The average UK professional spends 10 hours per week in meetings. AI meeting tools record, transcribe, and summarise those conversations automatically – identifying action items, creating searchable archives, and ensuring nothing discussed gets lost in someone’s handwritten notes.
The market has matured rapidly. Five platforms now dominate, each with a different approach to pricing, accuracy, and integration. This guide compares them with UK-relevant pricing and honest assessments of transcription quality, privacy, and whether they actually save time or just create another app to manage.
- Otter.ai at £7/month (annual) offers the best accuracy for UK accents - real-time transcription plus AI-generated summaries and action items across Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet
- Fathom is completely free with unlimited recordings and no time limits - the strongest free option, supporting 28 languages with automatic CRM syncing to HubSpot and Salesforce
- Fireflies.ai at £8/month leads on language support with 100+ languages - best for international teams, with deep CRM integrations and a searchable conversation database
- Granola at £11/month processes everything locally on your device - ideal for privacy-conscious UK businesses handling sensitive client discussions or regulated data
- Start with Fathom’s free plan for 2-4 weeks before committing to paid - then upgrade to Otter.ai or Fireflies only if you need advanced search, analytics, or enterprise-grade security
AI Meeting Tools Compared
All five platforms join your video calls (Zoom, Teams, Google Meet), record and transcribe the conversation, and generate summaries with action items. The differences are in pricing models, accuracy, integrations, and how they handle your data.
| Tool | From (GBP) | Free Tier | Best For | Key Differentiator |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Otter.ai | £7/mo (annual) | 300 mins/mo, 30-min limit | General teams, live collaboration | Real-time transcription with speaker ID |
| Fireflies.ai | £8/mo (annual) | 800 mins storage, 10 credits | Multi-language teams, CRM users | 100+ languages, conversation intelligence |
| Fathom | Free (unlimited) | Unlimited recordings | Budget-conscious teams | Best free tier – no recording limits |
| Granola | £11/mo | 25 meetings | Privacy-focused individuals | Local processing, no audio recording |
| tl;dv | £15/mo | 10 recordings/mo | Sales teams | Native CRM sync, deal intelligence |
Otter.ai: Best All-Round Option
Otter.ai is the most established AI meeting tool, with over 25 million users. It provides real-time transcription during meetings with speaker identification, making it genuinely useful for live note-taking rather than just post-meeting review. The OtterPilot feature joins meetings automatically and generates summaries with action items.
The free tier includes 300 minutes per month with a 30-minute per-meeting limit – enough to test accuracy on your actual meetings. Pro ($8.33/month annual, approximately £7) extends to 1,200 minutes and 90-minute meetings. Business ($20/month annual, approximately £16) adds admin controls, usage analytics, and domain capture for automatic enrolment.
Otter integrates with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Transcription accuracy is consistently strong for English, though it struggles with heavy regional accents and technical jargon. For UK teams, expect 90-95% accuracy in standard business English, dropping to 80-85% with strong regional accents.
Fireflies.ai: Best for Multi-Language Teams
Fireflies.ai differentiates on language support (100+ languages) and conversation intelligence – it does not just transcribe, it analyses sentiment, tracks topics, and generates metrics like talk-to-listen ratio and longest monologue. For sales and customer success teams, these analytics provide coaching insights that simple transcription tools miss.
The free tier includes 800 minutes of storage and limited AI credits. Pro ($10/seat/month annual, approximately £8) adds unlimited transcription, 8,000 minutes of storage, and custom AI apps. Business ($19/seat/month annual, approximately £15) adds conversation intelligence, team insights, and priority support.
For UK businesses with international clients or multilingual teams, Fireflies is the clear choice. The conversation intelligence features also make it the strongest option for sales teams that do not need full CRM integration (for that, see tl;dv below).
Fathom: Best Free Option
Fathom offers unlimited free meeting recordings with no time limits – the most generous free tier in the category. The interface is clean and minimal, focusing on transcription, summaries, and action items without the feature bloat that makes other tools feel overwhelming.
The free plan includes unlimited recordings, AI summaries, and basic sharing. The paid Team Edition ($19/user/month, approximately £15) adds CRM integrations, team collaboration, and advanced AI features. Fathom was acquired by Notion in 2025, which may shape future integration with Notion’s workspace.
For individuals or small teams that want meeting transcription without paying anything, Fathom is the obvious choice. The limitation is team features – collaboration, analytics, and CRM sync all require the paid plan.
Granola: Best for Privacy
Granola takes a fundamentally different approach. It runs locally on your laptop, listens to your microphone during meetings, but never records audio or sends it to a server. Instead, it uses the audio context to enhance notes you type during the meeting – filling in details, adding structure, and generating action items from your rough notes.
This approach means your meeting audio never leaves your device. For UK businesses in regulated industries (legal, financial, healthcare) where recording conversations raises compliance issues, Granola is the only meeting AI tool that sidesteps the recording consent problem entirely.
Pricing is $14/month (approximately £11) for the Business plan after a free trial. The limitation is that Granola requires you to take at least some notes during the meeting – it enhances your notes rather than replacing them. If you want a fully passive tool that records and transcribes without any input, Granola is not the right choice.
tl;dv: Best for Sales Teams
tl;dv (too long; didn’t view) is purpose-built for sales and customer-facing teams. It records meetings, generates transcripts and summaries, but its real value is native CRM integration – automatically logging call notes, action items, and deal intelligence into HubSpot, Salesforce, and other CRM platforms.
The free tier includes 10 recordings per month. Pro ($19/user/month, approximately £15) adds unlimited recordings, CRM sync, and AI-powered deal insights. Business ($49/user/month, approximately £39) adds advanced analytics, custom workflows, and priority support.
For sales teams that currently spend 30+ minutes per day logging CRM notes after calls, tl;dv automates that workflow entirely. The ROI calculation is straightforward: if a salesperson’s time is worth £25/hour, saving 30 minutes per day pays for the subscription within two days.
How to Choose
| If You Need | Choose | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Best overall for UK teams | Otter.ai Pro | £7/mo |
| Free, unlimited recordings | Fathom | £0 |
| Multi-language support | Fireflies.ai | £8/mo |
| Privacy (no audio recording) | Granola | £11/mo |
| Sales CRM integration | tl;dv | £15/mo |
| Enterprise (M365 ecosystem) | Microsoft Copilot | £16/user/mo add-on |
For most UK businesses, start with Fathom (free) or Otter.ai Pro (£7/month) for one month. Measure how much time your team saves on meeting follow-ups. If the answer is more than 30 minutes per week, the subscription pays for itself. For Teams-heavy organisations, Microsoft Copilot bundles meeting AI into the broader M365 AI assistant.
For more AI productivity tools, see our best AI tools for business UK guide, or explore AI workflow automation to connect your meeting tools with the rest of your tech stack.
