Keeping Your Own Notes with AI

I’ve tried a dozen AI note-taking tools. Granola is the one I use daily and recommend most. Read on for 10 ways to make the most of it.

Bottom line: Granola transcribes and summarizes nearly every meeting I have. 998 so far. It helps me keep track of what I’ve learned and promises I’ve made.

What it does: It’s software you download, not a bot, so it doesn’t attend meetings. It just runs on my computer or phone. I can use it to record in-person meetings, or anything online: Zoom, Google Meet, or even Substack Live.

Setting it up: I connected my Google Calendar. Now it auto-detects my meetings and opens automatically when I start a call.

How it’s different: Unlike other bots that spit out a generic summary, Granola gives you a window for your own note-taking. That means I can include my own thoughts and highlight what I find most important. The summary then weaves in my own points in black, distinct from the gray AI summary notes. I can always return to either my own separate notes or the AI-assisted summary.

I can now query any meeting I’ve been in since I started using Granola in September 2024. I look for patterns across meetings and presentations I’ve given over the past couple of years.

Free or Paid: You can use Granola for free plan. You get excellent summaries of an unlimited number of meetings. I was on the free plan for more than a year. Now I pay $14/month to access all of my past meeting summaries. That also pays for better AI models, and lets me query my notes from Claude or ChatGPT.

👇10 ways Granola stands out

1. Write your own notes while AI fills in the rest

Most AI note-takers give you only the AI’s version of what happened. Granola keeps your own notes alongside the live transcript. You always have both.

I type my own most important observations, priorities, and reactions during a meeting. The AI fills in other details. This way I’m not reliant on a generic summary the way I am with other tools. My own emphasis and perspective helps shape the summary.

After the meeting, my original notes appear in black. The AI-generated content appears in gray. That’s a nice design touch, so you can easily tell which is which.

Tip: I use shorthand like triple asterisks (***) for key points and triple ampersand (&&&) for memorable quotes. Or choose your own “internal hashtags.” Pick ones easy to type during a live meeting. Later you can search for those to quickly find what you flagged as important. (Works with any tool)

2. Search across meetings by person or company 🔍

Granola organizes meetings by people and organizations. If I’ve had a series of meetings with someone, I can click their name and search across all of those conversations. Or I can search through all the conversations I’ve had with people at Acme Inc.

This is useful for questions like: What did we agree to last month? What themes keep coming up? What did I promise to send that I haven’t followed up on?

You can also create folders for specific projects or series. If I’m attending or teaching a series of workshops, I can then search across all of those sessions.

Tip: If you ever write or give presentations, ask Granola to compile key points or ideas you’ve shared in past meetings or presentations. It’s helpful for exploring and building on your own ideas. Instead of using AI to think for you, you’re using it to help you organize and make more of your own ideas.

3. Record in-person meetings w/ a phone or laptop 📱

I’ve been to public events where I wanted to remember what was discussed. The iPhone app is great. Same account, no separate setup. Your in-person notes sync with your desktop notes and appear in the same searchable archive. Other recording apps I’ve tried occasionally crash when I get a call or open other apps, but Granola has been consistently reliable, even for long meetings. I’ve been surprised to find that it works well even when I’m not sitting close to the speaker.

Available on: Mac, Windows, and iOS. No Android app yet, though one is expected later this year.

4. Start free with unlimited meetings

The free version works well if you just want to try it. The transcription quality is the same as the paid version. Students get Granola free for a year. Startups do too.

The paid plan is $14 a month. I pay that for unlimited access to my 1,000+ meeting summaries, the ability to query my notes from other AI tools like Claude, and access to the strongest AI models for summaries. The free plan limits how far back you can access old meetings and limits the AI models you have access to.

If you don’t need to refer back to old summaries or plug your notes into other AI tools, the free plan is great.

Try Granola free for a month with this link.

5. Give Claude or ChatGPT access to your Granola notes

This is one of the reasons I upgraded to the paid plan. Granola connects to Claude through something called a Model Context Protocol (MCP). Don’t worry about the technical details. It’s just a way to connect AI tools to one another.

The practical benefit: I can ask Claude or ChatGPT to look across my recent Wonder Tools Live sessions and tell me which topics I’ve talked about but haven’t written about yet. Or vice versa. Because Claude has access to my newsletter archive (via Mizal), it can consider what I’ve discussed in meetings and what I’ve published.

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6. Catch up mid-meeting if your mind wanders

This is the feature that surprised me the most. While a meeting is happening, you can ask Granola to summarize what’s been said so far, or to catch you up on what you missed.

This was hugely helpful recently when I was in a live session and my mind wandered. I missed what a couple of people had just said and felt bad about it. The only way to catch up without asking them to repeat themselves was to query Granola. It instantly gave me a concise recap of the last few minutes, while continuing to transcribe the session. You can also scan back through the live transcription yourself while the meeting progresses.

7. Analyze meetings with “recipes”

Recipes are prompt templates built specifically for your meetings. Instead of recreating the same query every time, you save it once and reuse it.

A few I use regularly:

* List recent to-dos. Scans recent meetings for tasks I mentioned but may not have added to my task list. I caught a missing follow-up this way just recently. Someone asked me to send them a logo. I got sidetracked, didn’t put it on my task list. The recipe surfaced it.

* Prep next meeting. If I’ve met with someone before, it reminds me of our prior conversations. If I haven’t, it can reference other similar meetings.

* Coach me. Analyzes how I showed up in meetings and suggests what I might do differently.

* YouTube description. I created this for workshops I lead. Some of them end up on YouTube, and I usually don’t have a description for them. Granola has the full text of what I said. So the recipe helps me generate a description.

You can browse a public library of recipes and grab ones that interest you. There are special recipes for sales, marketing, customer interviews, and other common business use-cases. You can also create your own, which is as simple as writing a prompt.

8. Share meeting notes others can explore

You can share a link to a Granola summary with anyone. The person on the other end doesn’t have to log in or have a Granola account. They can read the summary and even query the transcript themselves. They won’t see your private queries, and you won’t see theirs. You can also share an entire folder with a colleague, or even a workspace with your team, if you want to have collective access to shared meetings. You can also create a separate private space within your account.

Example: Here’s a Granola summary of my most recent Wonder Tools Live Show and Tell, where I talked about why I like Granola. For context, these are live monthly sessions for paid subscribers where I show what I’m using and share tips on making the most of new tools.

9. Protect privacy with text-only transcription 🔒

Granola captures only text. It transcribes in real time but doesn’t store audio or video files. Some people don’t want to be recorded video-wise, or they don’t want their voice recorded. Granola works well for that, because it stores only text.

This is a deliberate design choice. As CEO Chris Pedregal told me when I interviewed him for Fast Company recently, the value is in useful notes, not in retaining audio. The tradeoff: you can’t go back and listen to verify a quote, or hear the emotion in someone’s voice. If that matters for your work, pick an alternative below.

10. Take private notes without a bot joining your call

Open a typical AI note-taker and you’ll see a bot listed as a meeting participant and a robotic rectangle in your video window. Some people find these bots intrusive.

Granola doesn’t join your meeting. It runs on your computer (or phone). Nobody else in the meeting needs to know it’s there, though I recommend telling them anyway. Ask if it’s OK if you use an AI note-taker to help you remember what we talk about. Your data is protected. Granola is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant, which basically means an independent auditor has checked that the company has safeguards to protect sensitive info.

How Granola can make life easier

Granola is useful beyond work meetings. Here are some ways I’ve used it:

* Learn from conferences and workshops. Capture notes from panels and talks. Later, search across all the sessions. “Which speakers mentioned AI regulation?” or “What books did speakers recommend?” You get a searchable archive of an entire event.

* Catch up with online courses and webinars. I use Granola when I’m hosting or watching a Substack Live. If I have to step away, I can catch up. Or I can search across a series. “Remind me which tactics we covered.”

* Prepare for a follow-up. Use the “Prep me” recipe before meeting with someone again. It pulls together what you talked about last time.

* Capture medical or personal appointments. You can use Granola for therapy sessions, vet visits, or doctor appointments. Ask for permission. When you leave and can’t remember what the expert said about dosage or next steps, check the transcript.

How to make the most of Granola

* Ask permission first. Even though Granola doesn’t record audio, let people know you’re using an AI note-taker if it’s not a public event. I usually say something like: “Is it okay if I use an AI note-taker to sum up the meeting? I’m happy to share the summary with you. If you’d prefer, I can keep it off.”

* Split long events into separate sessions. If you’re at a three-hour workshop with distinct segments, stop and restart Granola between sections. You’ll get more detailed summaries for each section instead of one sprawling summary.

* Choose your AI model. On the paid plan, you can select an advanced AI model. I like Claude’s Sonnet 4.6 Thinking. You can switch to a Gemini or ChatGPT model.

Limitations

No tool is perfect. Here’s where Granola falls short so far:

* No audio or video playback. You can’t go back and listen to what someone said for the emotion in their voice.

* No file uploads yet. You can’t drag in an old interview recording or audio file for transcription. So far the focus is on live meetings.

* Chats can get messy. Granola doesn’t have a place to store answers you get when you query your meetings. You have to copy & paste into a separate notes tool. And it’s not optimized for taking notes without audio.

* Limited free archive. On the free plan, you only get access to 30 days of meeting archives.

* No Android app yet. Available on Mac, Windows, and iPhone. I expect the Android app to launch later in 2026.

Alternatives to Granola

Granola is best for people who take their own notes during meetings and want AI to fill in the rest. If you’re on Android, Otter is a popular alternative until Granola’s Android version is available. If you want to upload recordings, or if you need video or audio saved, you may want something else. Consider these alternatives:

* Fathom is a good option if you want video and audio recordings tied to a time-coded summary. Click on part of the summary to jump to that part of the recording. Start with the free version. It’s useful for sessions where you want to go back and watch specific moments. I sometimes use Fathom alongside Granola.

* MacWhisper is useful for transcribing audio files you’ve recorded elsewhere. It can run locally on your Mac, so nothing leaves your device. You can buy it as a one-time purchase for $74. The free version also works well.

* Supernormal is one I’ve used and liked.

* For more options: Wonder Tools contributor Ulrike Langer, who writes the great News Machines newsletter about how news orgs are using AI, recently wrote a guide to transcription tools with additional alternatives.

How to get started 🚀

* Try it for one meeting. Download Granola on Mac or Windows, or grab the iPhone app. Connect your calendar and join a meeting. Take a few of your own notes. See how Granola combines them with the transcript summary afterward.

* Try an in-person meeting. Bring your iPhone to a coffee meeting or a live event and open the Granola app. See how the mobile transcription feels.

* Chat with your first summary. After your meeting, try asking a few questions:

* “What were the three main takeaways?”

* “What deadlines or follow-ups should I remember?”

* “Summarize this meeting in 3 sentences for a colleague.”

Try Granola free for a month →

What are you using and why? Leave a comment 👇

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