If you are standardising on an AI note-taker, choose the one your meeting platform already runs: Microsoft Teams, Google Meet or Zoom. Each can tell every attendee when notes are being taken, none trains on your meeting content, and the notes land in the retention and eDiscovery system your legal team already runs. Buy a standalone tool only when you need one note-taker across several platforms, and then buy Fireflies on its Enterprise plan with recording rules enforced centrally. Otter is the one to drop. The theory a federal judge let proceed against it in August rests on Otter using recordings for its own purposes, and Otter's privacy policy still lists training on them.
That changes what you compare. Summary quality and seat price used to decide this purchase. After the August 13, 2026 order in In re Otter.AI Privacy Litigation and the July 30 class action against Granola, two design questions carry the litigation exposure: how the tool tells people it is listening, and what the vendor does with their words afterwards.
| How it joins | Who gets told | Trains on meeting content? | Admin consent control | Price checked Oct 17, 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Teams (intelligent recap) | Native to the meeting | Per-attendee consent prompt when the admin policy is on | No, per Microsoft | Explicit recording consent policy (off by default) | Teams Premium or Microsoft 365 Copilot licence |
| Google Meet ("Take notes for me") | Native to the meeting | Every participant, pencil icon | Not without customer permission | Admin can require explicit consent (off by default) | Included from Business Standard, $14/user/mo list |
| Zoom (meeting summary) | Native to the meeting | Every participant gets a prompt | No, per Zoom | Admin enables per account | Included from Pro, $14.16/user/mo annual |
| Fireflies.ai | Visible bot | Bot appears in the roster | No, per Fireflies | Rules engine (Enterprise) | No price on vendor page; contact sales |
| Otter.ai | Visible bot | Chat message; pre-meeting email if admin enforces it | Yes, de-identified audio | Enterprise admin settings | Business $19.99/user/mo annual; Enterprise by demo |
| Granola | On-device audio, no bot | No one by default | Yes by default below Enterprise | Workspace-wide opt-out (Enterprise) | Business $14, Enterprise $35/user/mo |
What the Otter Ruling Actually Decided
The court decided that a note-taker vendor can be a third-party eavesdropper under California law when it keeps and uses recordings for itself. In the August 13 order, Judge Eumi K. Lee held that the plaintiffs had plausibly alleged Otter "independently collects, retains, and uses communications for its own commercial purposes," and on that basis let the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) section 631 claim proceed. The order points to the complaint's allegation that Otter uses conversation data to improve its machine-learning models.
For procurement, this is where the products split. Courts have treated software that acts purely as the user's tool, like a tape recorder, differently from a vendor that takes a copy for its own product work. The order puts a note-taker that trains on meeting audio on the eavesdropper side of that line, at least at the pleading stage.
Read the limits too. This was a ruling on a motion to dismiss, so the court found the claims plausible and decided nothing about liability. According to the AI Lawsuit Tracker's case summary, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, California computer-access (CDAFA) and Washington Privacy Act claims were dismissed, many with leave to amend, while the federal wiretap, CIPA, Illinois biometric (BIPA), unfair competition and unjust enrichment claims continue. No class has been certified.
The Granola complaint, Chamberlain v. Granola, Inc. (No. 3:26-cv-07926, N.D. Cal.), applies the same theory to a product with no bot at all. Barnes & Thornburg's summary sets out the allegations: Granola captures system audio and microphone input from Zoom, Teams and Meet; its optional notice features (a chat message and a video watermark) are off by default; it marketed the product with the line "Other people in the room won't know it's there"; and it uses anonymised data for model improvement by default on its Free and Business plans. The complaint pleads seven counts, including the federal Wiretap Act and CIPA sections 631 and 632. Those are allegations, and Granola has not yet answered them on the merits.
Together the two complaints describe the fact pattern a plaintiff needs: a vendor that captures audio silently, or that keeps recordings to improve its own models.
How Each Product Tells the People in the Room
The native note-takers tell everyone in the meeting, and the standalone tools range from a bot in the roster to nothing at all. A non-account attendee, meaning the customer or candidate on the other side of the call, is the person the lawsuits are about. Here is what that person sees.
Google Meet tells everyone. Its help page says "Google Meet informs all meeting participants that notes are being taken," and a pencil icon shows on every screen. Only the organizer and participants internal to the host's organization can start or stop notes, so an outside guest cannot switch it on in your meeting. Admins can require explicit consent for notes, recording and transcription, but that setting is off by default.
Microsoft Teams has the strongest consent control of the six, and you have to switch it on. Under the explicit recording consent policy, once recording or transcription starts, attendees are muted with cameras off until they answer a prompt; anyone who declines stays in view-only mode. Microsoft's Message Center notice describes the feature as off by default and controlled through Teams meeting policy. One gap deserves a test before rollout: Microsoft's Copilot in meetings guide says Copilot can run "only during the meeting" without transcription, and the page does not say that every participant is notified in that mode.
Zoom prompts everyone too. University IT guides that document the rollout, such as Georgetown's, say participants receive a message when AI Companion is turned on and see an indicator while it runs. Zoom's support article says summaries are sent automatically after the meeting to whoever the "Automatically share summary with" setting names, from the host alone up to all invitees.
Fireflies.ai joins as a bot, so it appears in the participant list like a person. Its security guide says "you (or the meeting host) choose which meetings are recorded," and the Enterprise rules engine can set policies for recording, transcription and retention. A visible bot gives notice, but an attendee still has to recognise it and object.
Otter.ai's Notetaker also joins as a bot and, per Otter's help center, posts a chat message with a link to the live transcript. Enterprise admins can enforce a pre-meeting email notice to invited attendees.
Granola, by default, tells nobody in the meeting. Its free-trial guide describes an optional consent message that posts in the meeting chat, found under Settings > Labs and supported on Zoom and Google Meet for macOS. Granola also has pre-call notice emails that admins can enforce, but only as a beta for a pilot group of Enterprise workspaces, sent by default to external participants only. Granola's position, as the Chamberlain complaint describes it, is that customers decide what notice their use case needs and Granola "does not configure these settings on behalf of customers."
Which Vendors Train on What Your Attendees Say
Four of the six say they do not train on meeting content; Otter and Granola do by default, and their opt-outs cover only the account holder. That gap separates a vendor acting as your tool from a vendor acting for itself, the line the Otter order turned on.
The no-training commitments, in each vendor's words:
- Microsoft: "Prompts, responses, and data accessed through Microsoft Graph aren't used to train foundation LLMs."
- Google: "Workspace does not use customer data for training models without customer's prior permission or instruction."
- Zoom's privacy statement, last updated September 17, 2026, says Zoom does not use "audio, video, chat, screen sharing, attachments or other communications-like Customer Content" to train Zoom's or third-party models.
- Fireflies says audio, video, transcripts and summaries are "never used to train AI models, internally or externally," and requires zero retention from its subprocessors.
Otter is the outlier. Its privacy policy, effective June 16, 2026, lists "training our proprietary AI technology on de-identified audio recordings" as a purpose, with "Consent or Legitimate interests" as the legal basis. It acknowledges that transcripts used for training "may contain Personal Information," and it describes no training-specific opt-out. For non-users, it asks the account holder to "make sure you have the necessary permissions from your co-workers, friends or other third parties." For enterprise customers the policy says Otter processes data "on behalf of and at the instructions of that customer," which is the language to negotiate a contractual training exclusion against. Put that exclusion in the order form, because the public policy does not give it to you.
Granola trains by default and opts out only the account holder. Its model-training page says "by default, Granola may use anonymized data to improve our services," while "Enterprise customers are opted out by default, and admins can enforce the setting across the entire organization." On Basic and Business, each user flips their own toggle. The page says nothing about the other people in the meeting, whose voices are in that data with no toggle of their own. The opt-out also does not reach backwards: Granola's security FAQ says it "cannot guarantee that anonymised data wasn't used before you changed the setting."
If you already have Granola users on Business, each of them has been contributing meeting data to model improvement unless they changed the setting, and moving to Enterprise now does not retrieve it.
What It Costs at 1,000 Seats
The bundled tools cost nothing extra if you already hold the right licence, and the standalone tools run from about $240,000 a year at list for 1,000 seats upward. The workload: 1,000 employees who each need note-taking, on one primary meeting platform, with external meetings in the mix. Prices are from each vendor's live page on October 17, 2026, except where noted.
| Option | Unit price | Annual cost, 1,000 seats | What it assumes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Meet notes | Included in Business Standard ($14/user/mo list) and Plus ($22) | $0 extra on Standard or above | Google's pricing page marks Gemini in Meet "not supported" on Starter |
| Zoom summaries | Included in Pro ($14.16/user/mo annual) and Business ($18.33) | $0 extra on Pro or above | Zoom's pricing page gives Basic 3 summaries a month |
| Teams intelligent recap | Teams Premium add-on, or the $30 Microsoft 365 Copilot seat | About $120,000 on Premium | Microsoft's pricing page timed out on our check; $10/user/mo is the widely reported Premium price; confirm in your agreement |
| Otter Business | $19.99/user/mo annual | $239,880 | Otter's pricing page; SSO and SCIM need Enterprise with a 100-user minimum |
| Granola Enterprise | $35/user/mo | $420,000 | Granola's pricing page; Enterprise is the only tier with a workspace-wide training opt-out |
| Fireflies Enterprise | No price on vendor page | Contact sales | Fireflies' pricing page showed no figures to our check; a third-party snapshot from August 20, 2026 listed $39/user/mo annual |
Two details in that table change real decisions. Microsoft's Teams Premium licensing page says several Premium features moved into Teams Enterprise on April 1, 2026, but AI-generated notes, tasks and intelligent recap stay in Premium (or Copilot). And Google's pricing page shows promotional Workspace discounts for October 31, 2026 to January 31, 2027, so check the term you are offered against the $14 list price.
Comparing Granola at $35 with Otter at $19.99 also misleads, because Granola's $14 Business tier is the one that trains by default. For an organisation, compare the price of the tier that matches your risk posture.
The Admin Controls a Large Organisation Needs
The bundled tools inherit controls you already run, which is the strongest argument for them; a standalone tool makes you rebuild those controls in a new console. Five controls decide whether a note-taker survives your first legal hold.
Start with retention and legal hold. Google Vault's Meet retention documentation says Drive holds apply to "notes taken by Gemini," transcripts and recordings, and warns that a misconfigured Meet retention rule can "immediately and irreversibly purge recordings and logs." In Microsoft 365, Purview eDiscovery reaches meeting audio and transcripts stored in the organizer's OneDrive. Among the standalone tools, Granola Enterprise lists a workspace-wide retention policy and "Org-wide auto-deletion periods," and Fireflies lists custom retention and a rules engine. Neither Otter's nor Granola's public pricing page mentions legal hold. Ask each vendor to show you a hold that blocks deletion before you sign.
Then auto-join. A note-taker that joins every calendar event by default will join the board meeting and the HR investigation. Otter's per-user "auto-join all meetings" toggle lives in account settings, and Otter's help center says workspace-wide settings override individual preferences on Enterprise. Meet notes can switch on automatically for certain meetings depending on admin settings, so check yours.
External meetings come next, and they matter most, because the external attendee never signed your terms. Teams Premium lets organizers control who can record and transcribe and stop participants from copying or forwarding transcripts. Fireflies' rules engine can apply recording policies by meeting type.
On per-region storage, Microsoft lists Copilot under its data residency commitments and the EU Data Boundary. Fireflies offers "Private Storage," dedicated cloud storage for your organisation's data, on Enterprise. Otter's pricing page does not mention data residency.
For identity, Otter requires a 100-user minimum for SSO and SCIM, and Granola puts SSO and SCIM on Enterprise only.
Who Should Not Pick Each Option
Each product here suits some buyer badly, and you should know which buyer you are before you sign.
Skip the Teams route if you would buy Teams Premium only for recap and your people mostly meet on Zoom, or with external parties on Meet. Recap works inside Teams. Also skip it if nobody will own the explicit consent policy, because without it Teams collects consent from no one.
Skip Google Meet notes if your organisation is on Business Starter, where Gemini in Meet is unsupported, or if most of your meetings are hosted by customers on other platforms. The organizer needs the eligible edition, so Meet's note-taker runs only in meetings your organisation hosts.
Skip Zoom summaries if Zoom is not where your meetings happen. A Zoom licence bought just for summaries is a second meeting platform to govern.
Skip Fireflies if you cannot run its Enterprise tier. The rules engine, private storage and HIPAA support sit there, and they are the reason to choose it.
Skip Otter if you operate in California or have attendees there, unless you can get a contractual exclusion from model training in writing. The surviving claims in the Otter case rest on the use its public policy describes.
Skip Granola for org-wide deployment below Enterprise. Bot-free capture is the product's appeal, and it is also the allegation. If individual executives insist on it, put them on Enterprise, enforce the training opt-out, and turn on the chat consent message yourself.
Why Otter Loses This Comparison
Otter loses because it pairs the facts the court relied on with weaker enterprise controls than a cheaper bundled option. Its notice tools are good; the enforced pre-meeting email beats Fireflies' silent bot. But the Otter order turned on retention and use for the vendor's own purposes, and Otter's current privacy policy still describes training on de-identified recordings with no training-specific opt-out. At $239,880 a year for 1,000 Business seats, you would pay about twice the reported Teams Premium list price for the one product whose public terms match the claims that survived.
The strongest case for Otter is its long track record across all three platforms. If you already run it and it works, negotiate the training exclusion, enforce the pre-meeting email, and turn off auto-join for everyone. If you are choosing fresh, pick something else.
Granola comes second to last. Its Enterprise tier fixes the training default, but the device-capture design means notice depends on a setting someone has to turn on.
Map the Consent Flow Before You Compare Features
No vendor setting replaces knowing where your attendees are. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press counts about 11 states that primarily require all-party consent to record, including California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Washington. A single attendee dialling in from one of them can put the whole meeting under the stricter rule (which state's law applies is itself litigated, so plan as if it does), and attendees in other countries bring their own consent and data-protection law. Federal law requires only one party's consent, which is why the federal wiretap count faces a hurdle in the Granola case and the state counts carry more weight.
The choice of note-taker therefore sits downstream of a consent design: who is told, when, in what words, and what happens when someone says no. Teams' consent policy and Meet's explicit-consent setting can enforce that design. Of the standalone tools, Otter's enforced pre-meeting email comes closest; Granola's equivalent is still a pilot beta.
This Week:
- Pull the list of note-taker apps connected to your Zoom, Teams and Google tenants, and count Granola and Otter users by plan. Business-tier Granola users are contributing training data unless each one opted out.
- Ask legal which states and countries your external attendees sit in. If California is on the list, treat any tool that trains on meeting audio as out of scope.
This Month:
- Turn on the explicit consent setting in whichever native platform you standardise on (the Teams explicit recording consent policy, or Meet's explicit consent for notes) and run it on one team for two weeks.
- Put one meeting's notes under a test legal hold in Vault or Purview and confirm the hold blocks deletion.
Before Your Next Renewal:
- If you keep a standalone tool, get a contractual exclusion from model training that covers every participant's audio, beyond your own users' accounts.
- Set auto-join to off by default for the whole workspace, and require hosts to opt in per meeting.
The Bottom Line
Session-replay scripts on websites went through the same correction: a feature sold as a convenience to the person who installs it, then tested in court by the person it records. The note-takers that hold up are the ones where the platform tells everyone and the vendor keeps nothing for its own models. For most large organisations, one of those is already in the licence you pay for. Map the consent flow first, then compare summaries.
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