Guide

The AI notes built into Zoom, Teams and Meet, compared with notes on your own computer

Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet can each write AI notes from a meeting. If your organisation pays for the right plan, they may already cover the meetings you host. This guide sets out what each one needs, where the notes are kept, who controls them and what happens on a call someone else hosts, and then how notes taken on your own computer compare.

Every fact about a platform comes from that company's own help, admin or pricing pages, read on 8 October 2026, and each is linked where it is used. Plans and menus change, so check the linked page before you buy.

At a glance

The numbers in brackets point to the sources at the end of the page.

AI meeting notes in Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, and notes on your own computer with Recordist
Question	Zoom	Microsoft Teams	Google Meet	Your own computer (Recordist)
What it is	Meeting summary with AI Companion. Zoom's product page now presents its AI as ZoomMate. [1][6]	Intelligent recap, with AI notes and tasks after the meeting, and Copilot in Teams. [7][10]	Take notes for me, with Gemini. [13]	Recordist, an app on your Mac that records your microphone and the sound your Mac plays.
What you need	Zoom's pricing page lists summaries for 3 hosted meetings a month on the free Basic plan and unlimited summaries on Pro. Its help article lists a licensed user on a paid Workplace plan, with Meeting Summary turned on. [2][1]	A Microsoft 365 subscription with Teams, plus a Teams Premium or Microsoft Copilot licence. An admin must allow transcription. Copilot in Teams needs a Copilot licence. [7][10]	The organizer needs Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard or Enterprise Plus, or an eligible Google AI plan on a personal account. An admin can turn it off. [13][14]	A Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 14.6 or later. The beta is free, with no account. Windows and Linux next.
Who can start it	The host or a co-host. Anyone else can ask the host to start it. [1]	Recap is built from the transcript. The organizer and people in the same organisation can start transcription. People from another organisation can't. [7][12]	The organizer and people in the host's organisation. With host controls on, only hosts and co-hosts. [13]	You. When a call starts, a card asks whether to record it.
Where the notes are kept	In the host's Zoom account. The summary is emailed, can be posted to the meeting's group chat, and is in Zoom Hub. [1]	AI notes and tasks in Exchange folders in participants' mailboxes. The transcript in the organizer's Exchange Online mailbox, and in OneDrive with the recording. Data stays in the region of the organisation's Microsoft 365 tenant. [8]	A Google Doc in the organizer's Drive, in the Google Meet folder, kept under the organisation's Meet retention policy. [13][14]	In a folder on your Mac. Audio is kept for 30 days by default, and transcripts and notes until you delete them.
Who controls them	The host. Only the host can delete a summary. [1]	The organizer's organisation. The recap follows its recording retention policy. [8]	The organizer, under the organisation's sharing and retention settings. [13][14]	You. Recordist receives none of it.
Who else gets the notes	Participants, if the host chose to share with them and they were signed in to Zoom. People who weren't signed in, or joined without being on the invite, don't get it. [1]	Invited people in the organizer's organisation. Others don't have access, even with the recording link, unless someone shares the recap with external attendees through Outlook. [9][7]	By default, invited guests in the organizer's organisation. A host can share with invited guests outside it. [14][13]	Nobody, unless you export a meeting and send it.
What the others on the call see	An indicator that AI features, including meeting summary, are active. [1]	A notification that the meeting is being transcribed. [12]	A notice that notes are being taken, and a pencil icon. [13]	Nothing. Recordist doesn't join the call or tell the others, so you tell them.
AI training on meeting content	Zoom says it doesn't use audio, video, chat, screen sharing, attachments or other communications-like Customer Content to train its own or third-party AI models. [5]	Microsoft says customer data isn't logged or used for any AI model training or testing. [8]	Google says Workspace doesn't use customer data to train models without the customer's prior permission or instruction. [15]	Recordist receives no meeting content. If you connect your own cloud AI key, that provider's terms apply.
On a call someone else hosts	The summary runs under the host's account. You can ask the host to start it and to share it with you. [1]	If someone outside your organisation created the meeting, Copilot isn't available, and you can't start transcription. [10][12]	Only the host's organisation can start notes, and the doc goes to the organizer's Drive. [13]	The same as on your own calls, on any call your Mac plays. You still tell the others.
A conversation in a room	My Notes, in the Zoom Workplace app, can transcribe in-person meetings. [4]	The pages we read don't cover it.	Take notes for me works for in-person meetings in the Meet app, with an eligible edition or Google AI plan. [16]	Start a recording yourself. Every voice in the room is labelled You.

Zoom

Zoom's help articles call the assistant AI Companion. Its product page, read the same day, presents Zoom's AI as ZoomMate (product page).

The pricing page lists meeting summaries for 3 hosted meetings a month on the free Basic plan and unlimited meeting summaries on Pro (pricing). The help article on meeting summaries lists a licensed user on a Zoom Workplace Pro, Pro Plus, Business, Business Plus, Enterprise or Enterprise Plus plan, or an Enterprise Bundle account, with Meeting Summary turned on.

Only the host and co-host can start or stop the summary from the meeting controls, and any participant can ask for it to be started. Participants receive the summary after the meeting if the host chose to share it with them and they were signed in to Zoom. Only the host can delete a summary. Zoom says the summary uses AI technology, which may include third-party models (meeting summary help).

Zoom's AI can also reach beyond Zoom meetings. A licensed user can invite AI Companion to Google Meet and Microsoft Teams meetings, where it joins as a participant and posts a chat message 3 minutes after the meeting starts (third-party meetings help). My Notes, in the Zoom Workplace app, transcribes in-person meetings and calls on other platforms from the microphone and system audio on your device, and Zoom says the notes you create aren't automatically shared with hosts or participants (My Notes help).

Microsoft Teams

Intelligent recap gives AI notes, suggested tasks, speaker markers and chapters after a meeting. It needs a Microsoft 365 subscription that includes Teams, or one without Teams plus a separate Teams licence, and a Teams Premium or Microsoft Copilot licence. An admin must turn on transcription, and without a recording policy the recap comes without the recording, speakers, topics and chapters (admin guide).

Microsoft says AI notes and tasks are stored in an Exchange folder in the mailboxes of the meeting participants, and a copy of the transcript is kept in the organizer's Exchange Online account. Recap follows the organisation's recording retention policy, data stays in the region of its Microsoft 365 tenant, and customer data isn't logged or used for any AI model training or testing (data and privacy).

Invited people in the organizer's organisation can open the recap, and Microsoft says anyone who wasn't invited or isn't in the organisation won't have access, even with the recording link or Teams Premium (recap help). A user can share the recap with external attendees through Outlook.

Copilot in Teams needs a Microsoft 365 licence and a Microsoft Copilot licence, and Microsoft says that if a meeting was created by an external participant, Copilot won't be available in that meeting (Copilot in Teams). An organizer can let Copilot run only during the meeting, without a transcript (Copilot without transcription).

Google Meet

Take notes for me needs an eligible Google Workspace edition or Google AI plan, and the meeting organizer must have the edition that includes it (Meet help). Google's admin help lists Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus, and an admin can turn it on or off for each part of the organisation (admin help).

The organizer and participants in the host's organisation can start or stop notes, and with host controls on, only hosts and co-hosts can. Meet tells all participants that notes are being taken. It supports one spoken language at a time, from English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish.

The notes document is saved in the organizer's Google Drive, in the Google Meet folder, and follows the organisation's Meet retention policy. By default only invited guests in the organizer's organisation get access, and a host can share it with invited guests outside it. Google says Workspace doesn't use customer data to train models without the customer's prior permission or instruction (privacy hub).

The Meet app can also take notes for an in-person meeting, with an eligible edition or Google AI plan, and saves them in the Drive of the person who turned it on (in-person help).

Notes taken on your own computer

Some notetakers run as an app on your computer. They record your microphone and the sound your computer plays, so nothing joins the call, and it doesn't matter who hosts or which platform they chose. What happens next depends on the app: some upload the audio or transcript to their maker's servers, and some keep everything on the device. The AI notetaker privacy checklist has the questions to ask any of them.

Recordist is one of these apps, and we make it. It transcribes on your Mac with Whisper and, with the built-in engine, writes the notes there too. Audio, transcripts and notes stay in a folder on your Mac, and there is no account. When Zoom, Teams, Webex, Slack, FaceTime or a browser call starts using the microphone, a card asks "Record this meeting?", and nothing is recorded until you answer, unless you've added that app to the auto-record list, which is empty until you do. Search everything then finds a sentence across all your meetings, whichever platform they were on.

Here is what it does less well today:

The other side of a call shares one label, so Recordist can't say which remote person said what. The platforms know their participants; Teams' recap, for example, marks who spoke and when.
Notes stay on your Mac. There is no shared library, so colleagues see them only if you send them.
Recordist doesn't tell the people on the call. You tell them, as you would with any recorder.
It needs a Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 14.6 or later. Windows and Linux next. Early builds aren't notarised by Apple yet, so macOS asks once on first launch.

The beta is free. Every install starts with 14 days of Pro, and after that recording, transcription and search stay unlimited, with 3 AI notes a month until Pro opens at $6 a month.

Using both

The built-in notes, for the meetings your organisation hosts

On the platform your organisation pays for, the built-in notes land where your colleagues expect them, reach the invitees your admin allows and follow your organisation's retention rules.

Recordist, for the calls you don't host and the rooms

Recordist covers the calls a client, candidate or partner hosts, the calls on a platform your company doesn't pay for, and conversations in a room, and it keeps them all in one library on your Mac.

Whichever tool writes them, the action items still need a person. And whichever you use, tell the people on the call that notes are being taken. How to ask to record a call has the words.

Get the free Mac beta Try it in your browser

Questions

Do Zoom, Teams and Meet include AI meeting notes at no extra cost?

It depends on the plan. Zoom’s pricing page lists meeting summaries for 3 hosted meetings a month on the free Basic plan and unlimited summaries on Pro. Teams intelligent recap needs a Teams Premium or Microsoft Copilot licence on top of a Microsoft 365 subscription with Teams. Google Meet’s Take notes for me needs the organizer to have Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard or Enterprise Plus, or an eligible Google AI plan on a personal account. Each vendor’s page was read on 8 October 2026.

Where are Teams intelligent recap notes stored?

Microsoft says AI-generated notes and tasks are stored in an Exchange folder in the mailboxes of the meeting participants. A copy of the transcript is kept in the organizer’s Exchange Online account, and another in OneDrive with the recording when the meeting is recorded. Microsoft also says data in Teams stays in the geographic region of the organisation’s Microsoft 365 tenant.

Where does Google Meet save Take notes for me notes?

Google says the notes document is saved in the meeting organizer’s Google Drive, in the Google Meet folder, and follows the Meet retention policy the organisation has set. By default only invited guests in the organizer’s organisation get access, and a host can share it with invited guests outside the organisation.

Can I use Copilot in a Teams meeting another company hosts?

Microsoft says that if a meeting was created by an external participant, Copilot won’t be available in that meeting. Its transcription permissions also show that a person from another organisation can’t start or stop transcription, or view the transcript after the meeting.

Who receives a Zoom meeting summary?

Zoom says only the host and co-host can start or stop the summary, and participants receive it automatically after the meeting if the host chose to share it with them. They have to be signed in to Zoom during the meeting, and people who joined without being on the invite don’t receive it. Only the host can delete a summary.

Do the people on the call know the notes are being taken?

On the platforms, yes. Zoom shows an indicator when AI features are active, Teams shows everyone a notification that the meeting is being transcribed, and Meet tells all participants that notes are being taken. Recordist runs on your own computer and doesn’t tell the others, so you tell them. How to ask to record a call has the words.

Should I use Recordist or the notes built into my meeting platform?

Many people can use both. The built-in notes suit meetings your organisation hosts on the platform it pays for, because they land where your colleagues expect them. Recordist covers the calls you join on someone else’s platform and conversations in a room, and keeps them all in one library on your Mac.

Do Zoom, Microsoft and Google train AI on meeting content?

Each company answers in its own words. Zoom’s privacy statement says it doesn’t use communications-like Customer Content, such as audio, video and chat, to train its own or third-party AI models. Microsoft says customer data isn’t logged or used for any AI model training or testing in intelligent recap. Google says Workspace doesn’t use customer data for training models without the customer’s prior permission or instruction.

Sources

Each page was read on 8 October 2026. Facts about each platform come only from that company's own pages.

Zoom, ZoomMate, Microsoft Teams, Copilot, Google Meet and Gemini are trademarks of their owners, named here only to identify their products. Recordist isn't affiliated with any of them. This page is general information about their products. If something here is out of date, write to [email protected] and we will correct it.