Read.ai vs Fireflies vs Otter.ai - My Experience with AI Tools for Meeting Notes

Dwain: Unfinished
15 Mar 202309:57

TLDRThe speaker shares their experience with AI tools for meeting notes, comparing Read.ai, Fireflies, and Otter.ai. They find Read.ai to be the most effective, praising its summarization and engagement features, while criticizing Fireflies and Otter.ai for their lack of functionality and trial limitations. The speaker also expresses a desire for better sharing options and programmatic tools for note enhancement.

Takeaways

  • 📝 The user struggles with summarizing and organizing meeting notes due to frequent and back-to-back meetings.
  • 🤖 The user has been exploring AI tools to help with note-taking and organization, specifically Read.ai, Fireflies, and Otter.ai.
  • 🚀 Read.ai is the user's preferred choice among the AI tools tested, offering a good balance of features and effectiveness.
  • 🔥 The user found Fireflies and Otter.ai to be lacking in functionality and deemed them subpar compared to Read.ai.
  • 📅 Otter.ai provides a transcript and a summary of meetings but lacks actionable items and highlights, which the user finds basic and time-wasting.
  • 🔒 Fireflies.ai requires an upgrade for transcription and focuses mainly on transcription as a feature, which the user finds insufficient.
  • 📊 Read.ai offers a meeting summary, engagement score, and details on who spoke the most, which the user appreciates.
  • 🔗 Sharing Read.ai notes requires login, which the user dislikes as it is not an independent share and is aimed at gaining sign-ups.
  • 💡 The user wishes for more programmatic tools to better refine and utilize the meeting notes for internal systems and email notifications.
  • 💰 Despite some shortcomings, Read.ai is considered worth the monthly subscription fee for the user's personal needs.
  • 🔄 Read.ai automatically connects to the user's Google calendar and joins meetings on platforms like Teams and Zoom.

Q & A

  • What was the main problem the speaker was facing with multiple meetings?

    -The speaker was struggling with not having enough time to summarize and organize the notes related to the meetings.

  • How does the speaker describe their initial note-taking method?

    -The speaker describes their initial method as unstructured and non-regurgitated, which allowed them to retain information but not do much else with it.

  • What were the three AI tools for meeting notes discussed in the script?

    -The three AI tools discussed were Read.ai, Fireflies, and Otter.ai.

  • Which AI tool did the speaker find to be the best and why?

    -The speaker found Read.ai to be the best because it provided a meeting summary, identified who talked the most, and had a better set of features compared to the other two tools.

  • What were the speaker's main issues with Otter.ai?

    -The speaker found Otter.ai to be very basic with no actual functionality beyond transcribing the meeting. It also prompted the user to upgrade constantly.

  • How did the speaker feel about Fireflies and its features?

    -The speaker felt that Fireflies focused mainly on transcription and did not offer much beyond that, even during the trial period.

  • What feature of Read.ai did the speaker find particularly useful?

    -The speaker found the meeting summary feature of Read.ai particularly useful as it condensed the transcribed content into a more manageable format.

  • What was the speaker's main criticism about the sharing functionality of Read.ai?

    -The speaker criticized the fact that Read.ai required users to log in to view shared content, which they felt should be accessible through an independent share link.

  • What additional feature would the speaker have liked in Read.ai?

    -The speaker would have liked a web hook feature that could trigger internal services and automate the distribution of meeting notes to participants post-meeting.

  • What was the speaker's final verdict on the three AI tools?

    -The speaker decided to continue using Read.ai as it was the best among the three, despite some minor issues with sharing and formatting.

  • How much does the speaker value the ability for an AI tool to automatically join meetings from the calendar?

    -The speaker values this feature highly, as it was one of the main tools they used and appreciated in Read.ai for its automation capabilities.

Outlines

00:00

📝 Struggles with Meeting Notes and AI Tool Exploration

The speaker discusses their challenges with managing and organizing notes from multiple daily meetings. They express the difficulty of referring back to meetings after some time due to poor note-taking. The speaker uses a disorganized method of note-taking with an iPad and OneNote, which does not allow for efficient retrieval of information. They have been exploring AI tools to help with this issue and have found Read that AI to be the most effective tool among the ones they have tried, including Otter and Fireflies.ai. The speaker criticizes Otter for its basic functionality and lack of actionable features, and they plan to cancel their subscription after the call. The speaker also mentions a minor inconvenience with Fireflies.ai, where they almost fell due to a light issue.

05:01

🌟 Read that AI: The Preferred Choice for Meeting Summarization

The speaker praises Read that AI for its ability to provide meeting summaries, which they find valuable. They appreciate the tool's capacity to distill the essence of transcribed conversations, as demonstrated by a specific meeting summary about a scheduling system's development. The speaker also highlights the engagement score feature and the identification of the most talkative participants. However, they express dissatisfaction with the tool's sharing mechanism, which requires login and results in a trial profile instead of a clean, shareable document. The speaker wishes for a web hook feature to automate the integration with their internal note system and for better formatting options for sharing meeting notes. Despite these drawbacks, they find Read that AI worth the monthly subscription and recommend it as the best tool for their needs.

Mindmap

Keywords

💡Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools

Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools refer to software applications that utilize machine learning and natural language processing to perform tasks which normally require human intelligence. In the context of the video, the AI tools are used for generating meeting notes and summaries, automating a task that would otherwise be time-consuming for the user. The user reviews different AI tools to find the most efficient one for his needs, highlighting the growing integration of AI in everyday tasks.

💡Meeting Notes

Meeting notes are written records of discussions, decisions, and action items taken during a meeting. They serve as a reference for participants to remember what was discussed and to hold everyone accountable for their assigned tasks. In the video, the user struggles with organizing and summarizing meeting notes effectively due to his busy schedule, which is why he turns to AI tools for assistance. The quality and usefulness of the notes generated by the AI tools are central to the user's evaluation of these tools.

💡Read.ai

Read.ai is one of the AI tools evaluated by the user in the video. It is designed to transcribe and summarize meetings, providing users with structured notes and actionable insights. The user praises Read.ai for its ability to offer meeting summaries and for automatically joining meetings detected in the user's calendar. This highlights the tool's integration with other services and its efficiency in handling meeting note generation.

💡Fireflies.ai

Fireflies.ai is another AI tool mentioned in the video, which the user finds to be lacking in comparison to Read.ai. While it offers transcription services, the user feels that its features are not as comprehensive as Read.ai, particularly in terms of providing meeting summaries and actionable insights. The user's dissatisfaction with Fireflies.ai underscores the importance of not just transcription, but also the structuring and summarization of information for effective note-taking.

💡Otter.ai

Otter.ai is an AI tool that provides real-time transcription services. In the video, the user subscribes to a trial period of Otter.ai and finds it to be basic in functionality, offering only transcription without much additional value. The user criticizes Otter.ai for prompting upgrades and not providing sufficient features to justify its continued use, leading to the decision to cancel the account. This reflects the user's need for more than just transcription – he requires tools that can organize and summarize information effectively.

💡Meeting Summary

A meeting summary is a condensed version of the key points, decisions, and action items from a meeting. It is intended to provide a quick reference for participants and stakeholders. In the video, the user appreciates Read.ai's ability to generate meeting summaries, which allows him to grasp the essence of the discussions without having to go through the entire transcript. This feature is crucial for the user as it saves time and helps in better organizing the information from multiple meetings.

💡Calendar Integration

Calendar integration refers to the ability of a software application to interact with a user's calendar, automatically detecting and joining meetings based on the calendar's events. In the context of the video, Read.ai's calendar integration is highlighted as a beneficial feature, as it simplifies the process for the user by automatically joining meetings without manual intervention, thus saving time and increasing efficiency.

💡Transcription

Transcription is the process of converting spoken language into written text. In the video, the user evaluates AI tools based on their ability to accurately transcribe the content of meetings. While transcription is a fundamental feature for these tools, the user is more interested in tools that go beyond this by providing summaries, action items, and other structured information that can be easily referenced and acted upon.

💡Action Items

Action items are specific tasks or steps that need to be taken by designated individuals following a meeting. They are crucial for implementing decisions made during the meeting and ensuring progress on projects. In the video, the user expresses dissatisfaction with the AI tools' inability to clearly identify and list action items from the meetings, which is an essential feature for effective follow-up and project management.

💡User Experience (UX)

User Experience (UX) refers to how easy and pleasant it is for a user to interact with a software application. It includes aspects such as design, functionality, and the overall feel of the application. In the video, the user's UX with Read.ai is positive, as it finds the tool efficient and user-friendly, particularly in its automatic calendar integration and summarization features. On the other hand, the UX with Otter.ai and Fireflies.ai is not satisfactory, as they lack the additional features that the user finds necessary for his workflow.

💡Webhook

A webhook is a simple HTTP callback that allows one application to notify another application when an event occurs. In the context of the video, the user expresses a desire for webhook functionality in the AI tools to automate the process of triggering internal services and sending out follow-up emails after meetings. This would streamline the user's workflow by connecting the AI tool with other systems and reducing the need for manual intervention.

Highlights

The user discusses their experience with AI tools for meeting notes, specifically Read.ai, Fireflies, and Otter.ai.

The user's problem is managing and summarizing notes from multiple meetings throughout the day.

The user's current note-taking method is unstructured and difficult to refer back to.

The user's initial impressions of Read.ai are positive, finding it to be very good.

Otter.ai is criticized for its basic functionality and lack of actionable features.

Fireflies.ai is also criticized for focusing too much on transcription and not providing additional useful features.

Read.ai provides a meeting summary, which the user appreciates.

The user finds the engagement score and speaker statistics in Read.ai to be interesting, if not particularly useful.

The user decides to continue using Read.ai due to its superior feature set compared to the other tools.

The user dislikes that Read.ai requires a login to view shared content, which they see as a barrier.

The user wishes for Read.ai to provide a more structured sharing option, such as a PDF.

The user suggests that a webhook feature in Read.ai would greatly improve the tool for their needs.

The user finds Read.ai worth the monthly subscription cost for their personal use.

Read.ai has the ability to automatically join meetings found on the user's calendar and record them.

The user expresses frustration with the formatting of shared content from Read.ai.

Overall, the user concludes that Read.ai is the best tool among the ones tested for their specific needs.

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