Do AI note takers work on phone calls, not just video? And do they record you?

Do AI note takers work on phone calls, not just video?

Some do, but a meeting bot cannot. A bot joins through a meeting link, and an ordinary phone call has no link to join. The tools that work on phone calls get the conversation another way. There are four routes, and we checked each vendor's own help pages in October 2026.

1. Your phone system makes the transcript

If your firm uses a cloud phone system, the call already runs through software that can transcribe it. Aircall (with its AI Assist add-on switched on) and Dialpad (on Pro or Enterprise) both produce a transcript of the call themselves. A note tool then works from that text. This is how CallNote handles phone calls: connect Aircall or Dialpad once and each call transcript becomes a file note, with no recording made by CallNote.

Some meeting tools plug into phone systems too. Fireflies lists dialer integrations for Aircall, JustCall, Outreach, Quo (formerly OpenPhone), RingCentral, Salesloft and Zoom Phone, and its help centre describes these as transcribing calls made and recorded through the dialer. Otter lists a Zoom Phone integration for its Enterprise plan. In both cases the call is captured by the phone system first.

2. An app on your computer listens to the call

If you take calls through a softphone or a calling app on your laptop, a desktop note taker can capture the computer's audio. Fireflies says its desktop no-bot mode works with supported phone calls, WhatsApp and FaceTime, and keeps a transcript and notes with no audio file. Granola's desktop app transcribes whatever meeting audio plays on your computer. Neither helps with a call taken on a handset on your desk.

3. A mobile app, with limits

This is where most people get caught. Otter's help centre says Apple and Google restrict third-party apps from recording phone calls directly, so Otter cannot record a mobile call itself. You record with the phone's built-in call recorder, then import the file into Otter. Fathom's iPhone app is built for in-person conversations, and Fathom says it only records live meetings on Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams and does not accept uploaded recordings. It lists phone calls among the things it does not support. Granola says its mobile app is best for in-person meetings. On iPhone it can also take notes on outbound calls made through the app's own dialler, which Granola says is not available on Android yet.

4. Turn the call into a meeting, or dictate afterwards

If your Teams or Zoom plan includes dial-in numbers, a client can join a scheduled meeting from an ordinary phone, and the meeting tools then work as they would on video. For a call on your mobile with nothing capturing it, the simple route is to dictate a short recap straight after. CallNote turns that voice memo into a file note.

Recording a phone call is a legal question as well as a technical one. If any of these routes creates a recording, check the rule for your state in is it legal to record phone calls in Australia. We compare the options in more depth in the best AI note taker for phone calls in Australia.

Does AI record your conversations?

Most AI note takers do. The majority join your call as a bot, record the audio (often the video too), and store that recording on a server before they write anything. A smaller group captures audio on your own device. A very small group never touches audio at all. If you handle sensitive client information, the difference between those groups matters more than any feature.

The rest of this guide walks through exactly what each type does with your call, why it matters when you are a client-facing professional in Australia, and how to check what your tool is actually doing rather than what the marketing says. None of this is legal advice, just a clear explanation of how the technology works.

The four levels of what an AI note taker does with your call

"Does it record?" sounds like a yes or no question. It is really a spectrum. There are four meaningfully different things a note-taking tool can do, and each one leaves a different amount of your client's data sitting on a server somewhere.

Level 1: Bot joins, records audio and video, stores the recording

This is the most common setup. A bot appears in your Zoom, Teams or Meet call as a visible participant. It records the audio, usually the video, transcribes it, then writes the summary. The recording is stored, sometimes by default, sometimes until you delete it. Otter, Fireflies and Avoma work this way by default, and so does Fathom when you use its bot. tl;dv records meetings too, although its site now also advertises a no-bot option. They are popular for a reason: the transcripts are complete and the integrations into CRMs are broad. The trade-off is that a full recording of your client conversation now lives on the vendor's servers.

Level 2: No visible bot, audio still captured

Friendlier delivery, and the audio is still captured. Instead of a bot joining the meeting, an app on your machine captures the call. There is no extra participant in the room, which clients tend to find less awkward. Fathom is the well-known example here. Its newer bot-free version, which Fathom says is on Mac only as at October 2026, has an Audio Only mode that captures audio on your device with no video. It also has a Transcript Only mode where no recording is saved, which belongs at Level 3. Full audio and video still needs its bot. Fathom says all of its data is stored in the United States. With no bot in the room, nothing on screen tells you which mode is on, so check.

Level 3: Device capture, transcribes, then deletes the audio

A meaningful step down in data retention. The tool captures your device audio, transcribes it in real time, and then deletes the audio, keeping only the text. Granola is the clearest example. No bot joins the call, and Granola says it does not store the audio, only the transcript and your notes. It names outside transcription providers, so the audio is processed to make the transcript and then not kept. This is genuinely better data minimisation than Levels 1 and 2, and Granola is well regarded for it. Fireflies' desktop no-bot mode sits here too: it keeps a transcript and notes with no audio file. Two things to keep in mind with Granola: the audio still passes through the tool before deletion, and its notes are stored in the United States. As at October 2026 it has apps for macOS, Windows, iPhone and Android. Fathom's Transcript Only mode sits at this level as well.

Level 4: Never touches the call audio at all

The tool never records your calls and never sends a bot. It receives a transcript that your phone system or meeting platform already produced, and turns that text into a structured note. This is how CallNote works. Your Dialpad or Aircall call, your Teams meeting, your forwarded transcript: the text already exists, and CallNote works from the text. The call audio never enters the tool. The one exception is a voice memo you dictate yourself after a call or meeting: that is turned into text, and the audio is not saved. A couple of other tools sit near this idea too. Jamie says it runs on your device with no bot and deletes meeting audio after transcription, and Zocks says client conversations are never recorded. Both keep less than a recorder does, though they capture the conversation themselves and do not start from a transcript that already exists.

Why this matters more for client-facing professionals

If you are a mortgage broker, financial adviser, buyer's agent, lawyer or accountant, your calls are not casual chats. They contain income figures, asset positions, health details, family circumstances, and identity information. That data carries obligations regardless of which note tool you use.

Under the Privacy Act and the Australian Privacy Principles, you are responsible for personal information you collect, and APP 11 requires you to take reasonable steps to protect it. When a tool stores a recording of your client call, that recording is personal information you are responsible for, and it now sits wherever the vendor put it. The question stops being "is the note accurate" and becomes "who else holds a copy of my client's voice, and where."

There is also a plain practical angle. A stored recording is a stored liability. It can be subpoenaed, breached, or requested under an access request. A note that was generated from a transcript and then sealed leaves you with the record you actually need and nothing extra to defend. This is general guidance rather than legal advice, but the principle is straightforward: you cannot lose control of data you never collected in the first place.

The data residency question most people miss

Recording is only half of it. The other half is where the data lives. Most of the popular note takers are hosted offshore. Otter, Fireflies (by default), Fathom and Avoma are US-hosted. tl;dv says it is hosted and stored in the EU. Jamie says its storage and processing stay in Europe. None of those are bad companies, and several have strong security postures and explicit no-AI-training guarantees. But for an Australian professional, offshore hosting means your client's data crosses a border and sits under another country's laws.

This is where being built for the Australian market actually changes the answer. CallNote stores your notes and transcripts in Australia (AWS Sydney), encrypted with AES-256, and does not use them to train AI models. Stored in Sydney does not mean nothing leaves Australia. The note is written by an AI provider outside Australia, and our security page lists every provider we use and what each one receives. Claras, the established Australian competitor for financial advisers, says on its site that sensitive data never leaves Australia. Where the stored record sits is one of the clearer dividing lines between the local tools and the offshore ones, so ask every vendor where the text is processed as well as where it is kept.

How to check what your tool is really doing

Marketing pages can be vague on purpose. "Privacy-first" and "secure" do not tell you whether a recording is being kept. Here is how to get a real answer for any tool, including the one you use now.

1. Ask the direct question: does it store a recording of the call, or only the transcript? If only a transcript, ask whether the audio is deleted and when.
2. Find out where the data is hosted. Look for a named region or country, not just "the cloud". Australian hosting matters if your clients are Australian.
3. Check whether your data trains their AI. Many reputable tools now say no in writing. If a tool will not say, treat that as a no until proven otherwise.
4. Look at how you get data out and whether you own it. If leaving the tool means losing your notes, that is lock-in.
5. For compliance work, ask whether lodged notes are tamper-evident. An append-only audit log and a sealed, timestamped note are what make a file note defensible later.

If you want to go deeper on the bot question specifically, we wrote a longer piece comparing meeting bots versus transcript-only note tools, and a roundup of the AI note takers that don't record. For what Otter, Fathom and Fireflies say in their own policies about storage, training and deletion, see are AI note takers safe.

Where CallNote sits, honestly

CallNote is a Level 4 tool, built for one job: a defensible written record after a client call. It is for Australian client-facing professionals, mortgage brokers, financial advisers, lawyers, conveyancers, accountants, insurance brokers and recruiters, anyone who writes a file note after a call. It receives the transcript your phone or meeting system already made, generates a clean file note in about two minutes, and lets you review it before you Publish it with a SHA-256 seal and an append-only audit log. It ships with per-state recording-consent guidance for all eight states and territories and customisable note templates, a neutral General template as the default, an NCCP loan-suitability template for brokers, and build-your-own templates for your own industry.

It is not the right tool for everyone. If you want a full searchable video library of every meeting, a recorder is a better fit, and tools like Otter and Fireflies do that well. If you live in Zoom all day and want the most accurate live transcript, that is their strength, not ours. CallNote is for the broker or adviser who wants a defensible written record after the call and does not want a recording of their client sitting offshore. Different tools for different jobs.

Today CallNote gets your transcript in several live ways: paste it, upload a voice memo (transcribed for phone and in-person calls), forward it to a unique email address, or connect a phone system so every call transcript becomes a note. Dialpad, Aircall and Microsoft Teams meetings connect automatically, and finished notes can be published to HubSpot, Clio or Microsoft Dynamics 365, sent to Slack or Notion, or passed anywhere else through Zapier. Zoom and Google Meet are not automatic: you upload or paste the transcript.

Common questions