How To Use Otter.ai

Getting Started (2 minutes)

Go to otter.ai and click Start for free at the top right. Sign up with your Google or Microsoft account, or use your email.
You'll land on your dashboard. The big button at the bottom says Record - that's your starting point for live meetings.
Connect your calendar (Google or Microsoft) in Settings so Otter can automatically join your video meetings and take notes while you focus on the conversation.
During any meeting, Otter transcribes in real-time with speaker names. After the call, you get a searchable transcript, summary, and action items pulled out automatically.
Try asking Otter a question about past meetings using AI Chat - like "What did we decide about the marketing budget?" It'll search across all your transcripts and give you an answer.

Copy and paste these into Otter AI Chat:

Get action items from a specific meeting: "Pull all action items from the [meeting name] on [date] and list them with who's responsible."
Summarize a topic across meetings: "Summarize everything we've discussed about [topic] in the last two weeks. Include key decisions."
Draft follow-up email: "Write a follow-up email based on today's meeting with [client name]. Include next steps and deadlines we agreed on."
Find a specific detail: "When did we talk about changing the pricing structure? Show me the exact quote."
Create a project update: "Generate a status update for [project name] based on all meetings this week. Keep it under 150 words."

Set up Channels for different projects. Channels group related meetings together so your whole team can find recordings and collaborate in one shared space. Sales calls in one channel, product meetings in another.
Turn on CRM sync if you're in sales. Otter automatically pulls deal details, notes, and next steps from your conversations and pushes them straight to Salesforce or HubSpot. No more manual note-taking after calls.
Use the Chrome extension for browser-based meetings. If you're joining a call through a browser instead of an app, the extension records without needing the Otter bot to join the meeting.

Chaotic group conversations with tons of crosstalk. Otter does well with clear speakers taking turns, but if five people are talking over each other constantly, speaker identification gets messy.
Highly technical jargon without context. Medical terms, niche industry acronyms, or made-up product names will sometimes get transcribed phonetically. You can add custom vocabulary in settings to train it on your specific words.