Top 9 'Virtual-Scribe' AI Tools to try for automating notes and action items from your remote calls - Goh Ling Yong
Let's be honest: how many times have you walked away from a back-to-back schedule of Zoom or Teams calls feeling like you were present, but not truly there? You were busy trying to listen, contribute, and simultaneously type or scribble notes that, upon later inspection, look more like an abstract piece of art than a coherent record. This constant juggling act is a one-way ticket to meeting burnout.
The challenge of remote work isn't just about being on camera; it's about managing the cognitive load of a dozen different tasks at once. Taking accurate notes and identifying crucial action items while actively participating in a conversation is a skill few have mastered. What if you could offload that entire burden? What if you could have a perfect memory of every meeting, without ever having to type a single word during the call?
Welcome to the age of the 'virtual-scribe.' These are not just simple transcription services; they are powerful AI meeting assistants designed to join your calls, listen intently, and provide you with detailed transcripts, concise summaries, and perfectly organized lists of action items. They are your secret weapon for reclaiming your focus and making every meeting more productive. Here at the Goh Ling Yong blog, we've explored the landscape of these game-changing tools to bring you the best of the best.
1. Otter.ai
Otter.ai is often the first name that comes to mind in this space, and for good reason. It’s one of the pioneers of real-time AI transcription, and its platform is polished, reliable, and incredibly easy to use. Otter functions like a dedicated stenographer for your meetings, generating a live, running transcript that you can follow along with during the call. It automatically identifies different speakers and timestamps everything, creating a searchable record of your conversation.
The real magic happens after the meeting ends. Otter’s AI processes the conversation to generate a concise, automated summary, pulling out what it deems to be the most important points. It also highlights keywords and allows you to create a "custom vocabulary," which is a fantastic feature for teams that use specific jargon, acronyms, or have members with unique names. Its generous free tier makes it an accessible starting point for individuals, while its business plans offer enhanced features for teams.
Pro Tip: Take five minutes before your first major call to populate the "Custom Vocabulary" section. Add the names of your colleagues, clients, and key projects. This simple step dramatically improves the accuracy of your transcripts and saves you significant editing time later.
2. Fireflies.ai
If Otter is the reliable stenographer, Fireflies.ai is the intelligent research assistant. While it also provides excellent transcription and summaries, its true strength lies in its deep integrations and "conversation intelligence." Fireflies connects directly with your calendar and automatically joins any meeting with a video conference link. You don't even have to remember to invite it; it just shows up, ready to work.
Where Fireflies truly shines is in its post-meeting analysis and workflow automation. It integrates with dozens of platforms, including Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, and Asana. This means you can automatically log call notes in your CRM, create tasks in your project management tool based on action items discussed, and share key insights with your team in Slack. Its "Soundbites" feature lets you capture and share small, important snippets of a call, which is perfect for sharing customer feedback or executive decisions without making someone watch the whole recording.
Example Use Case: Imagine a sales call where a client mentions a key requirement. With Fireflies integrated with Asana, you can highlight that part of the conversation and have an action item like "Develop a proposal for Client X's new feature request" automatically created and assigned to the right person in your project board.
3. Fathom
For those hesitant to commit to a monthly subscription, Fathom is a showstopper. It is a powerful, feature-rich AI meeting assistant that is currently 100% free for personal use. Fathom's unique approach is its in-meeting overlay. During your Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet call, a small, unobtrusive panel sits on your screen, allowing you to click buttons to highlight key moments in real-time.
Did a client just voice an objection you want to review later? Click the "Objection" button. Did your team just agree on a critical next step? Click the "Action Item" button. When the call is over, Fathom instantly generates a beautiful summary page with the full transcript, the recording, and all the moments you highlighted, neatly categorized. You can then copy and paste these summaries and action items into any tool you use with a single click.
Pro Tip: Customize Fathom's highlight buttons to match your specific workflow. If you're in user research, you might create buttons for "Pain Point," "Feature Request," and "Positive Feedback." This turns Fathom into a bespoke tool tailored precisely to your needs.
4. Sembly AI
Sembly AI positions itself as a smart team member that not only records what was said but deeply understands it. It’s designed for teams who want to turn messy conversations into structured, actionable outcomes. One of its standout features is the "Glance View," a visually intuitive mind-map-style summary that shows you the key topics, decisions, and issues discussed, making it easy to grasp the essence of a long meeting in seconds.
Beyond transcription, Sembly generates high-quality meeting minutes, often referred to as "SEMBLE-notes." It identifies risks, requirements, and even doodles out ideas discussed during the meeting. Its powerful semantic search allows you to ask questions like, "What did we decide about the Q4 budget?" and get an instant answer pulled from all your past meetings. It’s an excellent choice for project managers, product teams, and anyone who needs to maintain a clear, organized record of decisions over time.
Example Use Case: After a quarterly planning session, use Sembly's Glance View to quickly identify the main strategic pillars decided upon. You can then share this visual summary with stakeholders who weren't on the call for a fast, easy-to-digest update.
5. Grain
Grain is built for people who believe that seeing is as important as reading. While it transcribes your calls, its core focus is on helping you capture and share video highlights. Think of it as a video-first note-taker. During a call, you can take timestamped notes, and Grain automatically creates a short video clip of that exact moment.
This is incredibly powerful for user researchers, hiring managers, and sales teams. Instead of telling your product team, "The user was confused by the checkout process," you can send them a 30-second Grain clip of the user actually expressing their confusion. This creates an emotional connection and provides context that plain text simply can't. You can stitch multiple clips together into "Stories" to build a compelling narrative, making it a fantastic tool for qualitative data analysis and internal communication.
Pro Tip: Create a "Highlight Library" in Grain for your team. Every time you capture a great piece of customer feedback, a powerful testimonial, or an important internal decision, add it to the shared library. This builds a searchable, invaluable repository of institutional knowledge.
6. tl;dv
Standing for "too long; didn't view," tl;dv is another excellent video-centric tool, particularly for global teams. Like Grain, it excels at recording, transcribing, and allowing you to create shareable video clips from your meetings. Its biggest differentiator is its exceptional multilingual support. It can transcribe meetings in over 20 languages, making it a must-have for international organizations.
The user experience is slick and intuitive. You can set timestamps and add notes during or after the call, and jumping to specific moments in the recording is effortless. The ability to tag colleagues in notes (e.g., "@gohlingyong can you follow up on this?") automatically sends them a notification with a link to that exact moment in the conversation, streamlining handoffs and accountability. It’s a fantastic way to keep everyone in the loop without forcing them to sit through hour-long recordings.
Example Use Case: Your engineering team is in Berlin and your marketing team is in Singapore. With tl;dv, the marketing team can hold a meeting in English, and a German-speaking engineer can quickly read the German transcript or get key points without having to parse the original English audio, breaking down communication barriers.
7. Avoma
Avoma is a step up in complexity and power, positioning itself as a comprehensive Conversation and Revenue Intelligence platform. While it has a fantastic AI note-taker at its core, it’s geared more towards customer-facing teams like sales, customer success, and marketing. It doesn't just transcribe; it analyzes conversations for patterns and insights.
Avoma provides detailed analytics on your calls, such as talk-to-listen ratios, topic trends, and keyword mentions. It helps managers coach their teams by allowing them to review call recordings, leave time-stamped feedback, and identify best practices from top performers. If your goal isn't just to remember what was said, but to actively improve how your team communicates with customers, Avoma is an incredibly powerful, albeit more premium, option.
Pro Tip: Use Avoma’s "Playlists" feature to onboard new sales reps. Curate a playlist of your best discovery calls, objection-handling moments, and successful closing conversations. This provides new hires with real-world examples and accelerates their learning curve dramatically.
8. Krisp
Many people know Krisp as a best-in-class noise-cancellation app. It magically removes background noise—from barking dogs to crying babies—from your calls. What many don't know is that Krisp has evolved into a full-fledged AI meeting assistant. This makes it a unique two-for-one solution: you get pristine, professional audio on every call, plus automated notes and summaries.
The Krisp bot joins your meeting to handle the transcription and note-taking, operating independently of its noise-cancellation feature. The result is a single, lightweight application that solves two of the biggest problems in remote meetings: distracting background noise and the burden of taking notes. If you're looking to consolidate your tech stack and appreciate a minimalist approach, Krisp is a compelling and efficient choice.
Example Use Case: You're working from a busy coffee shop. Krisp's noise cancellation ensures your colleagues only hear your voice. Simultaneously, its AI assistant is capturing every word, so you can focus on the conversation instead of being distracted by your environment or the need to type.
9. Read.ai
Read.ai takes a different approach. It’s less about what was said and more about how the meeting went. It's a meeting intelligence platform that provides analytics and a "report card" for every call to help you improve meeting effectiveness and culture. Yes, it provides transcripts and summaries, but its real value is in the meta-analysis.
After a call, Read.ai gives you a detailed report with metrics like engagement scores, sentiment analysis, and talk time distribution. You can see who dominated the conversation, whether participants seemed engaged or bored, and get an overall score for the meeting's effectiveness. It even provides coaching tips, suggesting things like "Try to include [Quiet Participant's Name] more in the next discussion." For leaders serious about combating meeting fatigue and fostering a more inclusive and productive meeting culture, Read is an eye-opening tool.
Pro Tip: As a team leader, review your team's weekly Read.ai summary report. Look for trends. Are meetings consistently running over? Is one person dominating every conversation? Use these data-driven insights to start a constructive conversation with your team about improving your meeting habits.
Reclaim Your Focus, One Meeting at a Time
The relentless pace of back-to-back virtual meetings doesn't have to lead to burnout. By leveraging the power of a 'virtual-scribe,' you can delegate the tedious task of note-taking and truly focus on what matters: connecting, collaborating, and driving decisions forward.
Whether you need a simple, free tool like Fathom, a video-centric powerhouse like Grain, or a deep analytics platform like Read.ai, there's a solution out there that fits your workflow. The key is to experiment. Many of these tools offer free trials or generous free tiers, so pick one or two that catch your eye and take them for a spin. You might be surprised by how much mental energy you get back.
Which of these tools are you most excited to try? Do you have a favorite AI meeting assistant that didn't make the list? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below! We'd love to hear from you.
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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