Otter vs Zoom AI Companion: Transcription Compared (2026)

Zoom's transcript needs a paid plan; Otter's free plan stops each conversation at 30 minutes. Prices, bots and privacy checked 7 Oct 2026, plus a no-bot option.

Published October 7, 2026Updated October 9, 2026By KCF LLC

Zoom's built-in transcript and Otter.ai do the same basic job: they turn a meeting into text. They differ on who has to pay, who has to switch them on, whether a bot joins the call, and what happens to your audio. Both changed in 2026, and many comparisons still describe them as they were before. Every vendor fact on this page was checked on the vendor's own page on 7 Oct 2026; the sources are listed at the end.

The short answer

Your company already pays for Zoom and every call is on Zoom: use Zoom's meeting transcript. It costs nothing extra, but the host or an admin has to switch it on.
Your calls are spread across Zoom, Teams and Google Meet, and a bot in the call is fine: Otter's Notetaker joins all three. Its free plan stops each conversation at 30 minutes.
You want no bot in the call and no audio uploaded: join Zoom from your browser and use Meetings Brief's live meeting transcription, which transcribes the meeting tab on your own computer. It is free, with the limits set out below.

What changed in 2026

When	What changed	Source
24–26 May 2026	Zoom captions can no longer be saved after a meeting ends. To keep the text, you now need Zoom's meeting transcript.	Zoom help, KB0085668
24 Jun 2026	Zoom dropped the "AI Companion" name. The same features are still included with eligible paid plans, now called by what they do, such as meeting summary. ZoomMate is the name of Zoom's newer AI product.	Zoom blog, 24 Jun 2026
Checked 7 Oct 2026	Otter Pro allows up to 90 minutes per meeting; Business allows up to 4 hours.	otter.ai/pricing
Checked 7 Oct 2026	Otter's privacy policy says it trains its AI on de-identified audio recordings and on transcriptions.	Otter privacy policy
Help page updated 28 Sep 2026	Any participant can remove Otter's Notetaker by typing "stop otter" in the Zoom, Google Meet or Teams chat.	Otter help

People still search for "Zoom AI Companion", so this page uses both names.

Otter vs Zoom, side by side

Checked 7 Oct 2026 on each vendor's own page. "Zoom transcript" means the transcript built into Zoom Meetings. Otter prices are list prices per user; Otter's page also showed limited-time discounts on the day we checked.

Feature	Zoom transcript	Otter.ai	Meetings Brief live notes
Price	Meeting transcript needs a Pro, Business or Enterprise account	Basic: free. Pro: $16.99 a month, or $8.33 a month billed yearly. Business: $30 a month, or $19.99 a month billed yearly	Free, no account
What the free plan gives	Meeting summaries for 3 hosted meetings and My Notes 3 times a month; no meeting transcript	300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation, 3 file imports in total	No minute limit on transcription; a daily limit on briefs
Longest meeting	Free plan meetings end at 40 minutes	30 minutes (Basic), 90 minutes (Pro), 4 hours (Business)	No limit of its own
Who switches it on	The host or an admin; participants can ask the host	You, or Notetaker joins from your synced calendar	You, in your own browser
Bot in the participant list	No	Notetaker joins as a participant; the desktop app can record without it	No
Where the audio is processed	Zoom's cloud	Otter's servers	On your computer; only the text is sent to write the brief
Trains AI on your meetings	Zoom says it does not use customer audio, video or chat to train AI models	Its privacy policy says it trains on de-identified audio and transcriptions	No
Languages	Cloud-recording transcripts: 19 languages	English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese	You choose the language before you start
Speaker labels	Names, with "Unknown Speaker" you can rename (cloud recording)	Names; it learns the voices you tag	"You"/"Others" with Chrome on-device recognition and both audio sources; other modes do not identify participants
Export	Host: VTT file. Participants the host allows: TXT file	Free: MP3 and TXT. Paid: also PDF, DOCX and SRT	Copy the brief, or have it emailed with the transcript attached
Other platforms	My Notes takes notes in Teams and Google Meet with no bot	Notetaker joins Zoom, Teams and Google Meet	Any meeting open in a Chrome or Edge tab on a computer

Two rows matter most for most people: the price row, because Zoom's transcript is only "free" if someone already pays for Zoom, and the longest-meeting row, because Otter's free plan cuts a normal one-hour meeting in half.

What it costs for your meeting pattern

Worked out from the limits above, at about 4.3 weeks a month.

Your meetings	Minutes a month	Otter Basic (free)	Otter Pro	Zoom transcript
2 calls a week, 30 minutes each	about 260	Fits under 300 minutes, but any call that runs past 30 minutes is cut	Fits	Needs a paid plan for the host
4 calls a week, 60 minutes each	about 1,040	Does not fit: 30-minute cap and 300 minutes a month	Fits: 1,200 minutes, 90-minute cap	Included if the host already pays
One 2-hour workshop a week	about 520	Does not fit	Does not fit: 90-minute cap (Business allows 4 hours)	Included if the host already pays

Meetings Brief live notes has no minute limit of its own, but on Zoom's free plan the meeting itself still ends at 40 minutes.

Live text during the call

Zoom. On a paid plan, the host starts it from More → Transcript, and the text fills a panel beside the meeting. A participant can use the same menu to ask the host to start it. When the host allows it, Save transcript at the bottom of the panel saves a .TXT file to your computer.

Otter. Notetaker joins the meetings you host and the ones you are invited to through a calendar synced to Otter, and transcribes in real time. You can also add it to a meeting by hand. Otter's desktop app for Mac and Windows can record a Zoom meeting without Notetaker joining, but bot-free does not mean on your device: Otter's help page on recording offline says the app uploads the recorded audio to make the transcript.

Meetings Brief. In Chrome on a computer, supported on-device languages show draft words during speech, marked "You" (your microphone) or "Others" (the Zoom tab). The fallback adds text in roughly 30-second batches after model setup. Speed varies with the device and language; this is a description of the workflow, not a measured speed ranking against Otter or Zoom.

Privacy: where your audio goes, and who can train on it

Zoom processes meeting transcripts and summaries in its cloud. Its help page for meeting summaries says the feature "uses AI technology, which may include third-party models", and Zoom says it does not use customer audio, video, chat or other communications-like content to train its own or third-party AI models.

Otter stores conversations on its servers. Its privacy policy lists "training our proprietary AI technology on de-identified audio recordings and on transcriptions (which may contain Personal Information)" among the ways it uses data. Organizations can ask their Otter account manager to set a custom data-retention period.

Meetings Brief transcribes the meeting audio on your computer; the audio is not uploaded. When you stop, the transcript text is sent to Anthropic's API to write the brief, and it is not used to train models. The details are on our privacy page.

Whatever you use, the people in the meeting should know. Zoom shows its own notice when its transcript runs; a bot shows up in the participant list; with a browser tool nothing joins the call, so you tell people yourself. The rules by place are in is it legal to record meetings, and why a bot in the call changes what people say covers the human side.

How to stop Otter joining your Zoom calls

Many people searching "Otter vs Zoom" really want Otter out of a meeting. Otter's own help pages give two ways:

In the meeting: type stop otter in the Zoom chat. Otter says any participant can do this, including people without an Otter account, and it removes every Notetaker in the meeting.
For your own account: in Otter, open Integrations → Meetings → Default auto-join settings and choose Meetings I manually select. Notetaker then joins only the meetings you pick.

A third option: no bot, no audio uploaded

If neither a paid Zoom plan nor a bot works for you, Meetings Brief transcribes the call from your own browser. Nothing joins the call, so tell the others you are transcribing.

Join Zoom from your browser, using the "Join from your browser" link, in Chrome or Edge on a computer.
Open live meeting transcription in another tab, press Start transcription and allow the microphone, so your own voice is included.
Pick the Zoom tab in the sharing window and leave "Also share tab audio" switched on (it normally is). The other people's voices come from the shared tab.
Press Stop and finish when the meeting ends. A completed transcript of at least 150 words starts a brief request: summary, decisions, action items with stated owners, open questions and a follow-up draft. Automatic delivery needs a confirmed email and automatic email enabled. Short or interrupted captures wait for review; daily AI limits apply. The brief sends text to Anthropic, and email delivery uses Resend.

The limits, plainly: it is built for a meeting in a browser tab, so join Zoom from the browser; tab audio needs Chrome or Edge on a computer, and other browsers and phones listen through the microphone only; Chrome's on-device mode can mark "You" and "Others" when your microphone is included, but the fallback does not label speakers and neither mode identifies individual people in the meeting tab; and briefs have a daily limit per person.

Already have a recording? Transcribe the Zoom audio file in your browser: choose the .m4a file Zoom saves, and it is not uploaded. Saved Zoom's .TXT transcript instead? Paste it into the transcript box on live meeting transcription, which takes a full meeting, or put it into the free meeting summary generator, which reads a long one in sections.

Which should you use?

Does someone already pay for Zoom, and are all your calls on Zoom? Use Zoom's meeting transcript and ask the host or admin to switch it on.
Are your calls on several platforms, and is a bot acceptable to the people you meet? Otter fits, on Pro if your meetings run past 30 minutes.
Do you want no bot and no uploaded audio? Join from the browser and use Meetings Brief. Chrome's supported on-device mode can separate "You" from "Others" when your microphone is included; other modes do not identify speakers.
Do you mainly want notes in Teams or Google Meet from the Zoom app? Zoom's My Notes does that without a bot, three times a month on the free plan.

For more options beyond these two, see free Otter alternatives and the best AI meeting assistants for Zoom.

FAQ

Is Zoom AI Companion the same as ZoomMate? No. On 24 Jun 2026 Zoom dropped the AI Companion name. The features it covered, such as meeting summaries and transcription, are still included with eligible paid Zoom plans under plain names. ZoomMate is Zoom's newer AI product; Zoom's free plan includes a limited version.

Is Zoom's transcript free? Not on the free plan. Zoom's meeting transcript needs a Pro, Business or Enterprise account, and cloud-recording transcripts need Pro, Business, Education or Enterprise with cloud recording on. The free plan includes meeting summaries for 3 hosted meetings and My Notes 3 times a month, and since May 2026 captions cannot be saved after a meeting.

Does Otter work on a free Zoom plan? Yes. Otter says Notetaker is available on all Otter plans and all Zoom plans. Remember that Zoom's free plan ends meetings at 40 minutes and Otter's free plan stops each conversation at 30.

Can Otter join a meeting I don't host? Yes. Otter says Notetaker can join meetings you host and meetings you are invited to through calendar events synced to Otter, and you can add it to other meetings by hand.

Can participants remove Otter from a Zoom call? Yes. Otter says any participant, including someone without an Otter account, can type "stop otter" in the meeting chat to remove every Notetaker.

Does Otter train its AI on my meetings? Otter's privacy policy says it trains its AI on de-identified audio recordings and on transcriptions. Zoom says it does not use customer audio, video or chat to train AI models. Meetings Brief does not upload the audio, and the text it sends to write a brief is not used for training.

Can I get a Zoom transcript without recording the meeting? Yes. On a paid plan, Zoom's meeting transcript does not need a cloud recording; the host switches it on and it fills in during the meeting. On any plan, you can join from the browser and transcribe the tab with Meetings Brief's live meeting transcription. Tell the other participants first.