An AI note taker with no bot in your meeting
Capture your microphone, a browser tab's system audio, or both. OmniCanvas transcribes the conversation and turns it into editable decisions, action items, and follow-ups on the same infinite canvas as the rest of your notes.
The interactive sample needs no account. Live recording asks for a free account so transcription can run securely.
Choose the source
Record your microphone, system audio from a shared browser tab, or both together. Tell participants before recording; consent rules vary by location.
Keep the call bot-free
There is no extra attendee to admit or explain. Capture happens in your browser and works with the meeting tool you already use.
Work from the result
Review the transcript, move the useful outputs around, connect them to project notes, and keep the meeting inside its real context.
One capture package
The outputs people actually return to
Bot-based AI notetakers vs. recording it yourself
Otter, Fireflies, Granola and Read.ai all work by adding a participant to your call and processing the audio on their servers. That is fine for an internal standup and awkward almost everywhere else — client calls, interviews, anything under an NDA.
| Bot-based notetakers | OmniCanvas | |
|---|---|---|
| Who shows up in the participant list | A named bot every attendee can see, and often has to admit | Nobody — capture happens on your machine |
| Where the audio goes | Uploaded to the vendor's servers for processing | Stays on your device; transcription runs locally |
| External and client calls | Guests may refuse the bot, or IT may block it | Nothing to admit, so nothing to refuse |
| What you get afterwards | A transcript in a separate web app | Notes on the same canvas as the project they belong to |
Weighing up the alternatives? We keep a running comparison of the best AI meeting note takers, plus dedicated breakdowns of Otter.ai, Granola and Plaud.
Already have a transcript? Turn it into notes free
If your meeting tool already exported a transcript, you don't need an account to get something useful out of it. Paste it into the free AI meeting notes generator and get a summary, the decisions, action items and open questions — extracted in your browser, with nothing uploaded.
Open the free meeting notes generatorFrequently asked questions
- How do AI meeting notes work without a bot joining the call?
- OmniCanvas captures audio directly on your computer — your microphone, the system audio from a meeting tab, or both — instead of dialling a participant into the call. Because the capture is local, there is no extra attendee for anyone to admit, and the meeting tool you already use doesn't need to change.
- Does my meeting audio get uploaded?
- No. Recording and transcription run on your own machine, so the audio and transcript are not sent to OmniCanvas or a third-party transcription service. That is the main reason the approach works for calls you would never paste into a cloud tool.
- Is it legal to record a meeting this way?
- Recording laws vary by jurisdiction, and several US states plus many countries require every party to consent. OmniCanvas shows a consent reminder before recording, but the obligation is yours: tell participants you are recording, and get agreement before you start.
- How is this different from Otter, Fireflies, Granola or Read.ai?
- Most of those join your call as a visible bot and process the audio on their servers. OmniCanvas records locally with no bot in the participant list, and the output lands on an infinite canvas next to your project notes rather than in a separate transcript inbox.
- Which meeting tools does it work with?
- Any of them. Because capture is at the device level rather than through a meeting-platform integration, it works with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Slack huddles, Webex, or an in-person conversation.
- Can I try it without recording a real meeting?
- Yes. The interactive sample walks a pre-recorded conversation through transcript, decisions and action items without an account. There is also a free browser tool that turns a transcript you already have into structured notes.
- What does it produce besides a transcript?
- A short recap, the decisions that were settled, action items with owners, open questions and dates — each as an editable canvas block you can move, link and connect to existing notes.