In short
A meeting notetaker can hear a meeting in one of two ways.
It can join the call as a participant — a bot, run by the vendor, that appears in the participant list and receives the meeting's audio — or it can listen on the device you are already using, capturing your microphone and the sound your computer plays. The second is what "bot-free" means.
Both produce a transcript and notes. They differ in who has to agree to it, who can block it, what breaks, and where the audio goes. This guide explains the two approaches, what each one asks of you and the people you meet, and how to choose.
The short answer
| A bot that joins the call | A notetaker on your device | |
|---|---|---|
| What the others see | An extra participant, usually named after the tool | Nothing in the call |
| Who has to allow it | The host or organiser, often the meeting's lobby settings | Only you, on your computer |
| Can the organisation block it | Yes — meeting platforms have controls for it | Not through the meeting; through device policy, if at all |
| Works on | The platforms the vendor supports | Anything the computer plays |
| Needs you in the meeting | No — it can attend alone | Yes — it records what your computer hears |
| Where transcription happens | The vendor's servers | Depends on the tool: cloud or on the device |
If you need notes from meetings you do not attend, a bot is the only option of the two. If you attend your own meetings and do not want an extra participant, a notetaker on your device is simpler.
How a bot hears a meeting
A meeting bot is a participant run by the vendor on its own servers. It is given the meeting link — usually from your calendar — joins like a guest, and receives the same audio and video stream as everyone else. The vendor transcribes that stream and sends you the notes. How meeting bots work goes into the mechanics.
That design has real advantages. The bot can attend a meeting you miss. It gets each person's audio from the platform, which on some platforms comes labelled with who was speaking. And nothing runs on your computer.
It also has costs that follow directly from being a participant:
- Everyone sees it. A tile called "Notetaker" appears, and someone asks what it is. In a client call, that is a conversation you have to have.
- It can be refused. A host can leave it in the waiting room or remove it. Microsoft Teams now detects external bots and holds them in the lobby for the organiser to admit by default (Microsoft Learn, as of September 2026).
- It can fail to join. A meeting with a passcode, a changed link, or a lobby nobody watches leaves you with no record at all.
- The audio goes to the vendor. That is how it works, not a flaw, but it puts another company in the list of places your meeting has been.
Many security teams now restrict bots for exactly these reasons. Why companies block AI meeting bots covers what they say and why.
How a notetaker on your device hears a meeting
Your computer already hears the whole meeting: your voice through the microphone, and everyone else through the speakers or headphones. A bot-free notetaker captures those two sources directly.
- Your microphone is you.
- What the computer plays is everyone else — the call app's output.
Because the two arrive separately, a notetaker can tell your side of the conversation from theirs without being told who anyone is. Tools that keep them as two separate tracks can label every line of the transcript "You" or "Them" by where it came from.
The advantages are the mirror image of the bot's costs. Nothing appears in the call, so there is no participant to explain or refuse. It works with any meeting app, a browser call, or a phone on speaker, because it records the computer rather than the platform. And if the meeting starts early or the link changes, it does not matter.
The costs are real too:
- You have to be there. It records what your computer hears, so it cannot attend a meeting for you.
- The call does not tell anyone. There is no platform indicator, so you have to say you are recording.
- It runs on your computer. It needs permission to use the microphone and to capture system audio, and it uses some of the machine's resources while it works.
- Speakers cause crosstalk. Without headphones, your microphone picks up the other side too. Headphones fix it.
Bot-free is not the same as local
"Bot-free" describes how the notetaker hears the meeting. It says nothing about where the audio goes afterwards.
Some bot-free notetakers stream the captured audio to a cloud transcription service during the meeting. Others transcribe on the device and never upload the audio. Both are bot-free; they make very different promises about data. On-device transcription explains what the second kind involves and what it costs in accuracy and language support.
When comparing tools, ask three separate questions:
- Does anything join the call?
- Where is the audio transcribed?
- What is kept afterwards — audio, transcript, notes — and where?
Notey vs Granola is a worked example: two bot-free notetakers that answer the second and third questions differently.
Consent works the same either way
A bot announces itself by being visible. A notetaker on your device does not. That changes who does the announcing, not whether it needs doing.
Whether you must ask before recording depends on where you and the other participants are, your organisation's rules, and the client's. Some places require everyone's agreement. Recording at work can also fall under data protection law. The working habit is the same in every case: say at the start that you are recording and why, and stop if someone objects. Is it legal to record a meeting? covers the background.
When a bot is the better choice
Be fair to the bot: there are situations where it fits better.
- You want notes from meetings you do not attend. Only a bot can go without you.
- Your organisation has approved a bot vendor and wants every meeting captured the same way, centrally.
- You work on a device where you cannot install software, such as a locked-down corporate laptop.
- You need platform speaker labels on every participant, and your platform provides them to bots.
When a notetaker on your device is the better choice
- Your clients or your employer block bots, or you would rather not ask them to admit one.
- You use several meeting apps and want one tool across all of them, including calls that are not meetings at all.
- You want the audio to stay with you, with transcription on your own machine.
- You want the recording to be there even when the call is messy — changed links, lobbies, late starts.
How Notey does it
Notey is a Mac app for Apple silicon Macs with macOS 26 or later. It records your microphone and the sound your Mac is playing as two separate tracks and transcribes both on the Mac. Nothing joins the call.
- It asks before it records. When Zoom, Teams, Slack, FaceTime or a browser call in Chrome, Safari, Arc or Edge starts using the microphone, Notey's floating button says so and asks. Nothing is saved until you press Allow. For other apps you press Start.
- It shows that it is recording. A red dot and the elapsed time appear in the window, the menu bar and the floating button whenever audio is being kept. They are visible to you, not to the call.
- The audio stays on your disk. Transcription uses Apple's on-device speech recognition. It never asks for Screen Recording: the Mac's audio comes from a Core Audio process tap.
- No account needed to record, transcribe, search and read back. AI notes need an account; only the transcript's text is sent, never audio, and the result is labelled as AI-generated.
What it cannot do: attend a meeting without you, run on Windows, Intel Macs or phones, or share notes in a team workspace. See the features for the rest.
Which fits
Choose by the meeting, not the category. If you need coverage of meetings you miss, or an organisation-wide system someone else administers, a bot does that. If you are in the meeting anyway and would rather nobody had to approve anything, record on your own computer — and tell people you are doing it.
More on notes without a bot
- Notetaker bots in client calls: what the other side experiences, and how to handle notes either way.
- Taking notes in confidential meetings: keeping the list of places a conversation ends up short.
- Local-first meeting notes: what the term should mean in a notetaker.
- Recording an in-person meeting with a MacBook and taking notes on phone calls from a Mac, for conversations that are not video calls.
- What a recording indicator should show, and why a recorder outside the call shows it only to you.
Frequently asked questions
What is a bot-free meeting notetaker?
A notetaker that does not join the call as a participant. It captures the meeting on your own computer, from your microphone and the sound the computer is playing, so nobody on the call has to admit anything.
Do other people know when a bot-free notetaker is recording?
Not from the call itself. There is no extra tile and the meeting app shows no notice, so telling people is your job. Say it at the start of the meeting.
Does a bot-free notetaker work on every meeting app?
If it records the computer's audio, it works with anything the computer plays — Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Slack huddles, a browser call or a phone on speaker. A bot only works on the platforms its vendor has built it for.
Can a bot-free notetaker be blocked by the meeting host?
The host's controls act on participants, and a notetaker on your computer is not one. Whether you may record is still decided by the law, your organisation's policy and the people in the meeting, not by the software.
Is a bot-free notetaker more private?
It removes one party — the vendor's bot — from the call. What happens next depends on the tool. Some send the audio to a cloud transcription service; others, like Notey, transcribe on the device and keep the audio on your disk. Ask where the audio goes.