Zoom AI Companion vs a third-party note taker: is it worth switching?
Stay with Zoom's built-in summaries if every meeting you care about is a Zoom meeting you host on a paid plan; switch when your calls are also on Meet, Teams or Lark, when you want the notes as your own files, or when you need memory across meetings. (Looking for a Zoom AI notetaker that does not join the call? That is this guide.) Zoom's AI features are included at no extra cost on paid Zoom Workplace plans, produce a recap with action items after each meeting, and are not available on the free plan; they only see Zoom meetings and store the summaries in Zoom's cloud. Audiee.ai sits on your Mac and records whatever you hear: Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Lark, a phone on speaker, an in-person conversation. It writes transcript and summary as Markdown you can open in any editor, files them into a knowledge base you can ask questions of, recognizes Mandarin and Cantonese mixed with English, and dictates into any app. Three hours of transcription a month come free. Zoom's summary is a good default for Zoom-only teams; Audiee.ai is the better tool for people whose day spans platforms.
Checked September 2026. Numbers about other products link to the page they came from.
Key facts
- Zoom AI Companion features: included on paid Zoom Workplace plans, not on Free; Zoom meetings only (checked September 2026).
- Audiee.ai: Zoom, Meet, Teams, Lark auto-detected; Ctrl+M for anything else; Free 3 h/month.
- Storage: Zoom keeps summaries in Zoom's cloud; Audiee.ai writes Markdown to your Mac.
- Audiee.ai also: speaker detection on Zoom, Mandarin/Cantonese, memory with citations, MCP.
Who this fits
Zoom-only hosts on a paid plan can stay. Consultants, salespeople and anyone attending other people's Meet and Teams calls benefit from a Mac-side recorder.
Next step
Read Zoom meeting notes on Mac without a bot, then run Audiee.ai alongside Zoom's summary on one call.