Hey there,
Last week I wrote about using Otter.ai to take meeting notes, transcribe conversations, and auto-generate action items.
This week, I gave Notion’s new AI-powered Meeting Notes a proper test — and honestly, it’s shaping up to be a strong contender. Here’s how the two stack up, and why I’m starting to lean towards Notion for this part of my workflow.
🥊 Otter vs Notion: The Showdown
💰 Pricing
- Otter.ai’s paid plan runs about the same as Notion’s Business plan (~$20/month).
- But here’s the kicker: with Notion, you get a full productivity suite plus AI features — not just transcription.
🎤 Live Transcription
- Otter has live transcription. Notion doesn’t.
- But in practice? I rarely look at live transcription mid-meeting. I’m more interested in what happens after the meeting — and that’s where Notion shines.
🧠 Summaries + Action Points
- Both platforms summarize meetings and highlight action items.
- But Notion lets you copy and paste everything easily. Otter? You have to download the transcription file just to move it around.
📂 Why Notion’s Bigger Picture Matters
The real game-changer with Notion isn’t just its AI Meeting Notes — it’s what you can do around them.
This past week, we had a thorny network issue with multiple vendors involved. Lots of calls, back-and-forth emails, quick chats with the team… and normally, those conversations would be scattered across inboxes, WhatsApp, or lost entirely.
Instead, I created a single Notion page for the issue. I dropped in:
- all related emails,
- transcripts from our internal discussions,
- summaries of vendor calls, and
- AI-generated action points.
Now, everything — and I mean everything — about that issue lives in one place. Better still, I can ask Notion AI questions like:
“What have we tried already?”
“What’s the latest update from Supplier X?”
That’s not just transcription — that’s institutional memory, searchable and centralized.
🧪 Final Verdict?
- Use Otter if you want quick, free transcriptions (300 minutes/month on the free plan).
- Use Notion if you’re ready to go deeper — especially if you’re already managing projects, docs, or dashboards in Notion.
For me? I’m leaning Notion.
And in fact… I’m starting to seriously consider building our internal business dashboard inside Notion. It’s just that flexible — and when paired with AI, it becomes more than a tool. It becomes a second brain.
Let me know if you want a peek at how I’m setting it up.
Talk soon,
— Shawn