Otter vs Fireflies vs Grain: AI Meeting Assistants Tested
Meetings are expensive.
The hidden cost is not the hour you spend on the call. It is the 15 to 30 minutes afterwards, when you try to reconstruct what happened and who committed to what.
AI meeting assistants promise to remove that admin. The pitch is simple: transcribe the call, summarise decisions, extract action items, and push them into your tools.
I tested three of the most popular options head-to-head: Otter, Fireflies, and Grain. I ran them in the same meetings and compared the outputs.
Test methodology
Duration: 30 days (October 2024)
Meetings tracked: 42 total
- 18 internal team meetings
- 12 client calls
- 8 partner discussions
- 4 interviews
Process:
- Invite all three bots to the same meeting.
- Let them record simultaneously.
- Compare transcript accuracy, summaries, and action items.
- Track how much time I saved post-meeting.
The contenders (pricing and positioning)
- Otter.ai: Free tier, $17/month Pro, $30/month Business
- Fireflies.ai: Free tier, $10/month Pro, $19/month Business
- Grain: Free tier, $19/month Starter, $39/month Business
Transcription accuracy (what it got right and wrong)
I used a 30 minute team meeting with four speakers and technical language as a consistent comparison point.
Otter had the highest accuracy and best speaker identification. Fireflies was close, but struggled more with technical terms. Grain was fine for casual calls, but fell behind when jargon appeared.
The difference is not abstract. In a 60 minute meeting, small accuracy gaps become hundreds of errors.
Summary quality (can you share it without rewriting?)
Otter produced the most shareable summaries. It captured decisions and action items with owners most reliably.
Fireflies often captured the topics, but dropped owner attribution, which makes action items less useful.
Grain is not trying to be the best summariser. It is more video highlight focused.
Action item extraction (the feature that decides the winner)
Owner attribution is the make or break.
A list that says "Create mockups" is not a task. It is a wish.
Otter did best at capturing who owns each action item. Fireflies did well at spotting tasks, but owners were inconsistent. Grain missed too many action items in casual conversation.
Integrations and workflow fit
Otter was the most hands-off once configured. Fireflies required more babysitting. Grain required more manual work because it is built around watching and sharing moments.
Privacy and security
All three advertise enterprise security standards and GDPR compliance. For EU teams, Fireflies had a clearer positioning around EU data options.
If you are recording sensitive conversations, you should still test each tool's controls, deletion options, and admin settings.
Verdict: which AI meeting assistant should you pick?
Best overall: Otter
Pick Otter if accuracy and reliable action items matter most.
It is a good default for most teams.
Best value: Fireflies
Pick Fireflies if budget matters and you want conversation intelligence features.
Expect to spend a bit more time cleaning outputs.
Best for video coaching: Grain
Pick Grain if your main goal is coaching and sharing short highlight clips.
It is less compelling as a pure meeting summary tool.
FAQ
Do AI meeting assistants really save time?
Yes, if you have a steady volume of meetings. In my workflow, post-meeting admin dropped from about 20 minutes to a couple of minutes for review and sharing.
Which AI meeting assistant is most accurate?
In my testing, Otter produced the best transcripts, especially with multiple speakers and technical terms.
Chaos can turn action items from meetings into trackable tasks, so follow-ups do not disappear. Start your free trial.