What I Was Trying to Accomplish
I take a lot of meeting notes.
Client calls. Team syncs. Project check-ins. One-on-ones. Most of them are recorded. Most of them need notes. Most of them need follow-up.
I've been taking notes manually for years. It's tedious. It's time-consuming. And I usually miss something.
So I decided to test three AI meeting-note tools. Same five meetings. Same conditions. Same goal: accurate notes with minimal effort.
I tested them over two weeks. Here's what happened.
What I Used
Tools: Three AI meeting-note tools (free tiers and trials)
Input: Five real meetings, ranging from 25 to 60 minutes
Task: Generate accurate notes, action items, and follow-up drafts
Time available: I used each tool on at least one meeting
Goal: Identify which tool (if any) was worth using
The Meetings
Here's what I tested them on.
Meeting 1: Client kickoff call, 45 minutes, 4 participants
Meeting 2: Internal team sync, 30 minutes, 6 participants
Meeting 3: Project check-in, 25 minutes, 3 participants
Meeting 4: One-on-one, 60 minutes, 2 participants
Meeting 5: Cross-team planning, 50 minutes, 7 participants
Different lengths. Different participant counts. Different levels of complexity. That was intentional. I wanted to see how each tool handled variety.
Tool 1: The Accurate but Slow One
What I used it for: Meetings 1 and 3
The pitch: High accuracy, speaker identification, custom vocabulary
What worked:
Speaker identification was accurate. It correctly identified who said what.
The notes were detailed. It captured almost everything.
Action items were clearly labeled.
It handled technical terms well.
What didn't work:
It was slow. A 45-minute meeting took about 10 minutes to process.
The notes were too detailed. They were almost transcripts, not summaries.
The interface was clunky. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to export the notes.
It was expensive. The paid plan was $20/month.
The verdict: Accurate but slow. If you need detailed notes and don't mind waiting, it's fine. If you want quick summaries, it's not.
Tool 2: The Fast but Incomplete One
What I used it for: Meetings 2 and 4
The pitch: Fast summaries, action items, follow-up emails
What worked:
It was fast. A 30-minute meeting took about 2 minutes to process.
The summaries were clean and readable.
The follow-up email draft was usable.
The interface was intuitive.
What didn't work:
It missed things. In the team sync, it missed two action items.
Speaker identification was inconsistent. It confused two people with similar voices.
It didn't handle technical terms well. It misheard a few product names.
The free tier was limited. I could only use it for three meetings before hitting the cap.
The verdict: Fast but incomplete. Good for quick summaries, not for detailed notes. I'd use it again for simple meetings, not complex ones.
Tool 3: The Cheap but Unusable One
What I used it for: Meeting 5
The pitch: Affordable, simple, no-frills meeting notes
What worked:
It was cheap. The paid plan was $5/month.
The interface was simple.
It was fast.
What didn't work:
The notes were unusable. It missed about half of what was said.
Speaker identification was wrong. It attributed quotes to the wrong people.
Action items were vague. It said "follow up" without saying who or when.
The summary was generic. It could have been for any meeting.
The verdict: Cheap but unusable. I'd rather take notes manually than use this.
Comparison
Here's how they stacked up.
Tool | Speed | Accuracy | Speaker ID | Action Items | Price | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Tool 1 | Slow (10 min) | High | Accurate | Clear | $20/mo | Accurate but slow |
Tool 2 | Fast (2 min) | Medium | Inconsistent | Mostly clear | Free/limited | Fast but incomplete |
Tool 3 | Fast (2 min) | Low | Wrong | Vague | $5/mo | Cheap but unusable |
What I Learned
Testing three tools taught me something.
Speed and accuracy are a trade-off. The fastest tool was the least accurate. The most accurate tool was the slowest. You have to pick which one matters more.
Speaker identification is hard. Only one tool got it consistently right. The others struggled with multiple speakers, similar voices, and cross-talk.
Action items are where tools fail. All three struggled with action items. They either missed them, attributed them wrong, or made them too vague.
Price doesn't predict quality. The cheapest tool was the worst. The most expensive tool was good but slow. The free tier was fast but incomplete.
You still need to check. None of these tools were accurate enough to use without review. I had to read every set of notes and fix errors.
What I'd Use Again
If I had to pick one, I'd pick Tool 2 for simple meetings and Tool 1 for complex ones.
Tool 2 is fast and good enough for team syncs and one-on-ones. Tool 1 is slow but accurate for client calls and detailed discussions.
Tool 3 I'd skip entirely.
The Math
Without AI: Taking notes manually took about 20 minutes per meeting.
With AI: Taking notes, reviewing, and editing took about 10 minutes per meeting.
Time saved: About 10 minutes per meeting. Not huge. But the notes were more consistent.
What Should We Test Next?
I'm curious what other people have tested.
Have you used AI meeting-note tools?
Which ones worked for you?
What about different meeting types (interviews, workshops, webinars)?
What about different languages?
I'd like to test more. Let me know what you'd want to see.
