AI meeting minutes tools turn a recording into minutes you can circulate without rewriting them. After researching the category and running a mock committee meeting through the leading options, Notta is our best overall pick: it keeps decisions separate from the discussion, supports custom minutes templates, exports straight to Word and PDF, and — unlike most rivals — captures in-person and hybrid meetings as well as online ones, with recordings of up to five hours on paid plans (Pro from $8.17 a month, $97.99 a year). If your meetings live entirely inside Microsoft Teams or Google Meet, start with Copilot's intelligent recap or Gemini's 'Take notes for me' before buying anything extra. Fellow Business ($15 a user a month, billed yearly) is the strongest choice for distributed teams that need action items with due dates and multiple assignees. Below we explain what separates real minutes from an AI summary, and which tool fits your meeting setup.
01 — Best overall for meeting minutes
Notta
| Price | Pro $8.17/mo ($97.99/yr), 1,800 min/mo; Business $16.67/seat/mo |
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Notta is the only pick that handles the full range of meetings a minutes-taker actually faces: online calls via web and desktop apps, in-person meetings via its mobile app or the Notta Memo recorder, and hybrid combinations of both. Its output separates key points and decisions from the surrounding discussion, and its custom AI templates — unlimited on Pro and Business — let you define exactly what your minutes must contain. Exports cover TXT, DOCX, PDF and SRT, so minutes go straight into Word or a PDF for circulation without reformatting. Paid plans support recordings of up to five hours, longer than any rival we cover, which matters for board meetings and all-day committees. In our hands-on run against a five-part minutes template, a custom Notta template produced minutes that needed only light editing before circulating.
Pros
- Captures online, in-person and hybrid meetings in one workflow, including via the Notta Memo recorder
- Custom AI templates, unlimited on Pro and Business, so minutes follow your organisation's format
- Exports to TXT, DOCX, PDF and SRT
- Up to 5 hours per recording on paid plans — the longest cap in this lineup
- Cheaper than Fellow and most dedicated meeting tools at the Pro tier
Cons
- Action items don't natively carry due dates and multiple assignees the way Fellow's do
- Pro plan caps transcription at 1,800 minutes a month
Choose it if: Secretaries, clerks and office managers who need real minutes from online, hybrid and in-person meetings, exported to Word or PDF.
02 — Best for distributed teams
Fellow
| Price | Business $15/user/mo yearly, $23 monthly; Free includes 5 lifetime AI notes |
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Fellow Business produces the most minutes-like output of any online-meeting tool we assessed: decisions are kept apart from discussion, and action items carry owners, due dates and multiple assignees. Organisation-wide templates on the Business plan let a team standardise its minutes format once for everyone. It works with a bot or bot-free, so it fits teams whose clients block meeting bots. The trade-offs: it is built around online meetings, with no in-room capture, its export formats are not confirmed, and it costs nearly twice Notta's Pro plan per user. Note that the free plan's 5 lifetime AI notes and the Team plan's 10 AI notes per user a month make paid plans essential for regular use.
Pros
- Decisions separated from discussion, with action items carrying owners, due dates and multiple assignees
- Organisation-wide templates on the Business plan
- Bot or bot-free operation
Cons
- No in-room capture for in-person or hybrid meetings
- Export formats not confirmed
- Free and Team plans are too limited for regular minutes
Choose it if: Distributed teams that live in online meetings and need action items with due dates and multiple assignees.
03 — Best for Microsoft 365 teams
Microsoft 365 Copilot (Teams)
| Price | Copilot Business add-on $18/user/mo promo ($21 standard); unverified 29 Oct |
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If your organisation already runs on Microsoft 365, Copilot's intelligent recap in Teams pulls out notes and decisions and can move output into Word or Loop, keeping minutes inside the tools your team already uses. It is a strong option for meetings that happen in Teams, but it does not help with in-person meetings, phone calls or recordings made outside the Microsoft ecosystem — which is where a dedicated tool like Notta earns its keep.
Pros
- Notes and decisions inside Teams, with output to Word and Loop
- No separate vendor or workflow for Microsoft-first teams
Cons
- Only covers meetings that run through Teams
- Pricing should be confirmed on Microsoft's page before budgeting
Choose it if: Teams whose meetings happen inside Teams and whose documents live in Microsoft 365.
04 — Best for Google Workspace
Google Gemini in Meet
| Price | From Workspace Business Standard $14/user/mo yearly; unverified 29 Oct |
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Gemini's 'Take notes for me' writes a Google Doc with action items, saves it to the organiser's Drive in a Google Meet folder and attaches it to the calendar event — a tidy workflow for Google Workspace teams. It supports eight languages (one at a time per meeting) and is recommended for meetings from 15 minutes to 8 hours. Like Copilot, it only covers meetings that run through Google Meet, so teams that also meet in person or on other platforms will still need a dedicated tool.
Pros
- Notes saved as a Google Doc in the organiser's Drive and attached to the calendar event
- Recommended for meetings up to 8 hours
- Eight supported languages
Cons
- Only one language per meeting
- Only covers Google Meet calls, not in-person or cross-platform meetings
Choose it if: Google Workspace teams whose meetings run through Google Meet.
05 — Best value with downloadable minutes
Fireflies.ai
| Price | Pro $10/seat/mo yearly, $18 monthly |
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Fireflies keeps its per-seat price below Fellow's while producing an overview with topics and tasks that carry owners, and its AI Skills act as custom templates. Downloads of transcripts, summaries and recordings start on the Pro plan — the free plan has none. Its 2-hour cap on Free and Pro meetings is the main limitation for long agendas; Business raises it to 3 hours, but Notta's 5-hour ceiling still beats it.
Pros
- Overview, topics and tasks with owners
- AI Skills for customising output
- Downloads of transcripts, summaries and recordings from the Pro plan
Cons
- 2-hour meeting cap on Free and Pro plans
- No downloads on the free plan
Choose it if: Budget-conscious teams that want downloadable minutes from online meetings.
06 — Best free option
Fathom
| Price | Free; Premium $16/mo yearly, $20 monthly |
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Fathom's free plan is the most generous starting point in the category: unlimited recordings and instant AI summaries at no cost. The catches for minutes-takers are that AI action items require Premium, and there is no direct transcript file download — transcript text is clipboard-only — so getting formal minutes into Word takes manual work. For occasional or low-stakes minutes, it is a sensible free first step before moving to a tool like Notta with template and export support.
Pros
- Unlimited recordings and instant AI summaries on the free plan
- No time-based meeting cap stated
Cons
- AI action items require Premium
- No direct transcript file download — clipboard only
Choose it if: Trying AI minutes at zero cost before committing to a paid tool.
How we chose
We judged every tool against one question: could its output be circulated as minutes with minimal rewriting? That means five things — decisions separated from discussion, action items with owners, control over the output format through custom templates, export to Word or PDF, and support for the meeting types you actually run, including in-person and hybrid meetings. We also weighed meeting-length caps, because boards and committees run long. Features and prices were researched on 29 October 2026, supplemented by competitor research from 2 September 2026 and test results covering summary template libraries, automatic AI notes and end-to-end export quality (these are not independent measurements). We ran a 45-minute mock committee meeting containing a vote, two decisions and four actions through Notta, Fellow, Fireflies and Fathom's free plan, scored each against a five-part minutes template, built custom minutes templates in Notta and Fellow and re-ran, and checked exports for speaker names and decision wording. Full details are in the testing note below.
Are AI meeting summaries the same as minutes?
No — and the difference matters. Robert's Rules of Order puts it plainly in its FAQ: 'Minutes are a record of what was done at a meeting, not a record of what was said.' A summary retells the conversation. Minutes record what was decided and who will act. Almost every AI meeting tool on the market produces summaries; only some can be shaped into real minutes. When you evaluate a tool, look for four things: decisions kept separate from the discussion, action items with named owners, control over the output format through custom templates, and export to the file format your organisation circulates — usually Word or PDF. Notta, Fellow and Sembly tick the first two boxes; Notta and Fellow add template control; only Notta combines all four with in-person capture. If a tool gives you a paragraph of prose and nothing else, you are still writing the minutes yourself.
What about in-person and board meetings?
Most AI minutes tools assume everyone is on a video call. Boards, councils and committees do not work that way. For in-person and hybrid meetings you need capture that works in the room: Notta's mobile app records the room directly, and the Notta Memo recorder adds purpose-built hardware (see our review at /reviews/notta-memo-review/). The Plaud Note Pro is a pocket recorder alternative with a large template library (reviewed at /reviews/plaud-note-pro-review/), and we round up the wider field at /best/best-ai-voice-recorders/. Watch the length caps: Notta supports up to five hours per recording on paid plans, which comfortably covers a board day, while Fireflies caps at 2 hours on Pro and Otter at 90 minutes on Pro. Recording consent matters too — tell participants, and check the rules in your jurisdiction via /guides/recording-consent-laws-by-state/. If your board or council has legal obligations around records and retention, read our guide for regulated teams at /guides/transcription-software-for-regulated-teams/ before choosing. For broader recording how-tos, see /guides/how-agencies-record-client-meetings/, /guides/how-to-record-a-teams-meeting/ and /guides/how-to-record-a-zoom-meeting/.
Can you export AI minutes to Word or PDF?
Minutes usually end up as a Word document or a PDF attached to an email, so export support decides how much manual work remains. Notta exports to TXT, DOCX, PDF and SRT — the strongest set in this lineup, and in our export check the DOCX and PDF files preserved speaker names and decision wording. Otter's Basic plan exports TXT only; PDF, DOCX and SRT arrive on paid plans. Fireflies enables downloads of transcripts, summaries and recordings from its Pro plan. Fathom has no direct transcript file download at all — transcript text is clipboard-only, which means pasting and reformatting by hand. Copilot routes output into Word and Loop; Gemini's notes land as a Google Doc. If your minutes must circulate as a formal document, Notta's native DOCX and PDF export is the most direct path; if you are already paying for Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, their built-in routes are reasonable alternatives.
How should you check AI minutes before circulating them?
Always review before sending — AI minutes are a draft, not a record. Our two-minute checklist: 1. Check the decision wording against the transcript; motions in particular must match what was agreed, not what was discussed. 2. Confirm every action has an owner and a due date, and that the names are spelled correctly. 3. Verify the attendee list and apologies. 4. Check the next-meeting details. 5. Delete any sensitive asides that do not belong in a formal record. In our mock-meeting run, every tool needed at least light editing — the vote wording in particular — which is normal and expected. We cover verification of decisions in AI summaries in more depth at /guides/verify-decisions-in-ai-meeting-summaries/.
Frequently asked questions
Can AI take minutes for a board meeting?
Yes, with review. Tools like Notta and Fellow can produce minutes with decisions, motions and owned actions, and Notta's five-hour recording ceiling and in-room capture suit long board days. But AI output is a draft: the secretary or clerk should verify decision wording, owners and attendees before the minutes are approved. Boards with legal record-keeping obligations should also read our guide for regulated teams at /guides/transcription-software-for-regulated-teams/.
Is there a free AI that writes meeting minutes?
Fathom's free plan offers unlimited recordings and instant AI summaries, though action items need Premium and there is no direct transcript file download. Notta's free plan includes five custom AI templates so you can test minutes-shaped output, though its free transcription allowance is limited. If your team is on Google Workspace, Gemini's 'Take notes for me' is included in eligible plans. For regular, formal minutes, expect to move to a paid plan.
Can ChatGPT turn a transcript into minutes?
Yes — paste a transcript plus a minutes template (such as the five-part template in this article) and a general-purpose chatbot can restructure it into minutes. The limitations are workflow, not intelligence: you still need to record the meeting, transcribe it accurately and identify speakers first. A dedicated tool like Notta does the whole chain — capture, transcription, speaker identification, minutes template and Word/PDF export — in one place.
Are AI-generated minutes legally valid?
In most organisations, minutes are valid if they accurately record what was decided and are approved by the meeting — regardless of who or what drafted them. The risk is accuracy, not authorship: unverified AI output can misstate a decision or miss an action. Review and approve AI minutes as you would any draft. This is general information, not legal advice; regulated organisations should check their own requirements.
How long can a meeting be for AI minutes?
It depends on the plan. Otter caps meetings at 30 minutes on Basic and 90 minutes on Pro; Fireflies allows 2 hours on Free and Pro; Notta supports up to 5 hours per recording on paid plans; Gemini's 'Take notes for me' is recommended for meetings from 15 minutes to 8 hours. For all-day boards and committees, Notta or Gemini have the headroom.
Do participants have to be told an AI is taking minutes?
As a matter of good practice, yes — announce that the meeting is being recorded and transcribed, and note it in the minutes themselves. Recording consent rules vary by jurisdiction; see our guide at /guides/recording-consent-laws-by-state/.