Google may have just come for Otter.ai, one of my most favored AI transcription services, in the same way it came for GPS companies.
On October 28, 2009, Google launched Google Maps Navigation, offering free turn-by-turn navigation as you drove. It took established GPS mapping companies, such as Garmin and TomTom, and virtually wiped them out overnight. A quiet upgrade to Google Meet signals that Google is taking aim at Otter and its competitors — though they have a tiny bit of breathing room, for the moment.
For me, a transcription application is necessary to ensure I record quotations correctly and unearth small but critical details. Many videoconferencing applications now offer transcripts and AI summaries, as does Otter. But all of that processing takes place via the in-app assistant, which listens in on the virtual call and records what’s going on. Now Google Meet has taken it a step further, extending transcription and AI summaries to in-person meetings, as well.
“Regardless of whether your meeting is in-person, or hosted on another provider like Zoom or Teams, simply tap ‘Take Notes for me’ on the Google Meet home screen from your mobile device or desktop, and Gemini will capture a summary and action items from the conversation in a Google Doc,” Google said Wednesday. (The emphasis is Google’s.)
Put another way, if you own an Android phone, recording and transcribing a conversation, along with an AI summary (according to your state’s local laws), is as easy as simply setting down the device and launching the Meet application. That’s something Otter has done very well, but not a service offered by Meet or Microsoft Teams.
That’s a huge deal. Otter is my preferred service for recording interviews, simply because it provides a transcript of the conversation that I can refer back to later. For the Pro plan (1,200 minutes per month, with conversation lengths that can go over two hours), Otter charges $16.99/mo or about half that per month on an annual basis. A rival, Fireflies.ai, charges $10 per seat and goes up from there. Yes, conversations are stored in the cloud, but still, that’s $17 or so that I could be spending on other things.
Well, kind of. Google didn’t say anything about pricing. On an anonymous Google Chrome instance, transcription will be offered on “certain Google One, Google Workspace Business, and Google Workspace Enterprise plans,” Google says. The Standard Google One plan costs $29.99 per year, while AI Plus is $79.99 annually.
I rarely use Meet’s transcription feature, if only because my contacts rarely use Meet. But every frequent note-taker should perk up their ears. I always knew that one day a free transcription app would arrive on the market, and I’ve seriously considered vibe-coding my own. Google Meet’s in-person transcription might not be a reality yet, but it seems headed that way. Look out, Otter.
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