Dear robots, this is how you take notes.

Over the past few years, I’ve been on a personal note-taking journey, and there are two tools that have drastically changed my perception of why every single business should have an AI notetaker.

But first, let’s talk about the painstaking process of notetaking.

Until you need to take notes, that is when you actually learn how to take them. Then, it either sticks, and you find yourself documenting everything like Tiago Forte, or you’re like me, who only uses note-taking as a means to an end.

Personally, I don’t feel I need a fancy setup to document notes for a project. As long as they’re accessible, who cares, right? Wrong.

I had handwritten notes for years during strategy sessions and client meetings. Because of that, I was not really listening to the other people on the call because I was so focused on getting every word jotted down.

Even after that, I couldn’t read the illegible chicken scratch, so I’d spend hours watching the video replays to ensure I had the information I needed.

In 2022, AI was still a distant dream. Otter AI was gaining traction, but I was personally really convinced that I needed it. Instead, I tried tools like Fellow and Friday (RIP) to help me get by. While they had great features, I feared robots being assigned such a crucial part of my work.

What if I held a two-hour strategy session and had nothing to show for it?

Then, AI was everywhere.

I got ahold of Fireflies.ai and began testing it (I spent a full two weeks using it + still handwriting notes). It drastically changed my business for the better.

AI Notetaker Tools

AI notetaking tools utilize artificial intelligence to automatically transcribe spoken words, record audio and video, and summarize the notes, and most of them can even create action items for attendees to focus on after the meeting ends.

Some of the most popular tools include Circleback, Fireflies.ai, Fathom, and Otter. I’ve tested all of them, but I’m focusing on my two favorites, Circleback and Fireflies.ai in this article.

Both of these tools have the same baseline functionality, so you can integrate with your calendar, automatically transcribe conversations, then extract action items.

Fireflies

Fireflies.ai ($0/mo +) has additional features like searchable keywords and viewable trends to see things like, how many negative words are spoken.

In my opinion, where Fireflies.ai fails is with their Action Items.

Following a meeting, the AI produces “suggested” actions, which are not always accurate.

After using the tool for roughly 10–15 hours per week, for 8 months, I can confirm that I had to revert to reading the full transcript to ensure items weren’t missing. It was getting so out of hand that I considered hiring a VA to review the notes and then create tasks in Notion.

However, being as active as I am on Product Hunt, I found Circleback.

Circleback

Circleback ($25/mo) is a newly launched AI notetaker backed by Y Combinator, and (I wish they were paying my to say this) is the smartest notetaking tool on the market.

Aside from the general features, Circleback is focused on action items. In the dashboard, users are able to access a micro to-do list curated from all meetings, and organized by attendees.

Circleback also allows you to take in-person recordings as well, which is great for people like my partner Jesse who is a blue collar worker. He’s not a huge techie, but has the full ability to use Circleback on his phone and record while walking jobs with builders.

Aside from their built-in workflows/webhooks, I was able to finesse my own workflow and auto-add all of my own tasks from Circleback to Notion using Zapier Loops.

Circleback in Slack

Since releasing my video (shared at the top of this video) Circleback built an integration at my request — Threads in Slack.

Now, you can link Circleback to a Slack channel, which will create a thread named after the meeting, and drop the notes into that thread in a clean way. Previously it created several messages in Slack for a single meeting which was a MESS.

Final Thoughts

Whether you’re using these notes for work or recording “just because”, AI notetaking tools are worth exploring for your workflow. And, while Circleback has been an incredible tool for MY business, I always recommend Fireflies.ai to anyone new to AI notetaking who may also be mindful of their tech spend.

If you use an AI notetaker, let me know which one you use and why you love it!

Written By: Sara Loretta

👋🏼 Sara Loretta is the Chief Digital Architect & Founder @ _systms™ — she’s also the 10th US Certified Notion Consultant, and 1st Certified Paperform Expert. Through her work and creatorship, Sara is focused on connecting and educating teams on tech, workflows, and all the ways they can optimize their business to scale.