Which AI notetakers join your meeting, and which record on your own device

Most AI notetakers work by sending a bot into the meeting. It joins as a separate participant, sits in the attendee list under a name like "Notetaker", and records the call from inside the meeting platform. A second group of tools skips that entirely: they record the audio already playing on your own device, so nothing is added to your call and nothing appears in the participant list. Kalima is in the second group.

Since spring 2026 the difference has stopped being cosmetic. Google Meet now routes join requests it considers risky into a separate queue where the default action is to deny them, and Microsoft Teams ships an admin policy that detects external bots and holds them in the lobby. This page lists which tool does which, with the vendor page every fact came from and the date it was checked, and then looks at what a joining bot actually receives that device-side capture does not.

What a joining bot actually is

A meeting bot is a separate account that dials into your call like any other guest. It usually needs calendar access to know when to join, it needs permission to enter, and it leaves a visible trace in the participant list. For a recurring internal standup, that may be fine. For a customer interview, a candidate screening or a supplier negotiation, an unexplained extra attendee is a problem before anyone has said a word.

Device-side capture works the other way round. The tool records the sound your own machine is already handling: your microphone, the meeting audio coming out of your speakers, or both mixed together. There is no second account and no join request, so the people on the call see exactly who they expect to see. It also means the tool is not tied to one meeting platform, because it never talks to the platform at all.

Neither approach is automatically the right one. A bot keeps recording when you drop off, joins meetings you are not in, and often pulls the platform's own captions and chat, which is exactly what some teams want. Device capture needs you to be there, and needs software on your machine or a browser that can share tab audio.

Which tools join your meeting, and which do not

Every cell below was read off the vendor's own page on 22 September 2026. "Not stated" means the page does not say, not that the answer is no. Pricing and capture modes in this market change often, so check the linked page before you rely on a row.

Recording without a bot in the call is a category now, not one product

Being blunt about this matters, because a lot of marketing in this market is not. Recording on your own device instead of sending a bot into the call used to be unusual. As of September 2026 it is a normal option: Fathom offers it as a Mac beta, Notta ships it on Mac and Windows, Krisp lists it on its entry paid tier, tl;dv added a desktop recorder for Mac and Windows, and Granola, Jamie and Bliro built their products around it. Tactiq never had a bot at all, because it reads the meeting's own live captions inside Chrome.

Kalima is not the only tool that keeps a bot out of your participant list, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. Other tools also win on things Kalima does not do. Fathom's free plan advertises unlimited recordings and transcriptions, which is far more generous than Kalima's free tier. Granola and Jamie have mobile apps; Kalima is a web app with a desktop client and installs as a PWA, with no native mobile app. If your requirement is a bot that sits in meetings you do not attend, Kalima is the wrong tool and Otter, Read AI or Sally are the right shape of product.

What differs between the tools that record on your device is reach and coverage. Tactiq depends on Chrome and on the meeting's own captions. Fathom's mode is a Mac beta. Kalima captures whatever your machine plays or hears, on Windows, Apple Silicon macOS and Linux, plus in the browser, and does it while also translating live. Pick on the axis that matters to you rather than on the phrase.

What changed in 2026

Both of the big changes this year point the same way: meeting platforms are handing organisers and administrators a switch for third-party bots. These are controls working as designed. If your organisation has turned one on, the answer is to ask for approval, not to look for a way around it.

Google Meet: a second admission queue that defaults to deny

In February 2026 Google announced a "safeguarded guest admit flow" for Meet. Join requests now arrive in two queues, and Google's own post describes the second one as showing "requests from connections where the host is more likely to need a closer look before deciding to approve them into the meeting". The sentence that matters: "The default action for entries in this queue is to deny entry." Rollout began on 24 March 2026 for Rapid Release domains and 7 April 2026 for Scheduled Release domains, and it applies to all Workspace customers, Workspace Individual subscribers and personal Google accounts (Google Workspace Updates, checked 22 September 2026).

Google's post does not name notetakers. The vendors do. Metaview's help centre says that "starting in late March 2026, Google Meet flags all meeting bots, including Metaview, with a 'potential risks' label in the waiting room", and calls it "a Google-wide change affecting all notetakers" (support.metaview.ai). Airspeed tells its customers that "Google Meet now defaults to 'Deny' for bots flagged as potential risks" and walks the host through admitting the bot by hand (docs.goairspeed.com). tl;dv's own desktop-app page uses the change as a reason to record from system audio instead (tldv.io/desktop-app). All three checked 22 September 2026.

The practical effect for a bot user is one extra approval per meeting, every meeting, from a host who may not be watching for it.

Microsoft Teams: a policy that detects bots and holds them in the lobby

Microsoft's documentation is unusually direct about why the control exists. External meeting assistants "may record or transcribe meetings without participant awareness", "store meeting data in third-party systems outside of the organization's compliance boundaries" and "introduce compliance, privacy, and data leakage risks". Teams therefore detects external AI bots from "a combination of infrastructural and behavioral signals" during the join.

The setting lives in Teams meeting policies under Meeting Join and Lobby, is called "Manage external bots and their access to meetings", and maps to the PowerShell attribute ExternalBotAccessMode. Two values: AllowBots, where bots are not detected or marked, and RequireApprovalWhenDetected, which Microsoft marks as the default. Under the default, detected bots "are enforced to be in the lobby until explicitly admitted into the meeting", "irrespective of the lobby configuration for the meeting", and organisers get a warning before admitting them. Microsoft also notes two limits worth knowing: some bots are not detected, and humans are occasionally misclassified, which the organiser can correct with a "This is not a bot" option (Microsoft Learn, page dated 22 May 2026, checked 22 September 2026).

What a joining bot receives, and what device capture does not

The honest summary of that table is narrower than the marketing usually claims. Capturing on your own device removes one recipient and one attendee from the room. It does not make a recording lawful, it does not make consent optional, and it does not exempt you from a workplace rule that says meetings are not recorded.

Tell the other participants you are transcribing

This is the part no capture method changes, and it belongs before any of the convenience.

Say out loud, at the start, that you are transcribing, and say what you will do with the text. If someone objects, stop. In Germany, § 201 Abs. 1 Nr. 1 StGB makes it a criminal offence to record "das nichtöffentlich gesprochene Wort eines anderen auf einen Tonträger", punishable by up to three years' imprisonment or a fine (gesetze-im-internet.de, checked 22 September 2026). The operative word in the statute is "unbefugt", without authorisation, so informed consent from everyone speaking is the safe path, and it attaches to the act of recording, not to whether a bot was involved. Many other jurisdictions have an equivalent rule, several US states require all-party consent, and your employer's policy and the meeting's own terms may go further than the law.

A tool that does not appear in the participant list is not a tool for recording people who did not agree. If a platform or an admin has blocked notetakers in your organisation, that is a decision to respect and a conversation to have, not an obstacle to route around. There is a separate guide on what to do when your organisation blocks AI notetakers.

How Kalima captures the audio

Kalima records the audio on your own device, so no bot is added to your call and nothing new appears in the participant list. You start a session, pick the audio source, and talk.

• Microphone records you and anyone in the room.
• Computer audio transcribes what your computer is playing: a video call, a webinar, a recorded demo, a phone call on speaker.
• Both switches on blends the two, so your questions and the other voice land in the same transcript.

In the browser, desktop audio runs through the screen-share prompt, and you have to tick the share audio option in that prompt or nothing is captured. Some browsers only expose tab audio rather than full system audio. The desktop app captures system and meeting audio natively and is available for Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit), Apple Silicon Macs and Linux as a .deb package or an AppImage; Intel Macs run Kalima in the browser instead. The details are in Audio sources and quality and Installing the desktop app.

Because it never talks to the meeting platform, the same session works for Zoom, Teams, Meet, Webex, a Slack huddle, a Discord call or two people at a table, and it keeps working when transcription is greyed out for licence or guest-role reasons. It also translates live into another language while the conversation runs, which none of the other device-recording tools in the table above advertise on its pricing page. What you give up is the thing a bot is good at: Kalima cannot attend a meeting you are not in.

Where your transcripts go afterwards, and who else can open them, is its own question. See who can access the meeting transcript and the trust page for what Kalima stores.

Frequently asked questions

Does a bot join my meeting if I use Kalima?

No. Kalima never connects to Zoom, Teams, Google Meet or Webex, and it does not ask for your calendar. It records the audio already on your device, so there is no second account, no join request and no new name in the participant list. Tell the other participants you are transcribing anyway.

Will the meeting host see that I am transcribing?

Kalima does not appear in the participant list, because it is not in the meeting. That is a fact about how the software works, not a feature to rely on. Say at the start that you are transcribing: it is the honest thing to do, it is often the legal thing to do, and it is the only version of this that survives the other person finding out later.

Why did Google Meet deny my notetaker bot?

Since late March 2026, Meet sorts join requests into two queues and the default action in the second one is to deny entry, and notetaker vendors report that their bots land there. The host has to admit the bot by hand, in every meeting. If you need a transcript without asking the host each time, a tool that records the audio on your own device does not make a join request at all.

Can my IT admin block AI notetakers in Teams?

Yes, and by Microsoft's documented default they already are held: the ExternalBotAccessMode policy defaults to RequireApprovalWhenDetected, which keeps detected external bots in the lobby regardless of the meeting's lobby settings until an organiser explicitly admits them. Microsoft notes that detection is not perfect in either direction.

Which tools record without a bot joining the call on Windows?

As of 22 September 2026, and according to each vendor's own page: Notta Desktop, tl;dv's desktop app, Bliro, Jamie and Kalima all state Windows support for recording on the device. Fathom's bot-free mode, its term for recording on your own device, is a Mac beta, and Tactiq runs as a Chrome extension with a native app only for Mac. Krisp lists "Bot-free" on its Core tier but does not name operating systems on its pricing page.

Does recording on my own device mean I do not need consent?

No. Under GDPR you are still the controller, because you decide why and how the recording happens, and in Germany § 201 StGB attaches to the recording itself, not to whether a bot was in the room. Removing the extra participant removes one recipient of the audio. Your duty to tell people is untouched.

Related

• What to do when your organisation blocks AI notetakers: the policy reasons behind a block, and the routes that stay inside the rules.
• Who can access the meeting transcript: where the text ends up and who can open it.
• Kalima comparisons: side-by-side pages against the tools in the table above.
• Trust and privacy: what Kalima stores, where, and for how long.
• Teams transcription greyed out or not available: the licence, policy and guest-role causes, and a transcript that needs none of them.