AI Meeting Assistants Compared: Otter, Fireflies, Fathom and More

TL;DR

• We compare 8 AI meeting assistants (Otter, Fireflies, Fathom, Grain, Clearword, Tactiq, tl;dv, Krisp) on the things that matter in daily use
• Price is a poor guide to transcription quality, so test tools on your own meetings before committing
• Action item extraction and integrations are where tools differ most
• The ROI maths is simple: if a tool saves 15 minutes of admin per meeting across 20 meetings a week, that's 5 hours a week, far more than a typical subscription costs

# AI Meeting Assistants Compared: 8 Tools and What Actually Works

You're in back-to-back meetings all day. Thirty minutes after each one, you're scrambling to remember what was decided, who's responsible for what, and where you put that one specific piece of information someone mentioned.

So you buy an AI meeting assistant. It joins your calls, transcribes everything, extracts action items. Problem solved.

Except which one do you choose? There are dozens of AI meeting tools on the market. They all claim high accuracy. They all promise "automatic summaries." They all cost roughly the same.

Marketing claims won't tell you which one fits your team. This guide compares eight leading tools on the things that matter day to day, and shows you how to run your own test before you commit.

How to Evaluate a Meeting Assistant

The only accuracy figures worth trusting are the ones you measure on your own meetings.

Run Your Own Test

Pick a representative sample of meetings:

• Sales calls (prospect conversations)
• Internal team meetings (standups, planning, reviews)
• Client meetings (project updates, feedback sessions)
• Customer support escalations

Shortlist two or three tools from these eight:

• Otter.ai
• Fireflies.ai
• Fathom
• Grain
• Clearword
• Tactiq
• tl;dv
• Krisp

Compare their outputs against:

1. Ground truth transcripts: Human-verified transcripts of a handful of meetings
2. Action item checklist: A manual list of every action item mentioned vs what each tool extracted
3. Time saved: Time to complete post-meeting tasks with vs without the assistant

What to Measure

1. Transcription accuracy

• Word error rate (WER)
• Speaker identification accuracy
• Timestamp precision

2. Action item extraction

• Recall: % of actual action items detected
• Precision: % of extracted "action items" that were actually real
• Assignment accuracy: Did it correctly identify *who* was assigned

3. Summary quality (human evaluation)

• Completeness: Did it capture all key points?
• Conciseness: Could you skim it in <2 minutes?
• Actionability: Could you act on the summary alone?

4. Integration & UX

• Ease of setup
• CRM integration quality
• Search functionality
• Mobile app quality

5. Real ROI

• Time saved per meeting
• Cost per meeting
• Payback period

Quick Comparison

There is no single winner. The "best" tool depends on your use case.

• For sales teams: Fathom (built specifically for sales workflows)
• For general use: Fireflies (best value for money)
• For video analysis: Grain (clip creation, coaching)
• For enterprises: Otter (best CRM integrations)
• For product teams: Clearword (async product updates)

Transcription Accuracy

It's tempting to assume premium tools will beat budget options on accuracy. In practice, price is a poor guide. Accuracy depends heavily on your audio quality, accents, jargon and meeting type, and different tools are tuned for different kinds of conversation. A tool that handles clear one-to-one sales calls well may struggle with a noisy internal meeting full of crosstalk.

For your use case:

• Test on the meeting type you run most often
• Include your noisiest, most jargon-heavy meetings in the trial

Where Errors Happen

Across tools, these are the places AI transcription consistently struggles:

1. Technical jargon

Actual: "We need to implement SSO via SAML"

Transcribed: "We need to implement S.S.O. via sandal"

Fix: Most tools let you add custom vocabulary. Spend 10 minutes adding your company's acronyms and product names.

2. Homophones in context

Actual: "We should meet to discuss the quarterly forecast"

Transcribed: "We should meat to discuss the quarterly forecast"

Impact: Low (you understand from context)

3. Fast speakers

Actual: [Someone speaking very quickly]

Transcribed: [Garbled mess]

Fix: Slow down, and compare how your shortlisted tools cope with your fastest speakers.

4. Background noise

Actual: [Clear speech with dog barking in background]

Transcribed: [Skips words, mishears others]

Fix: Use noise cancellation (Krisp is built around it) or mute when not speaking.

5. Overlapping speakers

Actual: [Two people talking simultaneously]

Transcribed: [Attributes words to wrong person, drops words]

Fix: None of these tools handle crosstalk well. Don't talk over each other.

6. Accents

Actual: [A speaker pronouncing "schedule" as "shedule"]

Transcribed: "shed-yule" or "she dual"

Fix: Accuracy usually drops for accents the model has seen less of, and tools differ here. If your team or customers span several countries, make sure those voices are in your trial.

Action Item Extraction: Where Tools Actually Differ

Transcription accuracy is table stakes. The real value is automatic action item extraction.

And this is where tools diverge.

Test It Yourself

Take a handful of recent meetings, list every action item by hand, then check what each shortlisted tool extracted. Look at three things: how many real action items it found, how many of its "action items" were real, and whether it assigned them to the right person. Every missed action item is a task that quietly never happens.

Real Examples: What Gets Missed

Implicit action items (hardest to detect):

Conversation:

"Yeah, that pricing page needs to be clearer."

"Totally agree."

"Cool."

Implied action: Someone needs to revise pricing page.

Strong tool: ✅ Extracts "Revise pricing page for clarity (unassigned)"

Weak tool: ❌ Misses it entirely

Conditional action items:

Conversation:

"If we hit 500 signups this month, let's run that beta program Sarah proposed."

Implied action: Sarah to prepare beta program (conditional on 500 signups)

Strong tool: ✅ Extracts "Sarah: Prepare beta program (if we hit 500 signups)"

Middling tool: ⚠️ Extracts "Run beta program (Sarah)" but drops the condition

Weak tool: ❌ Misses it entirely

Subtle assignments:

Conversation:

"Someone should email the design team about that icon issue."

"I can do that."

Implied action: [Second speaker] to email design team

Strong tool: ✅ Correctly identifies the second speaker as assignee

Middling tool: ⚠️ Extracts the action but misses who volunteered

Weak tool: ❌ Misses it entirely

What separates the strong tools:

They understand:

• Implicit commitments ("I'll look into that")
• Conditional tasks ("if X happens, do Y")
• Volunteer patterns ("I can handle that")
• Delegation language ("Can you..." "Would you...")

Weaker tools catch explicit action items ("ACTION: John to send proposal by Friday") but miss subtle commitments.

Summary Quality: Subjective But Important

Judge summaries on three dimensions:

1. Completeness: Did it capture all key points?

2. Conciseness: Could you scan it in <2 minutes?

3. Actionability: Could you act on just the summary without reading transcript?

Key differences in style:

Structured summaries:

• Agenda → Discussion → Decisions → Action Items
• Concise bullet points
• Clear next steps

Narrative summaries:

• Longer paragraphs (harder to scan)
• Capture more detail (sometimes too much)
• Less structure

Example comparison (same 30-min sales call):

Structured summary:

**Key Discussion Points:**
• Prospect needs solution for 50-person sales team
• Current process: manual data entry, 6 hours/week wasted
• Budget: £15K-£20K annually
• Decision timeline: End of Q4
• Competitors evaluated: Salesforce, HubSpot

**Decisions Made:**
• Move forward with product demo next week
• Prospect to invite VP Sales to demo

**Action Items:**
• [Us] Send calendar invite for demo - Nov 15, 2pm
• [Us] Prepare custom demo focusing on sales automation
• [Prospect] Review pricing page before demo
• [Prospect] Confirm VP Sales availability

Narrative summary:

The call began with introductions. John from Acme Corp explained that they're a 150-person company in the SaaS space. He mentioned they've been growing rapidly and are looking for better tools to help their sales team be more efficient. The sales team currently consists of 50 people across 3 regions...

[continues in verbose paragraph format for several hundred more words]

Which would you rather read?

Most people prefer the concise, structured format. But if you want notes capturing every detail, a longer narrative summary is a feature, not a bug.

Integration & User Experience

Features that matter in daily use:

Calendar Integration

Auto-join is critical. If you have to manually start recording each meeting, you will regularly forget.

CRM Integration

Fathom CRM integration is exceptional:

• Auto-creates call notes in Salesforce/HubSpot
• Syncs action items to tasks
• Links to contact/deal records
• Updates deal stage based on conversation

Fireflies is close second with robust CRM sync.

Tactiq and Krisp have zero CRM integration -you're copy-pasting everything manually.

Search & Retrieval

How easy is it to find specific information from past meetings?

A useful test: "Find all mentions of pricing objections in Q3 calls"

Fireflies search is outstanding:

• Searches transcripts, action items, summaries
• Filters by speaker, date, topic, sentiment
• Smart filters ("show me objections," "find action items assigned to me")

Fathom search is fast but basic:

• Keyword search works well
• Fewer advanced filters
• Sufficient for most use cases

Mobile App Quality

If you take meetings on mobile: Otter or Fireflies are most mature.

Fathom has an iOS app but no Android version yet. Mobile support changes often, so check before you commit.

Real ROI: Time Saved and Cost Analysis

Let's work through the return on investment with an example.

Time Saved Per Meeting

Here's an illustrative breakdown of post-meeting admin:

Without AI assistant:

• Review notes: 5 min
• Identify action items: 3 min
• Email action items to team: 4 min
• Update CRM/project management: 6 min
• Total: 18 minutes per meeting

With a well-integrated assistant:

• Review AI summary: 2 min
• Verify action items: 1 min
• AI auto-sends action items: 0 min
• AI auto-updates CRM: 0 min
• Total: 3 minutes per meeting

Time saved: 15 minutes per meeting

At 20 meetings/week:

• Weekly savings: 5 hours
• Annual savings: 260 hours
• Value at £50/hr: £13,000/year

With a basic tool that misses action items and has no integrations:

• Review AI summary: 3 min
• Manually find missed action items: 5 min (lower accuracy)
• Manually email action items: 4 min (no auto-send)
• Manually update CRM: 6 min (no integration)
• Total: 18 minutes per meeting

Time saved: 0 minutes per meeting

The cheaper tool can cost you more in wasted time.

Cost Comparison

Prices change often, so check each vendor's current pricing page.

ROI calculation:

ROI = (Time Saved × Hourly Rate - Annual Cost) / Annual Cost × 100

Example (a tool costing £216/year that saves 200 hours at £50/hr):
ROI = (200 hrs × £50 - £216) / £216 × 100
    = (£10,000 - £216) / £216 × 100
    ≈ 4,530%

At these prices, almost any tool that genuinely saves time pays for itself many times over. The real question is how much time it actually saves your team, which is why the trial matters.

Use Case Recommendations

Which tool should you choose? Depends on your primary use case.

For Sales Teams: Fathom

Why Fathom wins:

• Built specifically for sales workflows
• Exceptional CRM integration (Salesforce, HubSpot)
• Automatically extracts deal stage, next steps, objections
• Call coaching features (talk time analysis, filler words, monologue alerts)
• Free (hard to beat)

Fathom features sales teams love:

• Deal intelligence (automatically updates opportunity stage)
• Competitive mentions (flags when competitors are mentioned)
• Pain point extraction
• Buying signals detection

Where the time goes back: reps who update the CRM by hand after every call lose a chunk of each day to it. When the assistant logs budget, timeline and decision-makers automatically, that admin largely disappears.

For Internal Meetings: Fireflies or Clearword

Why Fireflies wins:

• Best value for money (£18/month)
• Excellent search across all meetings
• Good action item extraction
• Conversation intelligence (analyzes meeting patterns, talk time, sentiment trends)

Why Clearword is alternative:

• Async meeting summaries (great for distributed teams)
• Integrates with Notion, Slack
• Live meeting assistance (can answer questions during meeting)
• Product management focus (features mentioned, feedback captured)

Comparison:

For Video Analysis & Coaching: Grain

Why Grain wins:

• Video clip creation (highlight reels from meetings)
• Timestamped moments
• Coaching scorecards
• Video library with tags

Grain use cases:

• Sales coaching (review call recordings with reps)
• Customer feedback analysis (clip customer quotes)
• Product demos (create highlight reels)
• User research (tag themes across interviews)

How a coaching workflow might look: after each call, a sales manager clips great discovery questions, objection handling or closing techniques, and the SDR team watches a few clips each week.

For Budget-Conscious: Tactiq or tl;dv Free Tier

If you need:

• Basic transcription
• Manual action item extraction (you'll read the transcript yourself)
• Occasional meeting recording (5-10 meetings/month)

Then Tactiq (£8/month) or tl;dv (free tier) work fine.

Don't expect:

• High accuracy
• Automatic CRM sync
• Advanced search
• Smart action item detection

You'll spend more time reviewing and correcting, but if budget is tight, they're functional.

For Enterprises: Otter

Why Otter for large companies:

• SSO (single sign-on) for security
• Admin controls and user management
• Extensive integrations (Zoom, Teams, Slack, Salesforce, etc.)
• Compliance features (data retention policies, encryption)
• Volume pricing (discounts for 100+ seats)

Otter may not be the most accurate or the smartest, but it has long focused on enterprise features. Check its current plans, as they change often.

Common Questions & Misconceptions

Q: "Can I use multiple tools simultaneously?"

A: Technically yes, but don't.

Running 2-3 AI assistants on the same call day to day:

• Confuses participants (3 bots joining)
• Drains bandwidth (multiple bots can slow calls)
• Provides little additional value (transcripts are largely identical)

Running tools side by side briefly during a trial is fine; just don't make it permanent.

Pick one tool. Commit to it.

Q: "Does speaker identification work with 10+ people?"

A: It struggles.

Speaker identification is reliable in small calls and gets steadily worse as the number of participants grows. In large meetings (10+ people), expect frequent misattribution.

Why: Similar voices, people talking over each other, microphone quality varies

Workaround: Have participants introduce themselves at start ("This is Sarah from Marketing"). Helps AI learn voice patterns.

Q: "Will these tools work for non-English meetings?"

A: Some do, most don't.

For multilingual teams: Fireflies or Fathom

Q: "Can AI assistants join in-person meetings?"

A: Yes, but awkwardly.

You can run the mobile app and place your phone in the center of the table. Audio quality will be poor (one microphone picking up multiple speakers).

Better solution: Use a conference room setup with:

• Dedicated speakerphone (like Jabra or Poly)
• AI assistant joining via room's computer/tablet

Or: Just have everyone join via their laptops (even if in same room) so audio is clear.

Setup Best Practices

You've chosen your tool. Here's how to deploy it properly.

Day 1: Configuration

1. Connect calendar (5 min)

• Grant access to Google Calendar or Outlook
• Set auto-join preferences (join all vs specific meetings)
• Exclude personal/private calendars

2. Customize vocabulary (10 min)

• Add your company name
• Add product names
• Add common acronyms (OKR, MRR, ARR, etc.)
• Add team member names (especially non-Western names)

3. Integrate tools (15 min)

• Connect CRM (Salesforce/HubSpot)
• Connect Slack for notifications
• Connect project management (Asana/Monday/Notion)

4. Set privacy preferences (5 min)

• Who can access recordings?
• Auto-delete after X days?
• Exclude certain meeting types (1:1s, HR meetings, etc.)

Week 1: Team Training

Don't just turn it on and hope people use it.

Training session (30 minutes):

Agenda:

1. Why we're using this (5 min)
2. How it works (demo: 10 min)
3. How to access transcripts/summaries (5 min)
4. How to edit/share/search (5 min)
5. Q&A (5 min)

Key messages:

• "This bot joining meetings is normal"
• "Transcripts are for internal use only (not shared externally)"
• "You can exclude sensitive meetings (just don't invite the bot)"
• "Review summaries within 24 hours while memory is fresh"

Month 1: Adoption Monitoring

Track these metrics:

If adoption is low (<50% of meetings recorded):

Common issues:

• People forget to invite bot → Set auto-join for all meetings
• Bot is annoying participants → Educate on value ("You'll get transcript + action items")
• Tool is hard to use → Provide quick reference guide
• Output quality is poor → Review settings, add custom vocabulary

The Tools You Shouldn't Buy (And Why)

This guide covers 8 tools. There are many more on the market. Here's why some didn't make the list:

Laxis: Limited integrations, focused only on sales

Avoma: Expensive (£60/month), overlaps with Gong/Chorus (if you already have those)

Sembly: Limited track record, small user base, uncertain future

MeetGeek: Rebranded recently, unclear positioning, mediocre reviews

Airgram: No standout features, middle-of-pack on everything

General rule: Stick with the leaders (Otter, Fireflies, Fathom, Grain). They have funding, active development, and large user bases ensuring they'll be around in 2+ years.

Next Steps: Choose and Deploy This Week

Now decide.

This week:

• [ ] Choose your tool based on use case (sales = Fathom, general = Fireflies, video = Grain)
• [ ] Start free trial (all offer 14-30 day trials)
• [ ] Configure calendar integration
• [ ] Test on 5 meetings

Week 2:

• [ ] Review first 5 meeting summaries
• [ ] Check action item accuracy
• [ ] Train team on how to use
• [ ] Deploy to full team

Month 2:

• [ ] Analyze time savings
• [ ] Survey team on satisfaction
• [ ] Optimize settings based on feedback
• [ ] Calculate ROI to justify cost

The only failure mode: Analysis paralysis. They're all good enough. Pick one (we recommend Fathom or Fireflies) and start. You can always switch later.

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Ready to cut the time you spend on meeting admin? OpenHelm integrates with all major meeting assistants and can automatically route action items to your team's workflows. Connect your tools →

Related reading:

• Voice AI for Customer Support
• AI Workflow Automation
• Multi-Agent Systems

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How do I evaluate total cost of ownership?

Beyond subscription costs, factor in implementation time, training needs, integration work, ongoing maintenance, and the cost of switching if the tool doesn't work out. The cheapest option rarely has the lowest total cost.

Q: When should I switch tools versus optimise current ones?

Switch when the tool fundamentally can't support your requirements, is becoming unsupported, or is significantly limiting growth. Optimise first when pain points are process-related rather than capability-related.

Q: Should I choose the market leader or a challenger?

Market leaders offer stability and ecosystem benefits; challengers often provide better support and innovation velocity. Consider your risk tolerance, integration needs, and whether you'd benefit from closer vendor relationships.