Granola
Bot-free AI meeting notepad that captures call audio directly (no bot joins), turns your shorthand into polished notes, and lets you chat across every meeting.
About
Granola is an AI-powered meeting notepad built for people in back-to-back calls. Unlike tools that send a bot into the meeting, Granola captures your computer's audio directly, so there's no "an AI notetaker has joined" moment and no awkward fourth participant on client calls. It transcribes live, then turns your own shorthand notes into clean, structured summaries, action items, and follow-up drafts. "Recipes" (launched late 2025) let you apply expert prompt templates — coaching feedback, project briefs, follow-up emails — over a meeting's context, and you can chat across all your notes to find where something was discussed or pull answers from past calls. Available on Mac, Windows, and iPhone, with one-tap capture from the lock screen for in-person and phone conversations. Business plan around $14/user/month. Widely cited across 2026 reviews as the default AI notetaker for sales and founder teams that want to stay present in the conversation instead of typing through it.
Across the review sites
What people love
- No bot joins the call, and notes come out structured rather than as a raw transcript dump.
- Chat works across your entire meeting history, not just a single call, and can feed downstream work.
- Setup is fast and low-friction — reviewers report being productive the same day.
- Automatically recognizes meetings starting and syncs notes across Mac and iPhone.
What could be improved
- Recordings sometimes fail silently with no error, and no fallback — several users report missed meetings and lost notes as a result.
- Speaker identification is weak or absent, making it hard to tell who said what in the transcript.
- There's no web version, which restricts access in some work environments.
- Integration depth is inconsistent — some reviewers want more automation (e.g., pushing action items to Slack) rather than manual copy-out.
- Its low-visibility, bot-free recording design is the subject of a July 2026 class-action lawsuit alleging it recorded a participant without consent.
Pricing & verdict
$14/user/mo (Business plan; free Basic tier also available)
Per seat- Value for money 4/5
- Ease of setup 4/5
- Capability depth 4/5
- Support & docs 3/5
- Integrations 4/5
Last researched August 2026 · compiled from public reviews and vendor pricing pages
Granola news
- Granola sued in proposed class action alleging non-consensual recording ↗
Chamberlain v. Granola, Inc. alleges wiretapping-law violations after a non-user was recorded without consent; Granola disputes the claims.
·#incident ·via Lifehacker
- Granola launches an Apple Watch app ↗
Glanceable, hands-free note-taking from the wrist.
·#product ·via Granola blog
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What people are saying
"After two separate incidents where the app appeared to be recording an important conversation and simply wasn't, I can no longer trust it as a professional tool."
"I'm a founder and have had horrible experiences with Granola. I leave it open throughout my work day and it only produces notes for ~60% of my calls... This has sadly impacted several of our deals (missing important details)."
"it doesn't even know the name of the speaker of the segments in the transcript... Granola is not a conversation intelligence app, it is a pretty poorly done productivity app that just throws a wall of text at people."
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References
- 1. granola.ai www.granola.ai/
- 2. granola.ai www.granola.ai/pricing
- 3. granola.ai www.granola.ai/enterprise
- 4. granola.ai www.granola.ai/blog
- 5. granola.ai www.granola.ai/blog/series-a
- 6. granola.ai www.granola.ai/blog/two-dot-zero
- 7. granola.ai www.granola.ai/blog/say-hello-to-recipes
- 8. granola.ai www.granola.ai/blog/granola-mcp
- 9. granola.ai www.granola.ai/blog/series-c
- 10. granola.ai www.granola.ai/blog/briefs-prepare-you-for-your-next-meeting-as-you-join
- 11. granola.ai www.granola.ai/blog/why-granola-doesnt-use-a-bot
- 12. granola.ai www.granola.ai/blog/introducing-granola-for-android
- 13. granola.ai www.granola.ai/blog/granola-for-apple-watch
- 14. techcrunch.com techcrunch.com/2024/10/23/vcs-love-using-the-ai-meeting-notepad-granola-so-they-gave-it-20m/
- 15. techcrunch.com techcrunch.com/2025/05/14/ai-note-taking-app-granola-raises-43m-at-250m-valuation-launches-collaborative-features/
- 16. techcrunch.com techcrunch.com/2026/03/25/granola-raises-125m-hits-1-5b-valuation-as-it-expands-from-meeting-notetaker-to-enterprise-ai-app/
- 17. G2 www.g2.com/products/granola/reviews
- 18. TrustRadius www.trustradius.com/products/granola/reviews
- 19. Trustpilot www.trustpilot.com/review/granola.ai
- 20. Reddit www.reddit.com/r/ArtificialInteligence/comments/1r05e7g/granola_ai_is_still_the_best_regarding_meeting/
- 21. lifehacker.com lifehacker.com/tech/ai-note-taking-apps-are-violating-user-privacy