An Otter alternative that never records your meetings
Published 28 October 2026
Otter.ai is one of the best-known AI meeting assistants. It’s good at what it does: it joins your calls, records them, writes a transcript and sends a summary. But a growing number of people are looking for something different, and not because Otter works badly. They’re looking because they don’t want a recorder in the meeting at all.
If that’s you, this guide explains how recording assistants work, why some people and companies avoid them, and what a no-recording alternative looks like.
How Otter and similar assistants work
With Otter, you connect your Google or Microsoft calendar. Its assistant can then join your Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams meetings, automatically if you turn that on, and record and transcribe the conversation. After the call you get the transcript, a summary and action items.
Other recording assistants, such as Fireflies, work in a similar way: an assistant joins the call or captures its audio, and the conversation is turned into a transcript and summary.
The key point: the whole conversation is recorded, including everyone else in the call.
Why people look for an alternative
Consent. Recording a meeting affects every participant, not only the person who invited the assistant. Some participants may not notice the bot, or may not want to be recorded, and in some places recording requires everyone’s consent.
This isn’t only a theoretical question. In August 2025 a class-action lawsuit was filed in California against Otter.ai, claiming that its meeting assistant recorded people in calls without their consent, including people who didn’t use Otter themselves. Otter’s response was that it doesn’t start recordings on its own: recording only happens when an Otter user starts it, and its terms tell users to get any permission they need. The claims are allegations, not a ruling (NPR, 15 August 2025).
Confidential conversations. Client calls under NDA, legal and medical conversations, HR and recruiting talks often shouldn’t be recorded and stored with an outside service.
Company policies. Many organisations now ban AI recorders in their meetings, or ask guests to remove them.
Surprises. When an assistant joins meetings automatically, it can end up in calls where nobody expected it.
A different approach: write your notes, ask AI when you need it
Instead of recording the meeting and summarising the recording, you take your own notes, short ones, focused on decisions and action items, and use AI afterwards on the text you wrote. Nothing listens to the call.
| Recording assistants (Otter, Fireflies) | Quill Note | |
|---|---|---|
| Joins the call | Yes, as a bot or by capturing audio | No |
| Records audio | Yes | No |
| Full word-for-word transcript | Yes | No, you write the notes |
| Other participants are recorded | Yes | No one is recorded |
| AI summary | Automatic, from the recording | When you click, from your note |
| What the AI sees | The whole conversation | Only the note you choose |
When Otter is the better choice
To be fair: if you need a full transcript, for accessibility, interviews you’ll quote word for word, or lectures you want to review in full, a recording tool does that and Quill Note doesn’t. Use it with everyone’s agreement.
Quill Note is for the meetings where you’d rather nothing listened in.
How Quill Note works
- No bot, no recording. Nothing joins your Zoom, Meet or Teams call.
- Float Mode keeps your notes in a small window on top of the meeting, so you can write without switching windows.
- AI Summary when you click. Turn rough notes into a clean summary in one click. Your note is only sent to the AI when you press the button, and it isn’t used to train AI models.
- Encrypted notes, organised in notebooks and sections.
- One month free, no credit card needed.
Switching from Otter
- In Otter, turn off automatic joining for your meetings, or disconnect your calendar, so the assistant stops joining calls.
- Open Quill Note before your next meeting and create a note for it.
- Turn on Float Mode and keep it next to the call.
- After the meeting, press AI Summary and share the result with your team.
Questions people ask
Is there a free Otter alternative without recording?
Quill Note has a one-month free trial with 50 AI summaries, and no credit card is needed. After that, Notes only costs $0.99 per month and Notes + AI $4.99 per month.
Does Quill Note transcribe meetings?
No, on purpose. Quill Note never hears your meetings. You write the notes, and AI helps you turn them into summaries when you ask.
Will meeting participants see a Quill Note bot?
No. There’s no bot, so nothing appears in the call and nobody is recorded.