A good meeting note-taker should be easy to use, provide accurate and concise summaries, and offer helpful features like action items and talk time analysis.

To find the best AI meeting tool, we decided to put some of the most popular ones to the test in a unique way - a robot wars style showdown.

Before we dive into the results, it's worth noting that the signup process for all of these tools was very similar and straightforward. They also automatically sync with your calendar, which is a nice touch.

We gathered all the contenders in the same meeting and let them battle it out to see which one would come out on top. Our main criteria were ease of use and the amount of information provided in the email without the need to sign up. Here's how they fared:

Top AI Meeting Assistants:

1. tl;dv

I was a big fan of TL;DV as gives it you everything you need to read within its initial email. It also lets you make clips from part of your meeting so you can share important bits of your meetings with people who may have missed them. However, it takes some clicking around the dashboard to get to the important bits if you're using it on their site rather than just looking at the email.

Pros:

• Allows clipping and sharing of meeting clips

• Good email summary without signup

• Easy to use

Cons:

• May take some time to join and start recording meetings

• Requires clicking around the dashboard for important information

• If you have the free version, meetings go into “Archive” after 7 days meaning you have to wait 70 minutes before you view them again.

You can find tl;dv here : https://tldv.io/

2. Otter

Otter won the race as it processed our meeting and sent out its email first, however to see Otter’s notes you have to create an account. So Otter gets marked down in ease of use because ideally it should all be visible in the email.

Pros:

• Followed up with an email the soonest

• Supports separating meetings by workspaces for multiple teams

• Can transcribe uploaded audio and video files

Cons:

• Requires account creation to see notes

Try out Otter here: https://otter.ai/home

3. Nyota

Nyota gives lots of good information within the initial email, like reminders and an executive summary. It also provides very detailed summaries within its site.

However, it lost marks for posting in the meeting’s chat about a lack of agenda, which could look unprofessional if you’re dealing with picky.

Pros:

• Gives reminders and executive summary within the initial email

• Offers detailed summaries on the site

Cons:

• No free plan available

• Sent a message to everyone in the meeting about not preparing an agenda

• Cluttered dashboard

Here’s a link to try out Nyota : https://www.nyota.ai/

4. Read

Read has interesting features like bias detection (It detects potentially problematic words and phrases) and words per minute, but it took a hour to process the meeting into notes and somehow despite being automated it was 2 minutes late to the meeting. It also got marked down for having an incorrect action items and a cluttered dashboard.

Pros:

• Bias detection

• Words per minute analysis

Cons:

• 1 hour processing time

• Was 2 minutes late

• Cluttered dashboard

• Incorrect action items

• Relatively expensive compared to other options

You can test out Read for yourself here : https://www.read.ai/

5. Equal Time

Equal Time offers lots of interesting features like seeing who spoke the most and letting you get an estimate of how much the meeting cost, but it assumes everyone is on £100,000 a year, which is a bit strange given the current economic climate. It took 20 minutes to process and provided way too much unnecessary information.

Pros:

• Promotes inclusive meetings by tracking participation

• Shows who spoke the most

• Estimates meeting cost

Cons:

• User interface is not polished as other tools

• Assumes everyone earns £100,000 a year

• Took 20 minutes to process

• Provides too much information

If you want to try Equal Time you can find them here : https://app.equaltime.io/

6. Fireflies

Fireflies calculates talk time like Equal Time and gives further details like words per minute and action items per person. However, the action items weren’t accurate, and the dashboard is a bit cluttered. It does gain points for giving you the meeting notes without having to sign up, but it does constantly ask you to create an account.

Pros:

• Calculates talk time and words per minute

• Provides action items per person

• Gives meeting notes without signup

Cons:

• Inaccurate action items

• Cluttered dashboard

• Constantly asks to create an account

You can find Fireflies here : https://fireflies.ai/

7. Fathom

Fathom almost got disqualified as it did not provide a summary for our test meeting. However we have used it a bit before so can still offer a couple pros and cons

Pros:

• Provides a free version for individuals

• Gives a lot of the information about the meeting within an email without having to sign up.

Cons:

• Didn’t work in our test.

Here’s a link to Fathom https://fathom.video/

8. Fellow

Fellow took an hour to generate its summary, initially making me think it had broken. Eventually it provided a nice summary along with action items with tick marks. However, it provided no information in its email which loses it most of its points as having all the info accessible within an email is one of the most useful features of these tools.

Pros:

• Nice summary

• Action items with tick marks

Cons:

• Does not keep complete meeting transcripts

• Took 30 minutes to process

• No information in the email

Here’s a link to Fellow if you want to see it for yourself : https://fellow.app/

What about the built in solutions?

It's worth noting that we chose to use these AI meeting tools rather than the ones built into platforms like Teams, Zoom, and Google Hangouts because they are meeting agnostic. This means they can be used with any video conferencing platform which can be very useful as its likely you wont always be able to use your preferred meeting platform.

And the winner is…

In conclusion, while each AI meeting tool has its strengths and weaknesses, TL;DV ( https://tldv.io/) stood out for us as it provided the most useful information within the initial email without requiring sign-up, and has other useful features like being able to create clips of parts of the meeting to share.

However, the choice ultimately depends on your specific needs and preferences. For example if you are in more of a managerial role you might prefer using Fireflies or Equal Time as they allow you to track employee metrics easier.

We hope this robot wars style showdown has helped you make an informed decision about which AI meeting tool to use for your virtual meetings. Remember, a good AI meeting tool should make your life easier, not more complicated!