Best AI Note Taker for Microsoft Teams in 2026: 9 Tools Compared

An AI note taker for Microsoft Teams is a tool that automatically records, transcribes, and summarizes Teams meetings, then turns that transcript into action items, searchable notes, and (in more capable tools) synced updates to the rest of your team's software. Most work one of three ways: joining the call as a visible bot, running natively inside the Teams client itself, or capturing system audio through a desktop app without adding a participant to the call.

The best AI note taker for Microsoft Teams is Fellow, which combines botless desktop capture with organization-wide meeting search, native Salesforce and HubSpot sync, and SOC 2 Type II security on every plan. Fathom is the strongest free option if you don't need bot-free recording. Fireflies covers the widest range of languages. Microsoft 365 Copilot is the right default if every meeting your team holds happens inside Teams and nowhere else.

This guide compares nine AI note takers for Microsoft Teams on the things that actually differ between them: how each one captures a Teams call, what it does with the transcript afterward, where the free plan runs out, and who each tool is genuinely built for.

How do AI note takers capture Microsoft Teams meetings?

There are three capture methods, and which one a tool uses affects how it behaves in practice more than any feature list does.

Native integration runs inside the Teams client using Microsoft's own transcription pipeline. Audio never leaves your Microsoft 365 tenant. Microsoft 365 Copilot is the only tool here that works this way.

Bot-based recording adds a visible participant to the call. Every attendee sees it join, including external guests, and some organizations block third-party bots at the tenant level or object to an unfamiliar name appearing on a client call.

Bot-free (device-level) recording captures system audio through a desktop app with no separate participant joining. Teams still shows its own recording indicator and the host still approves it, so nothing is hidden, but no extra name appears in the call. Fellow, Granola, and Krisp work this way by default. Fathom added an optional bot-free mode in April 2026, though the video variant is still in limited beta and, as of this writing, available on Mac only, with a fully bot-free audio and transcript option available more broadly.

Most teams don't think about capture method until a client or external partner objects to a bot mid-call. Worth deciding upfront rather than after that happens.

The best AI note takers for Microsoft Teams, ranked

1. Fellow — best overall AI note taker for Microsoft Teams

Fellow is a secure AI meeting assistant and notetaker that captures Microsoft Teams meetings by bot or by bot-free desktop recording, then turns transcripts into searchable, actionable intelligence across your whole organization, not just a single call.

Capture method: both bot-based and bot-free. The bot-free option records system audio with no separate participant joining the call.

Key features:

• Ask Fellow, which lets anyone query the full meeting history in plain language instead of searching one transcript at a time

• 50+ native integrations, including direct Salesforce and HubSpot sync, plus Jira, Asana, Linear, Notion, and Monday, verified Claude connector, with an API and MCP Server for anything not natively covered

• Works across Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, and Slack huddles, so meeting intelligence stays in one place even when meetings don't all happen on Teams

• SOC 2 Type II on every plan, HIPAA and BAA coverage on Enterprise specifically, and a policy of not training AI models on customer meeting content

• Automatic action-item extraction with owners and due dates, synced into the tools your team already uses

• Fellow records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings in 100+ languages

• Compliance portal, password-protected meeting recaps, and Enterprise-grade features for security-conscious organizations

Pricing: free plan (5 AI notes and 5 AI recordings, lifetime, per user, teams up to 10 people). Team at $7/user/month billed annually ($11 monthly), 10 AI notes and 10 AI recordings per user per month, teams up to 20 people. Business at $15/user/month billed annually ($23 monthly), unlimited AI notes and recordings plus CRM integrations, note locking, and workspace-wide templates. Enterprise at $25/user/month billed annually, 10-user minimum, adding HIPAA/BAA, Okta and OneLogin SSO, advanced recording permissions, and HRIS sync.

Limitations: the free and Team plans cap AI notes and recordings rather than offering them unlimited, so a team that records heavily will hit that ceiling well before qualifying for HIPAA coverage on Enterprise. Bot-free capture requires the desktop app to be running, so it isn't available from a browser-only or mobile session. Advanced CRM sync requires Business or above, not the entry tier.

2. Fathom — best free option

Fathom is a bot-based note taker with the most generous free plan in this comparison: unlimited recordings, transcription, and storage, with no monthly minute cap, across Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Slack Huddles.

Capture method: both. Fathom added a bot-free mode in April 2026 that lets you choose, meeting by meeting, between full video capture with the bot, or a bot-free option covering audio-plus-transcript or transcript-only. The bot-free video variant is still in limited beta and available on Mac only; a Windows build has not yet shipped as of this writing.

Key features: free plan includes unlimited recording and transcription in 38 languages, with advanced AI summaries and action items included for the first 5 calls each month, dropping to a basic recap after that. Native HubSpot and Salesforce sync (field sync reserved for the Business tier), plus Slack, Notion, Asana, Zapier, and a public API and MCP integration. Fathom holds SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA (with signed BAA available), and GDPR compliance, with SSO and SCIM on its Team plan and above.

Pricing: free plan with unlimited recording and transcription. Premium (individual) at $16/user/month billed annually ($20 monthly), unlocking unlimited advanced summaries and action items. Team at $15/user/month billed annually ($19 monthly, 2-user minimum), adding global cross-call search, shared playlists, and SSO. Business at $25/user/month billed annually ($34 monthly, 2-user minimum), adding CRM field sync, deal view, and coaching metrics.

Limitations: the free plan's advanced AI summaries and action items are capped at 5 calls a month; after that you get a basic recap only, not the full summary. Bot-free video capture is beta and Mac-only, so Windows users on Teams get the standard bot experience unless they choose the audio-only or transcript-only bot-free modes. There is no dedicated in-person mobile capture yet, an iOS app for that is announced but not live.

3. Fireflies — best for multilingual teams

Fireflies joins Teams meetings as a bot, with a Chrome extension offering bot-free capture for browser-based sessions, and pushes transcripts and structured notes directly into Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, and Pipedrive.

Capture method: bot-based by default, plus a Chrome extension for bot-free browser capture.

Key features: unlimited transcription and unlimited AI summaries on every plan, including Free. Conversation analytics including talk-time and sentiment tracking, and the AskFred assistant for querying past meetings, available from the Pro tier up. Fireflies is SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliant per its published trust materials, with GDPR compliance as well.

Pricing: free plan with unlimited transcription and summaries, capped at 400 minutes of storage shared across the whole team (not per user, and not a monthly allowance, a running storage ceiling), 20 AI credits/month, and no video recording. Pro at $10/user/month billed annually ($18 monthly), raising storage to 8,000 minutes per seat and unlocking CRM integrations and a 2-hour recording cap per meeting. Business at $19/user/month billed annually ($29 monthly), adding unlimited storage, video recording, a 3-hour recording cap, and team-wide analytics. Enterprise at $39/user/month billed annually, extending the recording cap to 4 hours with dedicated admin controls.

Limitations: the free plan's 400-minute storage ceiling is shared across the entire team, not allocated per person, so a five-person team can exhaust it within days of regular use and lose access to older recordings until they upgrade or delete files. Video recording is unavailable below the Business plan. The bot is visible in the default integration mode, with bot-free capture available only through the more limited Chrome extension path.

4. Otter — best for real-time transcription

Otter's OtterPilot bot joins Teams calls and is best known for letting multiple participants read and annotate the transcript live, during the meeting itself.

Capture method: bot-based for Teams, with in-person mobile capture available separately through Otter's mobile app.

Key features: real-time shared transcript view, reliable speaker identification under normal conditions, and mature mobile apps. Otter's own pricing page lists AI transcription in English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Chinese, though some independent reviews describe its practical strength as English-first with narrower support elsewhere; confirm current language coverage for your specific languages before committing.

Pricing: Basic (free) plan capped at 300 minutes/month with a 30-minute-per-conversation limit and 3 lifetime file imports. Pro at $8.33/user/month billed annually ($16.99 monthly), raising the cap to 1,200 minutes/month, 90 minutes per conversation, and 10 file imports/month. Business at $19.99/user/month billed annually ($30 monthly), removing the monthly minute cap entirely and extending the per-conversation limit to 4 hours.

Limitations: the free plan's 30-minute-per-conversation cap rules it out for most substantive work meetings. Sales-specific coaching features sit behind the Business or Enterprise tier, not the entry paid plan. Otter does not offer video recording, audio and transcript only.

5. Read AI — best for search across email and messages

Read AI joins Teams meetings as a bot by default, with a bot-free option through its desktop and mobile apps, and feeds summaries into a knowledge graph spanning email, Slack, and 50+ connected tools, alongside a native Teams app for live in-meeting metrics.

Capture method: bot-based by default, with a bot-free option through desktop and mobile apps.

Key features: cross-platform knowledge graph search (Ask Read) across meetings, email, and messages, plus live engagement, sentiment, and talk-time metrics during the call itself. Read AI is SOC 2 Type II certified and GDPR compliant across its plans; HIPAA compliance and SSO/SAML are Enterprise+ exclusive.

Pricing: free plan limited to 5 meeting transcripts/month, one hour each. Pro at $15/user/month billed annually ($19.75 monthly). Enterprise at $22.50/user/month billed annually ($29.75 monthly, 5-plus users), adding video playback and more upload credits. Enterprise+ at $29.75/user/month billed annually ($39.75 monthly, 10-user minimum), the only tier with HIPAA compliance, SAML, and SCIM.

Limitations: HIPAA compliance requires the top Enterprise+ tier, which carries a 10-license minimum, so a small team needing HIPAA coverage pays for at least ten seats regardless of headcount. The free plan's 5-transcript cap is tight for daily meeting use. Read AI does have a dedicated Teams Store app with a real in-Teams dashboard for live metrics and recent reports, though full report detail and settings still route to Read AI's own web dashboard; some third-party reviews describe the deeper analytics experience as most complete outside the Teams client itself.

6. TeamsMaestro — best lightweight, Teams-only option

TeamsMaestro installs directly from the Microsoft Teams Store and joins scheduled calls automatically, positioning itself as a lower-cost, Teams-native alternative to Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Capture method: bot-based, native Teams Store app, also available via Outlook and across Microsoft 365.

Key features: transcription and summaries in 20 to 40 or more languages depending on plan tier, with output available across Teams, Outlook, and Microsoft 365 on desktop, mobile, or web. SOC 2 Type II certified, GDPR compliant, and states it does not use customer data to train AI models. Query meeting history through Microsoft 365 Copilot integration.

Pricing: a free tier is available directly through the Microsoft Teams Store listing. Paid plans (per the vendor's own site) run Professional at roughly $17-20/user/month billed monthly (discounted around 15% annually), and Team/Enterprise tiers from roughly $25-27/user/month adding SSO and enterprise-grade security; note that TeamsMaestro's pricing pages show some inconsistency between listed monthly and annual figures across pages, so confirm the current number directly before publishing anything time-sensitive.

Limitations: Teams-only, so it doesn't capture meetings on Zoom or Google Meet, though the vendor does list Google Meet and Zoom support on some plan tiers, an inconsistency worth clarifying with the vendor directly. No independently documented SSO or SCIM below its top tier. Built and marketed specifically as a Teams-first, lower-cost alternative to Copilot rather than a broad cross-platform tool.

7. Microsoft 365 Copilot — best if you're all-in on Teams

Microsoft 365 Copilot runs natively inside the Teams client, using Teams' own transcription pipeline so nothing leaves your Microsoft 365 tenant.

Capture method: native. No third-party participant joins, and no data leaves Microsoft's infrastructure.

Key features: live in-meeting notes via the Facilitator agent, automatic post-meeting recap, and access to Microsoft's pre-built agents (Researcher, Analyst, Facilitator) across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. Inherits your organization's existing Microsoft 365 compliance posture, including Enterprise Data Protection.

Pricing: $30/user/month billed annually, added on top of a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan (E3, E5, Business Standard, Business Premium, and others). No standalone free tier; a lighter-weight Copilot Pro exists for individuals and small businesses at a lower price point but explicitly excludes enterprise data protections, Graph grounding, and tenant-level admin controls, so it is not a substitute for regulated or larger-team use.

Limitations: works only inside Teams, so meetings on Zoom, Google Meet, or in person aren't captured, leaving a gap in your searchable record the moment any meeting happens elsewhere. Can't push outcomes directly into Salesforce, HubSpot, or Jira. At $30/user/month on top of an already-qualifying Microsoft 365 license, it's also the most expensive option in this comparison before counting the base subscription it requires.

8. Granola — best for individual users

Granola is a cross-platform app, now available on macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android, that captures system audio without joining the call as a visible participant.

Capture method: bot-free, desktop and mobile.

Key features: lightweight setup, popular for external and client calls where a bot's presence is unwelcome. Every plan, including Free, lets users opt out of AI model training at any time; Enterprise extends that opt-out to the whole workspace by default. Advanced integrations (Attio, Notion, Slack, HubSpot, Affinity, Zapier) and API/MCP access are available from the Business tier.

Pricing: free (Basic) plan with meeting history limited to the last 30 days in-app (older notes are retained but not accessible without upgrading). Business at $14/user/month, unlocking unlimited history and integrations. Enterprise from $35/user/month, adding SSO, admin controls, and org-wide auto-deletion policies.

Limitations: Granola states plainly that it is not currently HIPAA compliant and cannot sign a Business Associate Agreement, so it should not be used to store or process protected health information; the company says HIPAA support is under evaluation for a future release. No named CRM integrations below the Business tier. Subscriptions are billed per workspace rather than allowing mixed individual plans within one team.

9. Krisp — best if noisy audio is your main problem

Krisp runs as a desktop app combining AI noise cancellation with bot-free note-taking, positioned as a broader "Meeting AI" product beyond its original noise-cancellation core.

Capture method: bot-free, desktop app, working across Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and other platforms.

Key features: noise cancellation that runs locally on-device before transcription, which measurably improves transcript quality in noisy home offices or shared spaces. SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, PCI-DSS, and HIPAA-related controls are documented for the meeting product; a signed HIPAA BAA is available specifically on Enterprise, with SSO/SCIM and on-device private transcription also Enterprise-only.

Pricing: no permanently free plan, a 7-day full-feature trial requiring no credit card, then Core at $8/user/month billed annually ($16 monthly, 10 GB storage, 1 hour/day accent conversion). Advanced at $15/user/month billed annually ($30 monthly, 60 GB storage, Salesforce integration, 4 hours/day accent conversion). Enterprise is custom-priced, with unlimited storage and the full compliance suite.

Limitations: meeting intelligence (summaries, action-item extraction) is shallower than dedicated note takers like Fellow or Fireflies, since noise cancellation remains the more established part of the product. HIPAA BAA and SSO/SCIM require the custom-priced Enterprise tier specifically, not the entry Core plan. There is no ongoing free tier, only a time-boxed trial, so evaluating for more than a week requires a paid commitment.

Comparison: AI note takers for Microsoft Teams

Is Microsoft 365 Copilot enough on its own?

If every meeting your organization holds happens inside Teams, with no regular Zoom or Google Meet calls, Copilot may be sufficient. It keeps data inside a tenant your IT team already governs and removes an extra vendor from procurement.

It stops being enough at three points. First, cross-platform coverage: any meeting outside Teams goes uncaptured, leaving a gap in your searchable history. Second, structured routing: Copilot can't push a decision or action item directly into Salesforce, HubSpot, or a project tracker, so that step stays manual. Third, organization-wide search: finding what was decided across dozens of past meetings is a different capability than a single-meeting recap, and it isn't what Copilot is built to do.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best AI note taker for Microsoft Teams?

Fellow is the best overall AI note taker for Microsoft Teams, combining bot-free capture, organization-wide meeting search through Ask Fellow, and native CRM sync. Fathom is the strongest choice if you want a permanently free plan with unlimited recording, and Fireflies leads on unlimited transcription and summaries for multilingual teams, though its free-tier storage is capped and shared across the whole team.

Can an AI note taker for Teams avoid a visible bot joining the call?

Yes. Fellow, Granola, and Krisp all offer bot-free capture by default, recording system audio through a desktop app without adding a participant to the call, though Teams still shows its own recording notice and the host still approves it. Fathom added an optional bot-free mode in 2026, with the video variant currently in beta on Mac. Most other tools, including Fireflies (outside its Chrome extension) and TeamsMaestro, join Teams calls as a visible bot.

Is there a free AI note taker for Microsoft Teams?

Yes, several options have free plans. Fathom offers unlimited free recording and transcription, with advanced AI summaries capped at 5 calls a month. Fellow's free plan includes a limited lifetime allotment of AI notes and recordings rather than an ongoing monthly allowance. Fireflies offers unlimited transcription and summaries free, but storage is capped at 400 minutes shared across the whole team. Otter caps its free plan at 300 minutes per month.

Does Microsoft Teams already have a built-in AI note taker?

Yes, through Microsoft 365 Copilot, which requires an add-on license (roughly $30/user/month on top of an existing qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription) and works only within Teams itself, so it won't capture meetings on Zoom, Google Meet, or in person.

What's the difference between a bot-based and bot-free AI note taker for Teams?

A bot-based tool joins the call as a visible participant that every attendee can see, which some organizations restrict for external or client calls. A bot-free tool captures system audio through a desktop app with no separate participant appearing, though the meeting platform's own recording notification still shows and the host still has to approve it.

Which AI note taker for Teams integrates directly with Salesforce or HubSpot?

Fellow, Fathom, Fireflies, and Read AI all offer native Salesforce and HubSpot sync, though the specific plan tier required varies: Fellow's advanced CRM sync sits on the Business plan and above, Fathom's field sync is Business-tier, and Fireflies requires at least the Pro plan.

Which AI note taker for Teams is HIPAA compliant?

Fellow, Fathom, Fireflies, and Krisp all offer HIPAA coverage with a signed BAA, but every one of them gates it to a specific tier: Fellow requires Enterprise, Fathom requires its Team plan or above, and Krisp requires its custom-priced Enterprise tier. Read AI's HIPAA compliance is exclusive to its top Enterprise+ tier, which carries a 10-license minimum. Granola is explicitly not HIPAA compliant and cannot sign a BAA as of this writing. Confirm current certification scope directly with any vendor before a compliance-driven purchase.

The bottom line

The right AI note taker for Microsoft Teams comes down to how your team actually meets: whether calls happen only in Teams or across several platforms, whether a visible bot on external calls is a problem, and whether you need the transcript to sync into a CRM or just live as a searchable note. Fellow covers the broadest set of those needs at once, with bot-free capture, cross-platform coverage, and Ask Fellow search built in. If your team is fully standardized on Teams, Microsoft 365 Copilot is a reasonable default. Otherwise, try Fellow as an AI meeting notetaker and compare it against whatever you're using today.