What is the best AI tool to transcribe and summarize Zoom meetings
Otter.ai is the most widely used AI tool for transcribing and summarizing Zoom meetings, offering real-time transcription, speaker identification, and auto-generated summaries. Fireflies.ai and Fathom are strong alternatives, especially if you need CRM integrations or a completely free plan with no minute cap.
Zoom meetings generate a lot of information that's easy to lose track of. AI transcription tools solve this by automatically joining your call, converting speech to text in real time, and producing a condensed summary with action items — so you don't have to take notes or rewatch recordings. Otter.ai integrates directly with Zoom and Google Meet. It identifies individual speakers, highlights key moments, and lets you search across all your past transcripts. The free plan covers 300 minutes per month, which is enough for most small teams getting started. Fireflies.ai takes a slightly different approach — it adds a bot to your meeting that records and transcribes, then syncs notes directly to tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Slack. If your team lives in a CRM, that integration alone can eliminate hours of manual data entry every week. Fathom stands out because its core product is completely free with no minute cap. It's particularly popular with sales teams and solo consultants who want clean call summaries without a subscription. For most office workers, starting with Fathom and upgrading only if you need CRM sync or advanced analytics is the most practical path.