Granola vs Otter.ai vs Slack AI vs Zoom AI Companion
A side-by-side look at scores, pricing and features — with RECATOOLS' ASEAN-aware verdict for each.
Granola
Meeting notes that you actually want to read
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Otter.ai
Meeting transcription and AI notes
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Slack AI
AI summaries and search, now bundled into paid Slack tiers
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Zoom AI Companion
Zoom's meeting AI — split 2026 into free Zoom AI + paid ZoomMate
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| RECATOOLS Score | 7.8 / 10 | 7.3 / 10 | 7.1 / 10 | 7.5 / 10 |
| Capability | — | |||
| Value for money | — | |||
| Ease of use | — | |||
| ASEAN readiness | — | |||
| API quality | — | |||
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium | Subscription | Subscription |
| Free tier | Basic plan (free) — capped at 25 lifetime meeting notes, 14 days of visible history, no integrations | 300 minutes per month transcription, 3 lifetime audio/video file imports (permanent cap, not monthly), 30-minute cap per conversation | — | Core Zoom AI (summaries, smart recording, chat drafting) included with paid Workplace plans |
| Paid from | $14/user/month (Business plan); Enterprise at $35/user/month | $16.99/month (Pro) | — | ZoomMate add-on from $20/user/mo; Workplace with AI from $14.16/user/mo |
| Has API | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Open source | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Free to use | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Users | — | 35m+ users | — | 4M+ accounts enabled (57% of Fortune 500) |
| Founded | 2023 | 2016 | 2024 | 2011 |
| Maker | — | Sam Liang, Yun Fu | — | Eric Yuan |
| Verdict | Granola stays the most polished of the bot-free notetakers: it captures system audio on your machine — nothing joins the call — and merges your typed shorthand with the transcript into notes that read like a human wrote... |
Otter.ai remains the most recognizable AI meeting-assistant, with OtterPilot joining Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet calls to transcribe, diarize speakers, and generate summaries and action items. Real-time English transcri... |
Slack absorbed what used to be a $10-a-seat AI add-on into its regular plans in June 2025 — Pro gets basic thread and huddle summaries, Business+ unlocks AI search, recaps, translation and file summaries, and Enterprise+... |
Zoom spent 2026 renaming its AI, and the split is the thing to understand. The core features people actually use — meeting summaries, smart recording highlights, transcription in 30+ languages, chat drafting — are now ju... |
| Full review → | Full review → | Full review → | Full review → |
Comparisons cover up to 4 tools. Scores are RECATOOLS editorial assessments; verify current pricing on each vendor's site.