Built-in AI notes in Teams, Google Meet, and Zoom

AI meeting notes built into Teams, Meet, and Zoom

If your team already pays for Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or Zoom, the note taker you need may already be in the meeting window. This page is part of taking notes with AI and compares the three built-in tools from their help pages as of November 11, 2026, starting with Microsoft’s guide to Copilot in Teams meetings.

The built-in tools have one advantage over separate apps: no extra participant joins the call, and your administrator’s settings apply. Their limits come from licenses and defaults, which differ more than the features do.

The three tools side by side

Zoom’s pricing page also lists summaries for three meetings a month on the free Basic plan, which its help pages do not mention; check your own account.

What it costs

Microsoft’s add-ons come on top of a Microsoft 365 business plan, and its promotional Copilot price applies in all four countries until the end of 2026. Taxes are excluded or not stated, depending on the page. Zoom showed us only Canadian prices: Pro at CA$19.16 a month billed annually, or CA$22.99 monthly.

Teams: Copilot with or without a transcript

Each Teams meeting has three Copilot settings. “During and after the meeting” requires a transcript; “Only during the meeting” works on live speech-to-text that is not saved; “Off” also turns off recording and transcription. Microsoft’s default admin policy enforces the first option, so organizers see the live-only choice only if an administrator has changed the policy.

When it is allowed, the steps are:

1. In the Teams calendar, open a meeting you organize and select Options.
2. Under “Copilot and other AI,” choose “Only during the meeting.”
3. During the meeting, select Copilot, then Turn on. It stays on until the end.

After a live-only meeting, Copilot is gone from the Recap tab, so copy what you need before you leave. “Without recording” is not “without a trace”: Microsoft says Copilot’s prompts and answers may still be retained under your organization’s Purview rules. With a Copilot license, intelligent recap can also work without a transcript, producing a read-only Word file in the organizer’s OneDrive that expires after 120 days by default and is visible only to licensed attendees from the same organization.

Two more limits: Copilot does not work in a meeting hosted by another organization, and Facilitator, the meeting agent included with a Copilot license, posts its notes and answers in the meeting chat for everyone to see.

Google Meet: notes in a shared document

Take notes for me writes a Google Docs file in the organizer’s Drive, with a short and a full version, and emails the link after the meeting. The organizer’s edition is what counts. Since September 21, 2026, Google turns on automatic note-taking by default on Business Standard and Business Plus for meetings with three or more guests, host included; administrators can opt out and users can change their own setting.

The host decides who receives the notes: every invited guest, external ones included, only guests from the organization, or only hosts. Google counts everyone on the calendar invite, not just those who attended. Ask Gemini in Meet answers privately from the live captions and keeps no caption data after the meeting, though your questions stay in your Gemini history. Both work in one language per meeting, so a meeting that switches between English and French needs a choice.

Zoom: a summary without a recording

Zoom’s meeting summary is started by the host or a co-host and built from speech-to-text, optionally with the text of shared screens and the chat. No recording is needed. The host chooses the recipients, from the host alone to every invitee, including external ones, and Zoom notes that anyone who receives a summary can save and share it. Only the host can edit it, and administrators can have summaries move to the trash after a set number of days. On paid plans, Zoom’s AI can also join a Teams or Google Meet meeting as a participant.

What participants see

All three tell people when AI is at work: Teams shows that transcription is on and displays a banner for a recap without transcript, Meet shows a pencil icon and a banner, and Zoom’s AI icon changes color. People who join by phone hear a spoken announcement for Ask Gemini in Meet and for Zoom’s AI features. Each also offers administrators an explicit agreement step, off by default, in which participants must accept before taking part: Teams keeps them muted until they agree, and Zoom keeps their camera and microphone off. Google advises hosts to confirm consent from external participants.

The three companies say their summaries can be wrong or incomplete, and say they do not use meeting content to train their models. Microsoft adds that very long meetings, over about two hours, can produce limited answers; Google, that meetings under 15 minutes may get a poor summary or none.

Before you press the button

A notice on screen is not always enough. Our page on the consent rules for recording covers the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia.

When clients use another platform

If your meetings happen on whatever platform the client chooses, a separate note taker app may suit you better. See how Otter, Fireflies, Fathom, and Granola compare.