There's a difference between merely taking notes during a meeting and synthesizing actionable intelligence from it. Note-taking captures what speakers said, while synthesizing intelligence connects what they said to what needs to happen next. Read AI takes notes and synthesizes intelligence.
Read AI is an AI assistant that captures meetings, emails, messages, and documents, then connects that information into a personal knowledge graph that allows you to search and engage with all of your data and content. Otter AI is a meeting notetaker that records meetings and creates searchable summaries that stay within meeting archives.
Both tools record and transcribe. But there's more to getting value from a meeting than documentation. The choice depends on your workflow: Do you need detailed records of what speakers said, or do you want to remember the details and also leverage AI in new ways that supercharge your capabilities and make work easier?
Read AI goes beyond meeting transcription. It captures interactions across meetings, emails, messages, and cloud storage, then builds a personal knowledge graph that connects decisions to execution.
Let’s say you’re a project manager who needs to check the status of an API commitment from Monday's standup. With a transcription tool, that means checking meeting notes, then Slack, then email, and reconstructing the timeline manually.
With Read AI's Search Copilot, one chat returns all relevant context: the Monday commitment, the back-and-forth in Microsoft Teams on Tuesday, the Thursday Slack thread mentioning a delay, and the Friday email confirming completion. You get the insights in one view rather than having to synthesizethem from three apps.
This cross-channel capability is Read AI's core differentiator. When a decision happens on a Zoom call, gets discussed in Slack or Teams, and is closed via email, Read AI connects those moments because it integrates with all three.
Read AI also delivers insights proactively through behavior-based agents:
The platform integrates with Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, Gmail, Outlook, Notion, HubSpot, Salesforce, Jira, Confluence, and more. These integrations create the mechanism that lets Read AI track decisions from meetings through execution in other systems.
Teams using Read AI attend 20% fewer meetings on average and have 33% fewer attendees per meeting. Users save 20 hours per month through meeting note-taking, Search Copilot, and proactive recommendations. Setup takes 20 minutes, not the weeks of configuration that enterprise search platforms typically require.
Read AI is the only company that functions as both a Zoom Essential App and a Google Add-On, with native integrations delivering higher-quality source material than third-party connectors.
The platform also uses proprietary multi-modal AI models that analyze not just what people say, but how they say it, including engagement signals and sentiment patterns visible in meeting reports. This feedback allows the system to understand priority and key moments/topics that matter.
Otter AI provides reliable transcription with speaker identification, searchable transcripts, and automated summaries. The platform joins calendared meetings, captures what speakers said, and surfaces action items within meeting notes. The tool works well for individuals and teams who need to reference meeting content.
Otter AI's strength is focused simplicity: detailed meeting documentation without the complexity of cross-platform integration. For teams that manage follow-up work manually without friction, this focused approach delivers value.
The major difference between Read AI and Otter AI is not what they do during meetings, but what happens to meeting content after the call ends. Understanding your workflow helps identify which approach fits.
Read AI optimizes for work coordination. Meeting content flows into messaging platforms, email, CRM records, and project tickets through integrations. Project managers, sales teams, and distributed organizations that need to track decisions across channels benefit most.
Otter AI optimizes for meeting archives. Transcripts and summaries live within the platform. Teams that keep meetings separate from other work channels, or who prefer focused, single-purpose tools, may find value in this approach.
Sales teams can spend anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes after each call on follow-up emails, CRM updates, and context synthesis. Read AI automates this work through integration with Salesforce and HubSpot. Call intelligence flows directly into CRM records without manual data entry. Meeting summaries and action items sync automatically.
The platform's CRM support goes further, recommending deal updates based on conversation signals and learning from wins and losses over time. This integrated approach provides meaningful operational advantages over transcription-only tools for organizations where CRM accuracy and deal visibility matter. It moves deals forward faster.
Otter AI provides transcripts and summaries, but CRM updates remain manual. Reps must copy information from meeting notes into Salesforce fields.
Both Read AI and Otter AI offer enterprise-grade security. Read AI is SOC 2 Type 2 and HIPAA-compliant, with custom data retention policies and opt-out-by-default privacy settings. The platform doesn't train on customer data by default.
Read AI workspaces bring teams together with centralized access, sharing controls, and administrative oversight. Teams can automatically share meeting reports, creating transparency and trust across the organization. When employees leave, their captured knowledge stays accessible to the team, providing insurance of intelligence that preserves institutional context through turnover.
Read AI's cross-platform approach does introduce integration dependencies. If your Slack workspace or CRM isn't connected, the cross-channel tracking that differentiates Read AI won't function for those channels. Organizations should verify that key platforms are supported before committing.
Otter AI's focused approach means fewer integration dependencies but also fewer automation capabilities. Teams that need cross-channel coordination will need to build manual processes to bridge the gap between meeting archives and downstream work systems.
Choose Read AI when:
Choose Otter AI when:
Read AI connects meeting decisions to execution across every channel where work continues. It's an AI assistant that captures interactions across meetings, emails, messages, and cloud storage, then surfaces insights when needed and proactively.
For project managers tracking action items, sales teams updating CRM records, and distributed organizations coordinating across time zones, this cross-channel approach eliminates the manual work of reconstructing context from scattered sources.
Otter AI delivers reliable transcription for teams that need meeting documentation without cross-platform complexity.
The decision depends on where your workflow bottleneck sits: capturing what speakers said, or connecting what they said to what got done. If meetings are where your work begins, Read AI connects them to everything that follows. If meetings are where your work ends, Otter AI documents them well.
Ready to see the difference? Try Read AI for free and experience cross-channel search, proactive recommendations, and automated action item tracking.
Using both creates redundancy since both transcribe meetings. Organizations typically choose based on whether they need standalone meeting documentation or cross-channel work coordination. Read AI's value compounds when it becomes your single source of truth across all interactions.
Both platforms offer free tiers. Read AI's free plan includes up to 5 meetings per month with unlimited Search Copilot queries across your connected platforms. Otter AI's free plan includes 300 transcription minutes per month with a 30-minute limit per conversation.
Pro tiers expand these limits and add advanced features. Read AI Pro adds proactive agents, such as Monday Briefing and Recommendations, CRM integrations, Speaker Coach, and cross-channel action-item tracking. Otter Pro increases transcription minutes and adds advanced search within meeting archives. The difference reflects each platform's focus: Otter expands transcription capacity, while Read AI expands how meeting intelligence integrates with your broader workflow.
Read AI itself offers a free tier with up to 5 meetings per month and unlimited Search Copilot queries. Other meeting tools, such as Otter AI and Fathom, offer free transcription but focus on meeting documentation rather than cross-channel intelligence. If you need meetings connected to email, Slack, and CRM systems, Read AI's free plan is the place to start.
Read AI users save 20 hours per month through automated meeting notes, Search Copilot, and proactive recommendations. Teams attend 20% fewer meetings and have 33% fewer attendees because context is accessible without scheduling calls. The value depends on how much time you currently spend reconstructing context from scattered sources, manually updating CRM records, or attending meetings just to stay informed. If those tasks consume hours each week, Read AI pays for itself quickly.
Otter AI offers mobile apps for in-person recording. Read AI's Desktop app captures in-person conversations and integrates them into the same personal knowledge graph as virtual meetings, making all your interactions searchable in one place. Read AI also has Android and iPhone capabilities, and as such, wins out against the competition in terms of the channels it supports.
© 2025 Read AI, Inc.
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