Best AI Note Taking App in 2026

Notion is our pick for people who already plan work in docs and databases. You can draft a note, turn parts of it into tasks, and link it to a project page without moving to another app. That structure is the main reason to choose it over a simpler notes app.

The catch is price and scope. Free and Plus plans include only a limited trial of Notion AI, while full AI, including the Notion Agent and AI Meeting Notes, is included with the Business plan at $20 per user per month billed annually. If you only need meeting transcripts, a dedicated meeting tool will be cheaper and simpler.

Otter.ai is built around hearing a meeting as it happens. Words appear while people talk, which helps in a live call and in an in-person meeting recorded on a phone. You can search later for a name, a decision, or a promised follow-up instead of replaying a recording.

The free Basic plan gives 300 transcription minutes per month, with a 30 minute cap per conversation and three lifetime file imports. Pro costs $16.99 per user per month, or $8.33 per user per month billed annually, and raises the limit to 1,200 minutes per month. Long meetings are the clear reason to upgrade, or to pick a tool without a per-meeting cap.

Fireflies.ai joins meetings on major video platforms and turns them into transcripts, summaries, and action items. It fits sales and customer teams well because notes can move into HubSpot or Salesforce records instead of sitting in a separate library. Search filters and topic tracking help managers review many calls without listening to each one.

The free plan includes unlimited transcription but limited storage, reported as 400 minutes per team in recent pricing guides, so a busy team will fill it fast. Pro costs $10 per seat per month billed annually, or $18 billed monthly, and adds 8,000 minutes of storage per seat. Watch the AI credit pool too, since advanced AI tasks can use credits on top of the seat price.

Granola takes a different path from most meeting tools. It captures audio from your own device, so no extra participant appears in the meeting, and it builds on the short notes you type during the call. The result reads more like a note you would send to a colleague than a raw transcript dump.

That approach suits sensitive client calls and back-to-back meetings, but it also asks more of you during the call. You need to flag what matters, and you should still follow your own consent and recording rules. The free Basic plan includes limited meeting history, while Business costs $14 per user per month and adds unlimited history and wider integrations. Enterprise costs $35 per user per month and adds admin controls.

NotebookLM, now also called Gemini Notebook, is the research pick in this list. You upload PDFs, docs, slides, web pages, or video transcripts, then ask questions and get answers tied to those sources. That source-first design makes it useful for study, reports, and preparing for a meeting, rather than for recording the meeting itself.

The free plan covers 100 notebooks with 50 sources each, which is enough for many students and solo workers. Higher limits come through Google AI plans, with Plus at $4.99 per month and Pro at $19.99 per month in recent US listings. If your notes are mostly documents you already have, start free and only pay when you hit a limit.

Fathom is the easiest free starting point for meeting notes. The free plan includes unlimited recordings, transcription, and storage for meetings on Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, with instant summaries after the call. For a solo worker with a normal meeting load, that free tier covers the core job.

The limit to know is the advanced summary cap. Recent guides report five advanced summaries per month on the free plan, after which a general template is used. Premium costs $16 per user per month billed annually, or $20 billed monthly, and adds unlimited advanced summaries, action items, and follow-up drafts. Team and Business plans add sharing and CRM features for sales teams.

Fellow is less of a transcript library and more of a meeting workflow. You can set an agenda before a call, capture notes and action items during it, and follow up in the same workspace after it. That structure helps teams that run the same kinds of meetings every week and want decisions to stay attached to the meeting where they were made.

The free plan is a trial in practice, with five AI notes and five AI recordings per user for the lifetime of the account. Team costs $7 per user per month billed annually and adds 10 AI notes and recordings per user per month, while Business costs $15 per user per month billed annually and removes those caps. Enterprise starts at $25 per user per month billed annually and adds controls such as transcript redaction.

Evernote is the archive pick here. It is good at capturing web pages, scans, receipts, and handwritten notes, then making the text inside them searchable. If your main problem is finding a note from months ago, that search and clipping strength still matters.

The free plan is the weak point, with limits reported as 50 notes, one notebook, and 60 MB of monthly uploads. Personal costs $14.99 per month, or $10.83 per month billed annually in some listings, while Professional adds AI features and more upload room. Check the current pricing page before you buy, since Evernote prices and plan names have changed more than once.

Mem is built for people who capture fast and organize slowly, or not at all. You drop in notes, ideas, and meeting context, and Mem organizes and links them behind the scenes. You can then ask questions across your own notes instead of digging through folders.

The free plan caps new notes and agent messages, reported as 25 each per month, so it works as a test but not as a daily habit for heavy users. Plus costs $9 per month in recent listings, while Pro costs $29 per month, with higher usage tiers above that. Mem suits a solo worker who wants recall more than team project management, and who is comfortable keeping notes in Mem's cloud.