The best AI note-taking apps in 2026 (and what the AI actually does)

The best AI note-taking app depends on which job you want the AI to do. To record meetings and get notes without typing, pick Granola (no bot joins the call) or Otter.ai (the most generous free plan). To have AI write, summarize and search inside a notes app you already use, pick Notion AI, Microsoft OneNote with Copilot, or Apple Notes on a recent iPhone. To ask questions across your own documents, use Google's Gemini Notebook, the tool formerly called NotebookLM. And if your "notes" are mostly links and screenshots you saved on your phone, you want a saving app with AI search, not a note app.

"AI note-taking app" covers very different products: some listen to meetings, some rewrite your paragraphs, some answer questions about your files. This guide sorts them by what the AI actually does. Prices and features come from each vendor's own site, checked in November 2026. Where I couldn't confirm a price, I've left it out.

Disclosure: I'm building Reminari, which appears near the end. It's not a meeting note taker, and I've said so where it matters.

The three kinds of AI note-taking apps

Before the list, decide which of these you need:

1. Meeting and voice note takers. They record or listen, transcribe, then write a summary and action items. Otter, Granola, Fireflies and Notion's AI Meeting Notes live here.
2. Notes apps with AI built in. You still write the notes. The AI helps you draft, tidy, summarize and search them. Notion AI, Mem, Evernote, OneNote with Copilot, Apple Notes and Reflect fit here.
3. AI over your own sources. You give it documents, PDFs and links, then ask questions and get answers with citations. Gemini Notebook and Saner.AI are the clearest examples.

If you mostly sit in calls, start with group one. If you write a lot, group two. If you study or research, group three.

Best AI note-taking apps at a glance

Meeting and voice note takers

Otter.ai: the most generous free plan

Otter is the name most people know, and its free plan is still the easiest way to try AI meeting notes. According to Otter's pricing page, the free Basic plan includes 300 transcription minutes per user each month, up to 30 minutes per conversation, and 20 AI Chat questions a month. It works in Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, and has apps for Android, iPhone, Mac and Windows.

Pro is $8.33 per user per month billed yearly, or $16.99 monthly, and raises the limit to 90 minutes per meeting.

• Good at: reliable live transcripts, searchable conversation history, sharing notes with a team.
• Falls short: the free plan only keeps your 25 most recent conversations, and Otter's privacy policy allows training on de-identified recordings (more on that below).

Granola: best if you hate meeting bots

Granola takes a different approach. Instead of sending a bot into the call, it captures audio on your own device, and you type rough notes as you go. Afterwards, Granola merges your notes with the transcript into a clean write-up.

Granola's pricing page lists "Bot-free, device-audio capture" and "Audio deleted after transcription" on every plan, with desktop, iPhone and Android apps. The free Basic plan keeps 30 days of meeting history. Business is $14 per user per month.

• Good at: notes that sound like you, because they start from your own words.
• Falls short: no bot also means nobody else in the call sees that notes are being taken, so tell people. The free plan's 30-day history is short.

Fireflies.ai: built for teams

Fireflies joins calls as a bot, records them, and produces transcripts, summaries and searchable meeting history for a whole team. It has Free, Pro, Business and Enterprise plans, billed per seat. Its pricing page didn't show prices when I checked, so look there before you commit.

It's built for company-wide meeting search, and is overkill for one person.

Notion AI Meeting Notes

If your team already lives in Notion, its AI Meeting Notes put the transcript and summary straight into your workspace. On Notion's pricing page, AI Meeting Notes, Notion Agent and Enterprise Search are part of the Business plan at $20 per member per month. Free and Plus get only a limited trial of Notion AI.

Notes apps with AI built in

Notion AI: best for teams that already use Notion

Beyond meetings, Notion AI drafts and rewrites pages, summarizes long docs and answers questions from your workspace. The catch is price: full AI sits on the Business plan, so a solo note-taker on Plus ($10 a month) only gets the trial.

Mem: AI that organizes for you

Mem's pitch is that you shouldn't file anything. You write or send things in, and Mem's AI connects related notes and answers questions about them. You can also talk to it with Voice Mode.

Mem's pricing is usage-based. The free plan allows 25 new notes and 25 messages to Mem a month, Plus is $9 a month and Pro is $29. Its download page lists iPhone, Mac and Windows, with no Android app.

• Good at: capture without folders.
• Falls short: the free plan is tight, and Android users are left out.

Microsoft OneNote with Copilot

OneNote itself is free, and it's one of the best note apps on Android. The AI part is Copilot Notebooks. Microsoft's support page says it lets you gather OneNote pages, files, links and Copilot chats in one notebook, then ask questions, get summaries and action items, and even an audio summary. It's available to Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, Premium and Pro subscribers.

• Good at: if you already pay for Microsoft 365, the AI comes with it.
• Falls short: it's one more layer on top of OneNote's notebook, section and page structure, and the Copilot features are newest on Windows and the web.

Apple Notes: free, if your iPhone supports it

On a supported iPhone, Apple Notes can record audio, show a live transcript and summarize it. Apple lists Notes transcription summaries among its Apple Intelligence features, which in iOS 27 need an iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max, an iPhone 16 or later, iPhone Air or iPhone Duo. Writing Tools can also proofread, rewrite and summarize any note.

• Good at: free and already on your phone.
• Falls short: Apple only, and older iPhones don't get the AI features at all.

Evernote, Reflect and Google Keep

Evernote now lists an AI Assistant, semantic search, AI Transcribe for meetings, and AI Edit on its plan comparison page. The free plan is very limited: 50 notes, one notebook and one device.

Reflect has changed its model. Its site says the Mac app is free and the iPhone and iPad app is a paid subscription, with notes stored "in a folder you choose" and AI features that use your own API key. That suits people who want control over which AI provider sees their notes.

Google Keep has started adding Gemini, with features like creating a list from a prompt, but it's still a quick-notes app first. If you've outgrown it, I compared the best Google Keep alternatives separately.

AI over your own sources

Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM): best for studying and research

Google renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook in July 2026. It's the same tool: you add sources like PDFs, docs, links and notes, then chat with them. Answers cite the passages they came from, and it can turn your sources into study guides, briefings, mind maps and audio overviews you can listen to.

It's not for daily notes. It's for understanding a pile of material, which is why students and researchers love it.

Saner.AI: notes, tasks and AI in one place

Saner.AI combines notes, a task list and an AI assistant that searches across them. Saner's pricing page lists a free plan with 100 notes and 30 AI messages a month, Starter at $8 a month and Standard at $16. It runs on the web, with a mobile app and a Chrome extension.

Where Reminari fits (and where it doesn't)

Reminari is mine, so weigh this section accordingly. It is not a meeting note taker. It doesn't record calls, transcribe audio or replace Otter or Granola, and it doesn't archive whole web pages.

What it does is the other half of what people call notes: the links, screenshots and quick thoughts you save on your phone and never find again. You share anything into it from any app. It keeps a link's title and preview image when the site provides them, and reads the text inside screenshots on your phone.

Later you can search by meaning, like "that pasta recipe with lemon", or use Ask to get an answer from your own saves, with the sources shown. With optional cloud AI turned on, it adds short summaries (here's what an AI summarizer actually does) and files saves into smart groups like Recipes or Travel.

It's Android first, with the iPhone app in testing. You can join the early-access list.

Privacy: where your notes and recordings go

AI note-taking means your notes, and sometimes other people's voices, go to a server. Read the policy before you record a client call. Here's what the vendors say:

• Notion: "By default, neither Notion nor our AI providers use your Customer Data to train any models," per its AI security page.
• Otter.ai: its privacy policy lists "training our proprietary AI technology on de-identified audio recordings and on transcriptions (which may contain Personal Information)."
• Granola: may use anonymized data to improve its models by default. Its model training page explains how to switch off "Use my data to improve models for everyone" in Settings → Preferences.
• Gemini Notebook: for personal accounts, Google says your data isn't used to train it unless you send feedback. Workspace and Education accounts are never used for training.
• Apple Notes: Apple says Apple Intelligence is designed to process requests on the device where possible, so check its privacy notes if you use the cloud-based features.

One more rule that has nothing to do with the app: recording a conversation can require everyone's consent, depending on where you live. Bot-free tools make this easy to forget.

How to choose

• You're in back-to-back calls: Granola if you want no bot, Otter if you want the best free plan.
• Your team works in Notion: Notion AI on the Business plan.
• You already pay for Microsoft 365: OneNote with Copilot.
• You have a newer iPhone and want free: Apple Notes.
• You're studying or researching: Gemini Notebook.
• Your "notes" are saved links and screenshots: a saving app with AI search, like Reminari, not a note app.

For the bigger picture, I compared the best second brain apps too.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best free AI note-taking app?

For meetings, Otter.ai's free plan is the most generous, with 300 transcription minutes a month. For written notes on a newer iPhone, Apple Notes is free and includes transcription summaries. For studying your own documents, try Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM).

Is there an AI note taker that doesn't join the meeting as a bot?

Yes. Granola captures audio on your own device instead of sending a bot into the call, and says it deletes the audio after transcription. Apple Notes can also record and transcribe audio on a supported iPhone. Either way, tell the other people in the call you're taking notes.

Do AI note-taking apps train on my notes?

It depends on the app. Notion says it doesn't by default. Otter's privacy policy allows training on de-identified recordings and transcripts. Granola uses anonymized data by default but lets you opt out. Check each vendor's policy before recording sensitive calls.

What happened to NotebookLM?

Google renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook in July 2026. It's the same product: you add your sources, ask questions, and get answers with citations, plus study guides and audio overviews. Old NotebookLM links redirect to the new address.