3 Best AI Tools for Meeting Summaries: Fireflies AI, Otter AI, and Sembly AI

TL;DR

Three AI meeting assistants compared head to head. Fireflies AI wins for sales and support teams that live in a CRM, with its AskFred chatbot and soundbites. Otter AI suits R&D, legal, and academic work thanks to live transcription and jargon recognition. Sembly AI fits project managers who want action-item tracking and meeting analytics. All three auto-join calls, transcribe, and start around $10 a month.

Briefly, here is what you need to know about the AI meeting assistant tools:

• Fireflies AI: Benefits departments like sales, marketing, and customer support that rely heavily on CRM integrations and collaborative meeting reviews.
• Otter AI: Optimal for organizations and departments such as R&D, legal, and academic, where technical or specialized terminologies are frequently used.
• Sembly AI: Ideal for project management teams, requiring comprehensive meeting analytics and action item tracking for strategic decision-making and efficiency analysis.

Meetings are an essential part of any organization.

On average, a professional spends about 31 hours each month in meetings. However, while in a meeting it is difficult to simultaneously capture the notes of the meeting, process the information, participate in the meeting, and create a to-do list from the meetings.

The introduction of AI tools might just be the solution every project manager has been waiting for. It is found that 89% of the workforce believes AI can help in up to half of their everyday work activities. These tools can:

• Save time by automating note-taking and transcribing meeting.
• Document decisions that were made in the meeting.
• Increase accountability by creating an action item list from the meeting notes.

But which tool to use?

How to choose the right AI meeting assistant tool?

Given the number of options available for AI meeting assistants and productivity tools, it can become a confusing decision, especially if you need to get buy-in from stakeholders. Here are key parameters that you should consider while choosing an AI-powered meeting tool:

• Ease of integration with your existing system, including video conferencing tools, CRM, task management tools, etc.
• Simplicity of the user interface.
• Learning curve for system-wide adoption.
• Accuracy of transcription.
• Compliance with your data security and privacy regulations.

We tested 3 of the best AI meeting assistant tools based on the above criteria. Below is a detailed comparison of these tools.

Comparison of AI meeting assistant tools: Otter AI, Fireflies, and Sembly AI

Briefly, most of the AI meeting assistant tools available can seamlessly integrate with popular video conferencing tools like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Similarly, they are equipped with automatic transcription generation, recording of the meeting, audio files, AI chatbot, etc. However, the differentiating factors are pricing, language support, and creating action item lists.

Fireflies AI

Notable Features:

• AskFred Chatbot: It’s ChatGPT for meetings. This AI-powered tool can answer any of your questions related to the meeting and even suggests prompts that you can use to extract specific insights. It can help you prioritize workloads, align team members, and document essential company priorities, making it a versatile and indispensable tool for effective meeting organization and follow-up.
• CRM integration: Popular for CRM integration as it has the ability to unlock insights on every call and meeting, especially with your customers.
• Searchability: Enables keyword searches within transcripts.
• Soundbites and Playlist: Allows you to share bite-sized audio recordings of the meeting that you deem important. You can organize them using the Playlist feature.

Pros:

• Comprehensive Integration: Seamlessly integrates with various video conferencing tools like Google Meet, MS Teams, and Zoom, as well as calendars like Google Calendar, Outlook, etc.
• User-Friendly Interface: Simplified navigation and user interface due to its intuitive design, ensuring easy access to the key features without a complex menu.
• CRM integration: Integrates with your CRM and updates call notes, activities, and recordings under the appropriate CRM contacts.

Cons:

• Transcription Accuracy: May struggle with different accents or in noisy environments.
• Limited Customization: Fewer options for transcript formatting and customization.

Fireflies AI features

Otter AI

Notable Features:

• Live Transcription: Offers real-time transcription which is quite useful for live note-taking and immediate clarification during meetings. It also enhances accessibility for participants with hearing difficulties.
• Mobile App: Provides a convenient mobile application for on-the-go access.
• Otter Chat: AI-powered chatbot that can answer any query related to the meeting and perform tasks like creating the action items, scheduling the meeting, etc.

Pros:

• Speaker Identification: Effectively identifies and separates different speakers in the transcript
• Jargon Identification: It can accurately recognize technical and industrial jargon, making it highly suitable for meetings in specialized industries like legal or healthcare.
• Meeting Summarization with Timestamps: It categorizes the meeting along with timestamps into snippets of related information. It provides headings as well which makes it easy to review the specific section of the meeting.

Cons:

• Transcription Accuracy: The accuracy of transcription could have been better when there were background noises or when multiple speakers spoke at the same time. At times, it was also not able to identify the end of the sentence.

Different features of Otter AI

Sembly AI

Notable Features:

• Task Tracking: Sembly AI enhances productivity by identifying action items in meetings for clear accountability, integrating them into workflow tools, and providing reminders, thereby transforming discussions into actionable steps and boosting meeting efficiency.

Pros:

• Analytical Insights: Offers valuable data on meeting efficiency and trends helping you optimize meeting schedules.
• Automation and Integrations: Supports integration with 20 native applications ranging from collaboration tools to productivity tools to CRM automation.

Cons:

• Complex Interface: Steep learning curve for new users.
• Transcription Accuracy: It is dependent on audio quality, hence summarization accuracy can be affected by poor audio. Also, it can differentiate between different accents and speakers at times.

Features available in the Sembly AI

Participating in meetings often requires you to balance several tasks, with a considerable risk of overlooking crucial details, failing to present alternative perspectives, or missing the chance to ask pivotal questions during the discussion. AI meeting assistants might just be the solution for this.

Have you been using an AI meeting assistant tool, already?

Let us know your experience.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which AI meeting tool is best: Fireflies, Otter, or Sembly?

It depends on your team. Fireflies AI is best for sales, marketing, and support teams that rely on CRM integrations and collaborative reviews. Otter AI fits R&D, legal, and academic groups that deal in technical jargon, while Sembly AI is built for project managers who need action-item tracking and meeting analytics.

How accurate are these AI meeting transcription tools?

In our testing, Fireflies scored highest at 7 out of 10, with Otter and Sembly each landing at 6 out of 10. Accuracy drops for all three when there is background noise, heavy accents, or multiple people talking at once, so quiet audio matters more than the brand you pick.

Do these AI meeting assistants support languages other than English?

Sembly AI has the widest reach with 8 main languages plus 32 in beta. Fireflies works in multiple languages but cannot handle more than one language inside a single meeting, and Otter AI is English only, which is the big trade-off if your calls are multilingual.

Can you edit the meeting notes these tools generate?

Otter AI and Sembly AI both let you edit meeting notes after the call. Fireflies does not, it automatically sends the meeting summary once the call ends, so you are stuck with what it produced unless you work around it.

How much do AI meeting summary tools cost?

Paid plans for all three start at roughly $10 a month, and each offers a limited free tier so you can try before you buy. Pricing shifts over time, so check each vendor's current pricing page before committing, since features are often gated behind the higher paid plans.

Sources

• Atlassian, Workplace Woes: Meetings (31 hours/month in unproductive meetings)
• SnapLogic, 81% of Employees Say AI Improves Their Job Performance (89% believe AI could support up to half of everyday work activities)
• Fireflies.ai official pricing
• Otter.ai official pricing