AI note taker for Teams: Copilot, a bot, or the transcript you already have

The three routes at a glance

Route 1: Teams recap and Copilot

Microsoft has three things that get called an AI note taker, and they are licensed differently.

• Intelligent recap. After a transcribed meeting, the Recap tab shows AI meeting notes and AI recommended tasks, plus speaker markers and chapters if the meeting was also recorded. Microsoft says it needs a Teams Premium or Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, and transcription must be on.
• Copilot in the meeting. People with a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence can ask Copilot questions during the meeting, such as what has been decided so far. Each person's prompts and answers are private to them.
• Facilitator. An agent that keeps shared, live notes that everyone in the meeting can see and edit. Microsoft says a Copilot licence is needed to add it, and that it only works in scheduled meetings, not channel meetings, instant meetings or calls.

Plain transcription needs none of these. It is a standard Teams feature controlled by your meeting policy. Our guide to Teams transcription licence requirements has the full table.

One setting is worth knowing about. Where the admin's Copilot policy allows it, an organiser can set Copilot to Only during the meeting. Microsoft says this mode relies on speech-to-text data that is not saved after the meeting ends, so unless someone also starts transcription there is no transcript to work from afterwards. That suits a sensitive internal discussion. It does not suit a client meeting you need a record of.

Who this suits

Firms that already pay for Copilot or Teams Premium and mostly want to remember what was agreed in internal meetings. It is built in, there is no new vendor to assess, and the data stays in your Microsoft 365 tenant. If that describes you, use it. You are already paying for it.

Where it falls short for client files

• The notes come in Microsoft's layout. A broker, adviser or solicitor usually needs the firm's own headings in the firm's own order.
• The recap lives in Teams. Someone still has to move it to the client record.
• By default, Microsoft sets meeting recordings and transcripts to expire after 120 days unless your admin changes it. A recap that depends on the transcript is not a long-term file record.
• Microsoft says Copilot will not work in meetings hosted outside your organisation.

Route 2: a bot that joins the meeting

Otter, Fireflies and Read AI all work the same basic way on Teams. You connect your calendar, and a notetaker joins your meetings as an extra participant, listens, and produces a transcript and summary. Otter's pricing page describes it as joining Zoom, MS Teams and Google Meet to write and share notes. Fireflies says you can invite its notetaker to a live meeting or have it auto-join your calendar meetings. Read AI says you add Read Assistant to any Zoom, Teams or Meet meeting.

Because the bot captures the call itself, it does not need Teams transcription to be on, and it does not care who organised the meeting as long as the host admits it. That is the main thing bots do that the other two routes cannot.

Who this suits

• People who are mostly guests in other organisations' meetings.
• Teams that jump between Teams, Zoom and Google Meet and want one tool across all three.
• Sales teams that want the audio or video to replay, and a sync to Salesforce or HubSpot.
• Anyone who wants to start on a free plan. All three list one.

What to weigh up

• The client sees an extra participant. A visible notetaker does tell everyone the meeting is being captured. Some clients are still uncomfortable with it, and some organisations block outside bots from their meetings.
• A recording usually exists. Otter and Fireflies list recording and playback, and Read AI lists audio and video playback on its Enterprise plans. In Australia, recording a private conversation needs the consent of everyone on it in several states. See our guide on whether it is legal to record calls in Australia.
• Where the data sits. Check each vendor's data location and retention terms against your own confidentiality and privacy obligations before client meetings go through it.
• Format. The output is a meeting summary. It usually still needs reworking into a file note.

We compare these tools one by one in CallNote vs Otter and CallNote vs Fireflies, and the general trade-off in meeting bots vs transcript-only note tools.

Route 3: work from the Teams transcript you already have

Teams can already transcribe your meeting on a standard business plan. The third route leaves the capture to Teams and only adds the step Teams does not do: turning that transcript into a file note in your format and putting it on the client record.

This is how CallNote works. It never joins the meeting, never records and never stores audio. Each person connects their own Microsoft account once. After a meeting they organised with transcription on, CallNote receives the transcript from Microsoft and the draft note is waiting for review. The setup has three parts:

1. Your Teams admin turns on Transcript API access in the Teams admin centre, under Meetings > Meeting settings. Microsoft ships this switched off. It is a one-off for the whole firm.
2. Each person selects Connect my Microsoft account in CallNote and signs in. The first person may need the firm's Microsoft 365 admin to approve the app.
3. Transcription is switched on in the meeting. Our guide to Teams transcription without recording has the steps.

The consent signal is Teams' own. When transcription starts, Microsoft says all participants see a notification that the meeting is being transcribed. There is no second product in the room for the client to ask about. You should still tell them out loud.

Who this suits

Client-facing professionals who organise their own meetings and need a proper file note at the end: mortgage brokers, financial advisers, solicitors, accountants. The note comes out in your template, you review it, and Publish to CRM sends it to the one CRM your firm has connected: HubSpot, Clio or Microsoft Dynamics 365. The published note is sealed with a checksum and locked, and later changes are added as amendments with an audit log.

Where it is the wrong pick

• Meetings you did not organise. Teams stores the transcript in the organiser's account. If the client or another firm sent the invite, CallNote cannot fetch it. You can still upload a .vtt if they share one, but a bot handles this case better.
• You want the audio. CallNote has no recording to replay.
• Zoom or Google Meet with no manual step. Those are upload or paste in CallNote. Only Teams, Aircall and Dialpad arrive automatically.
• You want a free tool. CallNote is $149 a month for one person or $99 per seat per month for a team, in Australian dollars, after a 14-day free trial.
• You only need a quick internal recap. Copilot already does that.

What the same meeting looks like as a file note

A fictional example. A mortgage broker runs a 30 minute Teams meeting with a client about refinancing. Transcription is on, recording is off. This is the reviewed note in the broker's own template.

The line that earns its keep is "Not covered on this call". A generic meeting summary reports what was said. A file note template also shows what the conversation missed, while there is still time to fix it. Our NCCP file note checklist lists what a complete broker note should show.

How to choose

• Who organises most of your client meetings? If it is you, the transcript route and Copilot both work. If it is usually the other side, look at a bot.
• Do you need audio kept, or would you prefer none existed? Keeping audio means storing, securing and eventually deleting it.
• Does the note have to match a set format for audits, such as an NCCP note, an advice file note or a legal attendance note?
• Where does the note have to live? If the answer is a CRM or practice system, check the tool can put it there, or plan for copy and paste.
• What are you already paying Microsoft for? If Copilot is on every seat, start there and see what is missing.
• Do many client conversations happen by phone? Meeting tools miss those. See our guide to AI note takers for phone calls.

Plenty of firms end up with two of the three: Copilot for internal meetings, and a file note tool for client conversations. That is a reasonable setup. For the Microsoft side of the client workflow, see how to turn a Teams transcript into a file note and Teams meeting notes to Dynamics 365.

Common questions