Google Workspace edition (Business Standard or Plus, Enterprise Standard or Plus, Frontline Plus) or a Google AI Pro or Ultra plan, and it depends on the meeting organiser's plan. Free Google accounts and Starter editions are not eligible.
- Microsoft Teams and Copilot: in a work account, both the organiser and the person recording need a Microsoft 365 licence, and guests cannot record. Intelligent recap needs Teams Premium or a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence. Teams Free records only with a Microsoft 365 Personal, Family or Premium subscription, those recordings expire after 30 days, and there is no AI recap.
If you already pay for the right licence, these tools may be all you need. If you assumed they were free, check the licence first.
How Digiotouch AI handles this: The Digiotouch AI Free plan is not tied to one meeting platform or office suite. The desktop app records the screen and audio of whichever meeting app you use, the mobile app records in-person meetings, and the web app records a browser tab, with no payment details needed to start.
Where do free AI note takers fall short?
Every free plan in this category has a ceiling, and ours does too. It is more useful to say where it sits than to let you find it halfway through a project.
The main limit of the Digiotouch AI Free plan is that it does not include the full transcript. You get the summary, the action items and the meeting assistant, but the verbatim, speaker-separated transcript starts at the Essential plan. On Free, the assistant answers from the summary and action items rather than the transcript, so questions about exact wording need a paid plan.
Three more capabilities are paid only: using what is shown on screen, such as slides and shared documents, as a source for the summary; live captions and live translation during the meeting, which start at Essential in the desktop app; and the Outcomes & Open Items section, which starts at Professional. Allowances for recording minutes, storage and assistant questions are also higher on paid plans. Across the category, the useful question is not which tool is free, but which limit you will reach first.
How Digiotouch AI handles this: Digiotouch AI shows usage meters for recording minutes, storage, workflows and integrations on every plan, including Free, so you can see how close you are to a limit before you reach it.
How do you start using a free AI note taker?
Setup is short on most tools in this category. With Digiotouch AI it runs like this:
- Create a free account. The Free plan needs no payment details.
- Pick the app that matches how you meet. The desktop app for Windows and Mac records your screen and meeting audio, the mobile app records in-person meetings on your phone, and the web app records a browser tab.
- Record the meeting. Sessions run up to 4 hours on every plan. In person, ask participants to say their names at the start so the notes label speakers correctly.
- Review before you share. Every section of the meeting page is editable, so correct a speaker label or sharpen an action item before the notes go anywhere.
- Share or export. Send a share link to colleagues who use Digiotouch AI, export a PDF or Word file for people outside, or push the notes to a connected tool through your workflow.
The step people skip is the fourth: an AI summary is a draft, and two minutes of correction is what makes it worth sending.
How Digiotouch AI handles this: On the mobile app, the audio stays on the phone while you record, so a dropped Wi-Fi or mobile connection does not lose the meeting; the recording uploads once you are back online.
Free plan or paid: what each need requires
The table maps common needs to whether a free plan usually covers them, and where the Digiotouch AI Free plan sits. Where our free plan is not enough, it says so.
| What you need | Is a free plan usually enough? | Digiotouch AI Free plan |
|---|---|---|
| A summary and action items after each meeting | Usually yes | Included for every meeting |
| Full-length meetings, not cut off midway | Check the per-conversation cap | Sessions up to 4 hours |
| Video of the meeting, not only audio | Often a paid feature | Included |
| Notes you can export and send on | Often a paid feature | PDF and Word export included |
| Meetings in Estonian, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian or Danish | Depends heavily on the tool | Supported, among 130+ languages |
| Data kept in the EU and out of AI training | Check the privacy policy | EU data residency for EU users; no training on any plan |
| Slides and shared screens used in the summary | Usually a paid feature | Not on Free; paid plans only |
| The verbatim transcript | Not on ours | Starts at the Essential plan |
| A high monthly meeting volume | Rarely | Capped on Free; higher allowances on paid plans |
How we compared: Digiotouch AI is the vendor of one of the tools referenced here. Competitor details were checked against each vendor's own pricing, help and policy pages on 19 October 2026, and Digiotouch AI details against its FAQ and pricing page on the same day. Plans in this category change often, so check the vendor before you commit. Corrections: notes@digiotouch.ai.
Key takeaways
- Free plans are real: several AI note takers offer free plans that do not expire.
- The per-meeting cap matters most: a monthly allowance means little if each meeting stops at 30 minutes.
- Check history, export and training: these limits sit in help pages and policies, not on the plan card.
- The big assistants are not free for notes: ChatGPT, Gemini and Teams each need a paid plan or licence.
- Our free plan has one clear ceiling: the full Digiotouch AI transcript starts at the Essential plan.
Next step
The quickest way to judge a free plan is to run a real meeting through it. Record one meeting of an hour or more, then check whether it was captured in full, whether you can export the notes, and what the summary missed.
Related reading
- Can ChatGPT take meeting notes?: how Record works and where it stops.
- Does Gemini do meeting notes?: which Workspace plans include Take notes for me.
- Where do your meeting recordings and AI notes actually go?: storage and retention, tool by tool.
Citation index
- Digiotouch AI (2024). 7 in 10 professionals would let AI take their meeting notes: digiotouch.ai/en/blog/7-in-10-professionals-would-let-ai-take-their-meeting-notes
- OpenAI Help Center. ChatGPT Record: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/11487532-chatgpt-record
- OpenAI Help Center. The Meetings plugin in ChatGPT: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001546
- Google Meet Help. Take notes for me in Google Meet: https://support.google.com/meet/answer/14754931
- Microsoft Support. Start, stop and find meeting recordings in Microsoft Teams: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/teams/meetings/start-stop-and-find-meeting-recordings-in-microsoft-teams
- Microsoft Support. Manage meeting and call recordings in Microsoft Teams (free): https://support.microsoft.com/en-US/teams/free/meetings/manage-meeting-and-call-recordings-in-microsoft-teams-free
- Microsoft Learn. Intelligent recap for Teams calls and meetings: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/intelligent-recap-calls-meetings
- Digiotouch AI. Frequently asked questions: digiotouch.ai/en/faq
- Digiotouch AI. Pricing: digiotouch.ai/en/pricing
- Otter.ai pricing and privacy policy, Fireflies.ai pricing and help center, Granola pricing and help center, and Notta pricing, checked 19 October 2026 (not linked; vendor domains).
External sources checked on 19 October 2026. Corrections to notes@digiotouch.ai.
Yes. Otter, Fireflies, Granola, Notta and Digiotouch AI all offer permanent free plans that do not expire. Each one caps something different, such as minutes per conversation, note history, storage or export, so the right choice depends on which limit you are least likely to hit.
No. ChatGPT Record needs a paid ChatGPT plan and runs only in the macOS app, Gemini needs an eligible Google Workspace edition or Google AI plan, and Teams recording needs a paid Microsoft 365 subscription. AI recap in Teams also needs Teams Premium or a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence.
It depends on the limit that matters most to you. If your meetings run past 30 minutes, check the per-conversation cap first; if you send notes to clients, check export; if your meetings are confidential, check the training policy. The Digiotouch AI Free plan gives you summaries and action items, while the full transcript starts at the Essential plan.
Some do. Otter's privacy policy covers training on de-identified recordings and transcriptions, and Granola may use anonymised data by default unless each user switches it off. Digiotouch AI does not train AI models on meeting content on any plan, including Free.
Yes, with a tool that has a mobile app. The Digiotouch AI mobile app records in-person meetings on the Free plan and keeps the audio on the phone if the connection drops. Speaker labels work best when participants say their names at the start.
Paid plans are usually priced per user per month, often with a discount for annual billing, and some vendors add usage-based AI credits on top. Free plans cost nothing but cap usage. Digiotouch AI lists its current plans on its pricing page.
Not on Digiotouch AI. The Free plan needs no card, while the 14-day trial of the paid Essential and Professional plans asks for a payment method. Other vendors draw the same line, so check whether you are signing up for a free plan or a free trial.
