The term covers two very different tools. One writes down what happened after your meeting. The other helps you while the meeting is still going. Picking the wrong one is the most common mistake buyers make, so here is the honest version of the category.
Most products sold as an AI meeting assistant are note takers. A bot joins your call, records it, and sends you a transcript with a summary and action items once everyone hangs up. Otter, Fathom, Fireflies, Granola, and Fellow all work this way, and they are good at it.
The second camp is newer: real-time assistants. Nothing joins the call. The app runs on your computer, listens to the audio you already hear, and when a question comes up it puts a suggested answer in front of you a second later. Flintalk is in this camp. The difference sounds small until someone asks about pricing mid-negotiation and the number is in a PDF you cannot reach fast enough. A summary of that call will tell you, politely, that you fumbled it.
| Note takers | Real-time assistants | |
|---|---|---|
| When it helps you | After the call ends | During the call, in about a second |
| How it connects | A bot joins the meeting | Runs on your Mac, nothing joins |
| What you get | Transcript, summary, action items | A suggested answer while the question hangs in the air |
| Everyone can see it | Yes, the bot sits in the participant list | No, the overlay is excluded from screen share |
| Typical tools | Otter, Fathom, Fireflies, Granola, Fellow | Flintalk, Cluely |
You pick an agent before you dial in: sales call, client demo, one specific customer. Each agent carries its own instructions and its own documents. During the call, Flintalk transcribes the audio live, spots real questions, and streams a suggested answer grounded in your uploaded material, with the source file named under it. You still do the talking. It just makes sure the right fact is in front of you while the moment is still open.
The overlay stays out of screen capture, so you can share your whole screen on a call and keep the answers to yourself. We document exactly how that works, per platform, on the screen-share page, and what does and does not leave your Mac on the security page.
If your problem is remembering what was said, get a note taker. They are mature, cheap, and the transcript is genuinely useful for follow-ups. If your problem is what to say while the call is happening, notes arrive too late. Sales reps hit this on pricing and competitor questions, customer success hits it on "can your product do X", and consultants hit it every time they are the only person on their side of the call. That moment is what a real-time AI meeting assistant is for. We compare the tools honestly, ours included, on the alternatives pages.
Note takers like Otter, Fathom, and Fireflies join your meeting as a visible bot participant so they can record it. Real-time assistants like Flintalk run on your computer instead. Nothing joins the call, nothing shows in the participant list, and the other side does not need to consent to a recording bot.
Flintalk works with anything that plays audio on your computer: Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Slack huddles, Discord, even a phone call played through your speakers. There is no plugin and no meeting invite.
No. The overlay is excluded from screen capture on both Mac and Windows on Google Meet and Microsoft Teams automatically. Zoom needs one setting or a single-window share, and the app includes a Safety Test (press Cmd-Shift-T) that takes a real screenshot so you can verify before the call.
From your own material. You upload PDFs, DOCX files, or notes, and every answer cites the file it came from. Flintalk does not reach for the open web unless you turn web search on for that agent.
Yes. Every account gets 30 free minutes with no card. Paid plans are $12 and $39 a month.
Yes. Flintalk runs on Windows and on Mac, both Apple Silicon and Intel.
Written by the Flintalk team. We build a real-time meeting assistant, so read the comparisons above knowing where we stand; every claim about our own product is testable in the free plan. Last updated August 24, 2026.
Download Flintalk and get 30 minutes free. No card, no bot, nothing on the shared screen.