My goodness, this article has been a mammoth job to put together. But I think you’ll be interested in the results of my tests.

I was approached by the people at Reason8 to try their meeting transcription software, and together we decided the best test would be to do a market comparison and review similar tools. So we did.

Reason8 were kind enough to pay for my time to do this piece of work, but all opinions are my own.

Executive Summary

I tested Reason8, Voicera and Otter.ai. They all have pros and cons depending on how you want to use them. I wouldn’t rely on any of them alone to create ‘real’ meeting minutes so expect to edit your document afterwards whichever one you choose.

I now have a paid plan with Otter.ai and it meets my needs.

I am a pen-and-paper girl.

It has probably been only the last year that I have started taking minutes of meetings directly into a laptop during the meeting, and that is only when I am not chairing the meeting. I don’t think you can chair and type minutes at the same time.

So generally, when I am chairing a meeting, I take notes by hand and type them up after the meeting.

But: that is a huge waste of time, and I’ve been called out on it by readers and colleagues before. Surely there has to be a better way?

Enter Meeting Minutes Transcription Software

When I started my career and acquired my habits, there wasn’t an alternative. But — ta da! — tech has moved on so much that now there are tools that transcribe your meetings for you. Regardless of the type of project meeting you are in, most sessions need some kind of record.

Press record on the app, and the software listens, transcribes and then gives you the meeting minutes draft. Genius!

But how well do they really work? Is it just as much effort to edit than it would be to start from scratch? I wanted to find out.

I looked for software that did in-person transcription of meetings i.e. where all participants are in the room.

And settled on reviewing these three:

Reason8.ai
Otter.ai
Voicera.

All these work on Android and iOS, and most only support English language at the moment. Reason8 does support other languages, but works best for American English at this time.

Reason8 Overview

I tested Android version 0.1.6.

Reason8 is award-winning software for recording in-person meetings. Each participant in the room needs the app on their phone. There is no desktop version. Here’s how it works.

One participant presses ‘Host meeting’ in the app.
A meeting ID number is displayed.
Other participants press ‘Join’ and type this meeting ID number when prompted.
The phones stay on the desk near their owners.
Someone presses ‘Start’ to kick the recording off when you are ready to begin.
The recording happens in the background.
When the meeting is over, stop the recording.
The recording is accessible via the website.

Get the app in the iOS App Store or the Android version in the Play Store. There is a free plan, which will be enough for you to get started.

You can’t see the transcript appear on the screens as you speak. Instead, the app works its magic behind the scenes and knits together the recordings from each device to give you the best quality transcript.

Whether you’re trying to capture what happened at your project kick off meeting, or another session, it’s worth looking into software.

For your reading list: How to Facilitate Productive Project Planning Meetings

Otter.ai Overview

I tested desktop version via browser (25 June 2018 update) As at June 2020 I have a paid version of Otter and it is the tool I use myself.

Otter is a note-taking app that also records in-person meetings. You only need to have it on one device, so it doesn’t feel like it should get good results when you’ve got a lot of people in the room. It does work from the browser window on a desktop, or via an app on your phone or tablet. It also has the ability to sync your calendar with either Google calendar and Microsoft Outlook.

It identifies speakers, lets you highlight key phrases and creates a transcript in real time that you can see on the screen.

Once you have created an account, you can either download the iOS app or access the tool from a laptop/desktop browser.

There is a free plan which gives you 600 minutes of transcription per month, with 40 minutes per ‘conversation’, so that’s plenty to test it out.

I also like the fact that you can take photos during your recording (on the app version). I could snap a photo of the notes on the whiteboard to embed in the meeting notes.

Voicera Overview

I tested the iOS version (20 June 2018 update).

Voicera is also a meetings minutes transcription tool but has other unique features. This one integrates with your calendar. It uses an AI assistant as the way to capture your meeting notes.

Integrate with the calendar, and then invite Eva, the AI assistant, to the meetings. Voicera has predictive highlights, so it tries to summarize important moments in the meeting for you.

As with the other tools, you can play back parts of the meeting once it is recorded to compare the transcript to the speech.

Voicera has a free 30 day trial.

Ease of Setting Up Meeting Minutes Transcription Software

Reason8

It was easy to get the Reason8 app on my Android phone. I had been warned that the Android version is not as mature as the iOS version, but it was still simple to install.

You can join a meeting or host a meeting, but can’t record notes direct from the app as an individual. If you wanted to record a note to yourself, you wouldn’t be able to do that. It’s designed for 2 or more people to have the app for the improved transcription.

This app has the most set up to do as you have to get the app on everyone’s device. Once it is installed, there is virtually no learning curve and it’s simple to get started within seconds.

Otter

Otter was the easiest to set up as I only needed the app on one device. I really liked the fact that it works from the browser, which was very handy for this test as I needed so many devices!

The app is very easy to use, it’s very intuitive. I had to speak into the app for a sentence or two so that it learned my voiceprint. You can also tag other speakers manually so that Otter starts to learn what they sound like for better recognition.

Voicera

Voicera was definitely the hardest to set up. I logged in through the browser but once into the website, it took me a while to work out what I was supposed to do next.

I had to validate my email address, and it recommends you use a work email address. This should be the same one you use to schedule meetings.

I think that is sensible, but I’m not sure it would work particularly well for freelancers (I have 4 email addresses).

You can integrate Voicera with Google calendar or Office 365 as part of the set up, and you are encouraged to do that.

Then you create a meeting (not from Voicera — you have to do this in your normal calendar tool), and add eva@voicera.com as an attendee.

Eva will join as a participant to record the meeting, take notes, and send a meeting summary to your email. You do need to have a conference line set up if you do it this way, and the invite has to come from an email address registered with Voicera.

However, that wasn’t the purpose of my test. I wanted to test in-person recordings for face-to-face meetings, not conference calls.

For my test, I used the ‘record now’ option from the iPad app and didn’t sync with the calendar. This option is not available through the desktop browser.

On the iPad app you have the option to add highlights. You can also say: ‘Take a note,’ ‘Decision,’ or ‘Action Item’ and these things will be called out specifically in the transcription.

You do have to remember to turn off the highlight manually when you have finished discussing that point.

You might get better at doing this the more you practice with the app. I was rubbish at it and found it was distracting from participating in the meeting discussion.

Voicera highlights feature — Capturing notes, decisions and action items during a meeting recorded with Voicera

The Test

We held a meeting with 3 people.

We had Reason8 on phones, Otter on my laptop and Voicera on my iPad. I don’t think I’ve ever had so many devices out for just one meeting!

We talked for around 15 minutes. We had a general chat and also read a story, taking it in turns to read a page each.

I wanted to do this to have a text to compare to when I looked at the meeting transcription results. It was a ‘fake’ meeting, as I didn’t want to test in a real project initiation meeting, for example, in case it affected the flow of discussion.