AI Meeting Assistant for Notes and Summaries (No Bot Joins)

Two kinds of AI meeting assistant

The phrase "AI meeting assistant" covers two very different products, and it is worth knowing which one you need before you buy.

1. Bot note takers

Tools in this group (Otter, Fireflies and Fathom are well-known examples) connect to your calendar and send a bot into the meeting. The bot records the call, produces a full transcript and sends a summary afterwards. They shine for teams that need a searchable archive of every meeting and CRM sync. The trade-off is that everyone sees the bot, some clients ask you to remove it, and the help arrives after the meeting is over.

2. Live meeting copilots

A live copilot sits on your own screen and helps while the conversation is happening: it hears the question, drafts an answer and keeps you on track. Kalfi belongs here, and adds the after-meeting part too: a structured summary of the session and memory across meetings in the same project.

If what hurts is "I froze when the client asked about the timeline" or "I forgot what we promised last week", you want the second kind.

What Kalfi does during the meeting

• Live transcript with speakers. In Both mode Kalfi listens to the meeting audio and your microphone on separate lanes, so each line is labelled as the other person (Client, Interviewer or Them, depending on the session type) or You.
• Suggested answers. When someone asks a question, Kalfi drafts a first line you can say right away and a few supporting points, based on the context you set for the meeting.
• Mic Ask. Missed the question? Press Mic Ask, restate it in your own words, and Kalfi answers what was actually asked.
• Ask on any line. Send any line from the transcript to the AI to get an answer, even if it was not phrased as a question.
• Answer style per meeting. Brief, balanced or detailed; formal, neutral or casual; and the reply language, from English to Indonesian, Spanish or Japanese.

What the summary looks like

Press Summary when the meeting ends. Kalfi writes a short, scannable recap in four parts. An example from a client project call:

Overview. Weekly check-in on the checkout redesign. Payment step is done; shipping options are blocked on the client's logistics API.
Key points. Mobile conversion up after the new address form. Client wants Apple Pay before launch.
Decisions and commitments. We deliver Apple Pay by 24 Oct. Client sends API keys by Friday.
Open questions and next steps. Who owns the refund flow? Schedule a 30-minute call with their finance lead.

That is ready to paste into Slack, a project tool, a CRM note or a follow-up email. The summary is built from the questions and answers captured during the session, so it focuses on what was asked, answered and agreed rather than every word of small talk.

Memory across meetings: project threads

Most meetings are part of a series: weekly client syncs, an onboarding sequence, a sales cycle with four calls. Kalfi groups sessions into threads. When you start the next meeting in the same thread, the context (client, project scope, goals, talking points) comes with it, and the earlier summaries are in the history. You can browse past meetings without interrupting the live one.

Who it is for

• Client-facing teams: account managers, agencies, consultants and freelancers who need fast answers and clean recaps. See AI for client meetings.
• Customer support and success: agents who answer technical and billing questions live. See AI for support calls.
• Sales and pre-sales: demos where the prospect asks about integrations, security or pricing.
• Managers and founders: back-to-back meetings where the summary is the only record you will actually read.
• Non-native speakers: meetings in English or another second language where phrasing help matters.
• Job seekers: interviews too, which is where Kalfi started. See best AI interview assistant.

Setting it up in five minutes

1. Download Kalfi for Mac or Windows from kalfi.app and create an account. The 3-day trial includes Hosted AI, so there is no API key to set up.
2. Create a session and pick the type: Client meeting, Job interview or General chat.
3. Fill in the context: who you are meeting, the project, goals and talking points. Two or three lines already help.
4. Choose the audio source: Both for speaker labels, System for meeting audio only, or Mic when only your microphone is available.
5. Press Start when the meeting begins and Summary when it ends.

Kalfi vs bot note takers

Plenty of teams use both: a bot note taker for internal meetings that need an archive, and Kalfi for client and customer calls where a bot is unwelcome and real-time help is the point.

Privacy

Kalfi listens on your own computer and does not save audio recordings. Short chunks of audio are sent to the speech-to-text model to be transcribed, and the overlay is protected from screen capture on supported systems, so it should not appear when you share your screen. With the BYOK plan, your OpenAI or OpenRouter key stays encrypted on the device. As with any meeting tool, follow your company policy and local rules about transcribing conversations.

Pricing

Hosted

$19 / mo

AI included. $180/year.

BYOK

$14 / mo

Your own OpenAI or OpenRouter key. $120/year.

Team: $49/month for three hosted seats. Single Session: $9 for one important meeting. Every new account starts with a 3-day free trial with Hosted AI included, no card required.

Questions