Otter

What is Otter?

Otter is an AI meeting assistant and transcription platform from Otter.ai, Inc. Its main purpose is to turn meetings, interviews, lectures, and other recorded conversations into searchable text and practical follow-up information.

Users can record through Otter's web, mobile, or desktop applications, allow its notetaker to join supported online meetings, or upload an audio or video file. Otter then processes the conversation into a transcript, identifies speakers, and generates notes such as summaries, takeaways, action items, and outlines.

How people use Otter

A typical workflow starts before or during a meeting. Users can connect calendars and supported meeting services so eligible meetings are captured automatically, or they can start recording manually. After the meeting, the transcript and generated notes can be reviewed, searched, edited, shared, and connected to other business workflows.

Otter is also useful outside conventional business meetings. Students and educators can use it for lectures, journalists and researchers can use it for interviews, and professionals can import recordings for later review. Its value is greatest when conversations need to remain accessible after they end, rather than being treated as one-time events.

Core capabilities

Live and file-based transcription

Otter transcribes conversations as they take place and can also process supported audio and video uploads. Transcripts include synchronized audio and text playback, searchable content, and speaker identification that users can edit when labels need correction.

Automated meeting notes

Instead of stopping at a raw transcript, Otter creates summaries, takeaways, action items, and outlines. These outputs can help a participant quickly understand what was discussed and what needs to happen next, although important decisions should still be checked against the original conversation.

Meeting search and AI chat

Otter Chat lets users ask questions about an individual meeting and, where available, search across meeting records. This makes the product more useful than a simple transcription utility: past conversations can become a reference library for recalling decisions, statements, and follow-up items.

Sharing and workflow connections

Users can share conversations, add comments and highlights, organize records in folders or channels, and distribute meeting information to colleagues. Integrations include services such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Google Calendar, Microsoft Calendar, Apple Calendar, Slack, Dropbox, Zapier, Salesforce, and HubSpot, with availability dependent on the plan and integration.

Higher-tier workspaces can use an Enterprise API and webhooks, while the Otter MCP server can connect meeting data with compatible external AI applications. These options matter for organizations that want meeting information to move into CRM, messaging, automation, or other internal workflows.

What distinguishes Otter from other AI tools?

Otter is specialized around conversation capture and meeting intelligence. Unlike a general-purpose assistant such as ChatGPT, it is built around recording, transcription, speaker labeling, meeting summaries, and searchable conversation history. It is also different from an audio and video editor such as Descript, whose main focus is editing media through text and related production workflows.

This specialization makes Otter a practical fit when the underlying material is a live or recorded conversation. It is not primarily a general web research service, document-authoring platform, image or video generator, coding environment, or broad workflow automation builder.

Platforms and access

Otter is available through a web browser, iOS and Android apps, Mac and Windows desktop applications, and a Chrome extension. The Chrome extension currently supports meeting links associated with Zoom and Google Meet. An account is required, and meeting capture may require calendar connections, meeting permissions, browser access, or desktop recording configuration.

Pricing and plan structure

Otter has a continuing Basic free plan. The free tier includes live transcription, speaker identification, audio playback, AI chat, limited meeting storage, 300 monthly transcription minutes, and three lifetime audio or video imports. Limits and included features can change.

Paid plans include Pro, Business, and Enterprise. Public pricing lists Pro from $8.33 per user per month when billed annually; monthly billing is listed at $16.99 per user per month. Business is publicly listed at $19.99 per user per month with annual billing and $30 per user per month with monthly billing. Enterprise pricing is custom.

Usage limits remain important when comparing plans. Pro includes 1,200 monthly recording minutes, ten monthly audio or video imports, meetings of up to 90 minutes, and 50 monthly Otter Chat queries per user. Business and Enterprise plans provide higher or unlimited limits for some functions and add administration, integrations, analytics, security, and support features.

Limitations and considerations

• Usage caps: The free and lower-cost plans limit transcription minutes, imports, storage, meeting duration, or AI chat usage.
• Language coverage: Supported transcription languages are currently English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese. Otter Chat can respond in additional languages and translate conversation content, but that does not make all languages available for primary transcription.
• Meeting setup: Automated capture can require calendar, platform, browser, desktop, or participant-permission configuration.
• Plan restrictions: The public API, advanced administration, enterprise integrations, compliance options, and some retention controls are concentrated in higher tiers.
• Model transparency: Otter describes proprietary AI and speech-recognition technology but does not publicly identify a complete list of underlying model providers or model names.
• Specialized scope: Otter is strongest for meetings and recorded conversations. It is not a substitute for a general-purpose chatbot, open-ended research system, or comprehensive content-production platform.

Privacy and data handling

Otter processes recordings, transcripts, uploaded files, account information, usage information, and related data to provide its services. Its privacy materials state that it uses cloud and other service providers, including Amazon Web Services, analytics providers, AI and support vendors, and data-labeling providers.

Otter's privacy policy states that it may use de-identified audio recordings and transcriptions to improve and monitor its services, including training proprietary AI technology. Organizations handling sensitive conversations should review the applicable privacy policy, customer agreement, retention settings, and enterprise controls before enabling automatic recording.

Otter states that stored data is protected with server-side encryption in Amazon S3. Enterprise features can include SSO, SCIM, domain capture, centralized administration, activity logs, and optional HIPAA-related services. These controls do not eliminate the need for users and organizations to obtain appropriate consent and follow their own recording and data-governance requirements.

Who should use Otter?

Otter is a good fit for professionals, students, educators, journalists, researchers, sales teams, consultants, managers, and organizations that regularly need searchable conversation records. It is particularly useful when meetings occur across several supported conferencing services or when teams need shared summaries and action items.

The free plan is suitable for occasional users who can work within its monthly transcription and import limits. Frequent meeting users should compare the plan-specific recording, storage, import, chat, collaboration, and integration limits. Organizations that need API access, centralized controls, custom retention, or enterprise security features will generally need an Enterprise arrangement.