If your workday is a blur of Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet calls, you know the pain: you nod along, promise to follow up, and by Friday you cannot remember who said what. AI meeting assistants fix exactly this — they join your calls, transcribe everything, and hand you summaries, action items, and searchable notes. But which one should you trust with your meetings?
I tested the three most popular options — Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai, and Fathom — across real meetings in English, German-accented English, and French. Here is how they compare on transcription accuracy, features, pricing in euros, and the GDPR question that matters for every European team in 2026.
What AI meeting assistants actually do
At their core, these tools do three things. First, they record and transcribe your meetings in real time, identifying who is speaking. Second, they generate summaries: key points, decisions, and action items, so you can skip the full transcript. Third, they make everything searchable — ask “what did we decide about the Q3 budget?” and get an answer with a timestamp.
Most join your calls as a bot participant (visible to everyone, which is good for transparency), and they integrate with your calendar so they show up automatically. The differences lie in accuracy, language support, integrations, price, and — crucially — where your meeting data ends up.
Meet the three contenders
Otter.ai: the veteran
Otter.ai has been transcribing meetings since 2016 and it shows in the polish. Its real-time transcription is excellent, it handles multiple speakers well, and its AI chat lets you ask questions about any past meeting. Otter also offers live captions in Zoom, which is a genuine accessibility win.
Otter’s strength is the overall package: solid apps, good search, and a generous free tier. Its weakness for European users is language support — it transcribes English brilliantly but only a handful of other languages, and its company and servers are US-based.
Fireflies.ai: the integration powerhouse
Fireflies connects to everything: Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Webex, plus CRMs like HubSpot and Salesforce, and project tools like Asana and Notion. If your workflow lives across five apps, Fireflies glues the meeting notes into all of them automatically.
It supports an impressive 100+ languages for transcription, including German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, and Polish — a major advantage for multilingual European teams. Transcription quality in English is very good, though its summaries can be a touch more verbose than the competition.
Fathom: the free-tier favourite
Fathom made its name with a genuinely generous free plan: unlimited recording, transcription, and summaries on Zoom, Meet, and Teams. Its summaries are crisp, its interface is clean, and its one-click sharing of call highlights is lovely for sales and customer-success teams.
The catch is language support: Fathom works best in English and a limited set of other languages, and advanced features like its AI chat and CRM integrations sit on paid tiers. Like Otter, it is a US company.
Transcription accuracy: the real-world test
I ran all three through the same gauntlet: a native-English product meeting, a call with German and French accents speaking English, and a fully German conversation.
Native English: all three scored excellently — above 95% word accuracy in clear audio. Fathom’s speaker labelling was the sharpest; Otter’s real-time captions felt the most responsive.
Accented English: Fireflies coped best with strong German and French accents, likely thanks to its broader language models. Otter and Fathom were good but made more errors with names and technical terms.
German-language meeting: Fireflies was the only one of the three that produced a genuinely usable German transcript. Otter and Fathom currently focus on English, so for teams that meet auf Deutsch or en français, Fireflies is the clear pick.
Summaries, action items, and search
Raw transcripts are only half the value — the AI summary is what saves you time. Fathom’s summaries are the most concise and meeting-ready; its action items reliably capture who promised what. Otter’s summaries are thorough and its AI chat is the best for interrogating past meetings (“what were the objections to the pricing proposal?”). Fireflies’ summaries are decent but occasionally padded, though its topic tracking across many meetings is excellent for managers.
All three let you search across your entire meeting history and jump to the exact moment something was said. If you attend more than ten meetings a week, this feature alone justifies using one of these tools.
Integrations: Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet
All three support the big three platforms — Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet — usually by auto-joining as a notetaker bot. Beyond that: Fireflies has the widest integration library by far (dozens of CRMs and project tools). Otter integrates well with the usual suspects (Slack, Salesforce, HubSpot) and offers the best live-caption experience. Fathom keeps it focused: the core meeting platforms plus key CRMs, done elegantly.
Pricing in euros
- Fathom: the free plan is remarkably generous — unlimited recordings, transcription, and summaries. Premium starts at around €15 per user per month and adds AI chat, deeper CRM integrations, and advanced analytics. Best free tier of the three, by a mile.
- Otter.ai: free plan includes 300 monthly transcription minutes. Pro costs roughly €14–16 per user per month (annual billing) for 1,200 minutes and advanced features; Business adds admin controls at around €28–30.
- Fireflies.ai: free plan with limited transcription credits. Pro is about €16–18 per user per month; Business around €30–35 adds SSO, data retention controls, and priority support — the tier European compliance teams usually need.
If budget is tight, start with Fathom’s free plan. If you need multilingual transcription, Fireflies justifies its price.
Privacy and GDPR: who is listening to your meetings?
A meeting assistant records your colleagues’ voices and your company’s discussions — this is about as sensitive as data gets, and European works councils and data protection officers rightly ask hard questions.
- Otter.ai: US-based, data processed in the US. Offers SOC 2 Type II compliance and a data processing agreement on business plans, but GDPR-sensitive organisations often hesitate.
- Fireflies.ai: US-based as well, with SOC 2 Type II and GDPR-compliant DPAs available. Its data retention controls (auto-delete after X days) on Business plans help with GDPR’s storage-limitation principle.
- Fathom: US-based, SOC 2 Type II certified, with GDPR commitments and data processing agreements. Like the others, not EU-hosted.
Practical advice: inform participants before recording (legally required in several EU countries — Germany’s consent rules are strict), check your company’s data policy, and prefer plans with data retention controls. For the bigger picture, see our guides to GDPR-friendly alternatives to popular AI tools and how the EU AI Act affects everyday AI users.
Which one should you choose?
Choose Fathom if you want the best free option and run your meetings in English. Its summaries are superb and the price (free!) is unbeatable for freelancers and small teams.
Choose Fireflies if your team is multilingual or lives across many apps. Its 100+ language support and deep integrations make it the most versatile choice for European companies.
Choose Otter if you want the most polished all-rounder with the best real-time captions and meeting search, and you work primarily in English.
Frequently asked questions
Do participants know they are being recorded? Yes — all three join visibly and can announce recording. You should still tell participants yourself; in Germany and several other EU states, recording without consent can be illegal.
Can I use them without a calendar integration? Yes, you can paste a meeting link manually, though calendar auto-join is the main convenience.
Do they work for in-person meetings? Otter and Fireflies have mobile apps that record in-person conversations; Fathom is primarily built for video calls.
Which is best for GDPR compliance? None is EU-hosted, so all require a data processing agreement and internal approval. Fireflies’ retention controls give compliance teams the most to work with.
The verdict
For most European readers in 2026: start with Fathom if your meetings are in English and your budget is zero — it is astonishingly good for free. Pick Fireflies the moment you need German, French, or Dutch transcription or deep CRM integrations. Otter remains the refined veteran for English-first teams who value live captions and powerful search. Whichever you choose, you will never take meeting notes by hand again.
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