AI Note Takers: The best AI apps that take notes for you

An AI note taker transcends being a mere tool; it is a game changer, enabling you to concentrate on the ongoing conversation while it diligently records, transcribes, and summarizes your meetings in real-time.

AI Note Takers: The best AI apps that take notes for you
Table Of Contents

Introduction: How AI is Revolutionizing Note-Taking

In our fast-paced world of meetings and collaborations, maintaining accurate and comprehensive notes is often overwhelming. This challenge is met head-on by AI note takers, which are revolutionizing our approach to capturing, organizing, and leveraging meeting notes. An AI note taker transcends being a mere tool; it is a game changer, enabling you to concentrate on the ongoing conversation while it diligently records, transcribes, and summarizes your meetings in real-time.
Regardless of whether you're participating in a Zoom meeting, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams session, these AI-powered applications guarantee that every critical point, action item, and decision is precisely captured. This not only saves you invaluable time but also boosts your team's productivity.
Imagine engaging in a meeting without the stress of jotting down every single detail. With an AI note taker, you're empowered to be fully immersed in the discussion, interacting with your team and clients without the fear of overlooking vital information. These tools do more than just transcribe meetings; they also create summaries, pinpoint action items, and seamlessly integrate with your CRM and other productivity tools, rendering post-meeting data entry obsolete.
The privacy and efficiency offered by these AI note takers deserve special mention. Many operate discreetly in the background, ensuring your meetings proceed without interruptions and your data remains secure. For teams prioritizing privacy, bot-free AI note takers like Jamie and Superpowered provide high-accuracy transcription without disrupting the natural flow of discussions.
Exploring the realm of AI note takers reveals that these instruments are not merely convenient but essential for modern teams. They streamline workflows, foster collaboration, and render every meeting more productive. This article will delve into the top AI note-taking apps, their functionalities, and how they can revolutionize your meeting experiences.

Why Reflect Stands Out Among AI Note-Taking Apps

Reflect combines simplicity with power, making it the best choice for enhancing your note-taking experience. Key features include:
  • AI Assistant: Edit, format, and create notes using large language models (LLMs).
  • AI Voice Transcriber: Record and transcribe voice notes with near-human-level accuracy.
  • AI Chat with Notes: Interact with your notes through AI-powered queries.
By combining the AI Assistant and Voice Transcriber, Reflect enables a custom AI note-taking experience with minimal typing. Record your meetings or transcribe your notes on the go, and let the AI assistant format and edit them for you. Reflect’s feature set makes it indispensable for both personal and professional use.

Leading AI Note-Taking Apps on the Market

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Reflect AI

Reflect stands out as the simplest, but also most powerful tool for enhancing your note-taking experience. It has a number of key features as an AI note taker:
  1. AI Assistant – edit, format and create notes using LLMs.
  1. AI voice transcriber – record and transcribe voice notes with near human level accuracy using AI
  1. AI Chat with Notes – Chat with your notes using AI.
When combining the AI Assistant and AI Voice Transcriber, you have a custom AI note taker that requires little to no typing. record your meetings or transcribe your notes on the go and have the AI assistant format and edit them for you.
This makes Reflect an invaluable asset for both personal and professional use.

Notion AI

Notion stands out as a powerful tool for enhancing your note-taking experience. Integrated directly into the Notion platform, this AI tool offers a range of features that can write content from scratch, edit existing notes, and summarize lengthy documents. With Notion AI, you can generate blog posts, creative stories, emails, and more, all from specific prompts.
It also excels in summarizing content, extracting key points, and identifying action items from meeting notes, making it an invaluable asset for both personal and professional use.

Evernote AI

Evernote's AI Edit is another significant player in the AI note-taking arena. This feature, which has evolved from the earlier AI Note Cleanup, now offers a broader set of capabilities. With AI Edit, you can summarize notes, fix typos, help write new content, and even translate text into multiple languages.
The tool provides various summarization options, including paragraph, extended, bullet, and micro summaries, making it easy to tailor the output to your needs. Additionally, AI Edit allows you to change the tone of your text and generate introductions and conclusions, further streamlining your note-taking and writing processes.

Microsoft OneNote with AI Integrations

Microsoft OneNote, when integrated with OpenAI tools through Zapier, becomes a robust AI-driven note-taking solution. This integration allows you to leverage GPT-4 for generating responses directly within your meeting notes in real-time. You can also use Whisper to transcribe audio notes, and DALL-E to create images based on keywords or phrases in your notes.
This seamless integration enables automated workflows, such as real-time transcription of audio files and the generation of images from text prompts, making OneNote a highly versatile and efficient tool for note-taking and content creation.

Google Keep with AI Features

Google Keep has recently introduced AI-driven features that enhance its note-taking capabilities. The "Help me create a list" feature uses AI to build lists based on specific prompts, such as packing lists for trips or spring cleaning checklists.
This feature simplifies the process of organizing tasks and ideas by generating lists that you can then save or edit within the app. While not as comprehensive as some other AI note-taking tools, Google Keep's AI features add a layer of convenience and efficiency to its already popular note-taking app.

Comparative Analysis: Choosing the Right App for Your Needs

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Feature Set Comparison

When selecting an AI note-taking app, the feature set is a key factor to consider. Different apps excel in various areas, making some more suitable for specific needs than others. For instance, Fireflies.ai focuses solely on meeting notes and features related to that functionality.
It also integrates well with CRMs like Salesforce and includes features such as AI summaries, keyword tracking, and smart search filters. In contrast, Eric.ai is renowned for its advanced natural language processing (NLP) capabilities, allowing for voice-to-text transcription, sentiment analysis, and the recognition of important entities.
Reflect on the other hand is focused on personal note taking and thinking. It also takes meeting notes but is focused on taking the best personal meeting notes for you versus for everyone on your team. This is great if you want to include private and sensitive thoughts and information that you wouldn't want to share with other people.

Usability and Accessibility

The usability and accessibility of an AI note-taking app can significantly impact your productivity. Reflect, for example, boasts a user-friendly interface with customization options such as themes, font adjustments, and layout customizations. This makes it easy to use across various devices, ensuring a consistent experience whether you're on a large screen or a mobile device.
With features like audio dictation, automatic spelling and grammar correction, and integration with calendar applications like Outlook and Google Calendar, this app is designed to be intuitive, allowing users to focus on the content of their notes rather than the tool itself. Notion AI offers a range of accessibility features, including a Chrome extension, mobile app, and the ability to record meetings across multiple platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams.
This widespread compatibility makes it a versatile choice for teams with diverse meeting habits.

Cost and Subscription Models

The cost and subscription models of AI note-taking apps vary widely, making it important to choose one that fits your budget and needs. Reflect, while having a free-trial, is a paid app. However unlike other apps, you then do not have to pay for the AI features. They're free and included with the app itself.
Some note-taking apps are free, but this comes with downsides. They're often less performative, less secure, and might even be using your data. If you can afford it, it's always best to pay for an app that you trust. Like anything in life. A paid note-taking app is going to be a much better experience than a free one.
If you can’t afford a paid app, Fathom is another app that offers a completely free version with unlimited recordings and summaries, making it an attractive option for individuals and small teams. The premium version upgrades the basic features to include more advanced note generation and CRM integration. Notion also offers free trials or basic free plans, with paid subscriptions starting at around $10 per month, providing additional features and storage.

Real-World Applications and Benefits

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In Education

In the educational sector, AI note-taking tools have revolutionized the way students engage with lectures and classes. Tools like Reflect are designed to help students save time and improve their note-taking efficiency. Reflect even has a free student plan! Noty.ai also offers free unlimited lecture transcription, allowing students to focus on listening to the lecture rather than taking notes manually.
It also generates instant lecture notes with a single click and summarizes key points, making it easier for students to review and study later. Jamworks takes this a step further by recording online or in-person lectures and dividing the recordings into key highlights for easy review. It generates word-for-word transcripts, audio snippets, or video clips for each highlight, and even allows students to attach images and files to organize their notes.
This tool also transforms lecture content into interactive student materials, including AI-powered bite-sized summaries and key points, which are particularly useful for study sessions.

In Business Meetings

In the business world, AI note-taking apps have become indispensable for enhancing meeting productivity and efficiency. Tools like Reflect and Fireflies.ai are transforming how teams document discussions. These apps automate transcription, summarization, and keyword extraction, ensuring that no critical detail is missed. The nice thing about Reflect is that it's primarily a personal note-taking app, meaning you transcribe your meeting notes directly into your full collection of notes. Other meeting assistants will require you to send information in your note-taking app somehow.
Reflect also does not require an integration with platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Just transcribe meetings like any other audio! This comes with an added benefit that no one else will be able to see your AI note taker.
AI note takers  in business meetings also improves focus and engagement. By handling the note-taking, these tools enable participants to actively listen, contribute ideas, and make decisions without the distraction of taking notes.
This leads to more meaningful and effective meetings, as seen in the case of Workplace Options, where Fellow’s AI note taker significantly improved meeting engagement and follow-through.

Personal Use

You should never split your personal and work notes. You can't split your brain, so don't try to do so with your digital brain. Treat your personal notes like you would your business notes. You will, after all, need a lot of the same features.
For example, using an AI note taker during personal development workshops can help individuals generate summaries of key takeaways and action items, making it easier to implement new strategies and track progress. Instead of a meeting, you might also choose to transcribe your own thoughts while walking around or making coffee. You can then use these thoughts to instantly generate article outlines or full of written pieces.
Additionally, these tools can support multitasking, allowing users to focus on the content of the meeting while the AI handles the note-taking, which is particularly beneficial in situations where multiple tasks need to be managed simultaneously.

Conclusion: The Future of AI Note-Taking

In conclusion, AI note-taking has transformed the way we capture, organize, and utilize meeting notes, making it an indispensable tool for modern productivity. Key points to remember include the advanced features of AI note-takers, such as real-time transcription, summarization, and integration with various meeting platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. These tools enhance collaboration, improve accuracy, and save valuable time.
As AI technology continues to evolve, we can expect even more sophisticated and accurate note-taking tools that will further enhance collaboration and provide real-time insights. Embrace these innovations to streamline your workflows, boost productivity, and make the most of your meetings.
Start exploring AI note-taking tools today to see the significant impact they can have on your personal and professional life.

FAQ

Is there an AI that takes notes?

Yes, there are several AI tools designed for note-taking, including Reflect, Otter.ai, Notion AI, and others. These innovative tools leverage natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to transcribe spoken content in real-time, summarize texts, and organize notes efficiently.

Is there a free AI note taker for Teams?

Indeed, Microsoft Teams users have access to several free AI note-taking solutions, such as Krisp AI Meeting Assistant, Otter.ai, and Tactiq. These applications offer key features like real-time transcription, speaker identification, and seamless integration with Teams.

Is Reflect free?

Reflect offers a two week trial and is then a paid app after that at $10 a month. Once you pay for the app, everything is included for free. There's no add-ons or anything else you'll need to pay more for.

Is wave ai note taker free?

Wave AI Note Taker introduces a "Free" plan, offering 1 hour of monthly recording time, a 15-minute max recording length, and standard transcription and summary features. However, it notably lacks a free trial option.

Written by

Sam Claassen
Sam Claassen

Head of Growth at Reflect