Read AI alternatives that never join your meetings

One that never joins anything. Koi records your own Mac, keeps the transcript and a video of the screen there, and only starts when you say so. Granola AI and Jamie take notes from your computer's audio with no bot, and Otter, Fathom and Fireflies AI have desktop apps that skip theirs.

Read AI is a meeting bot plus a “personal AI” that reaches into email and messages. Its plans page lists Mac, Windows and phone apps on every plan, and 5 meeting transcripts a month for free. Pro is $19.75 a user a month, or $15 billed yearly.

We make Koi, so it's first below. It isn't a like-for-like swap: Koi names no one beyond You and Them, has no team workspace, no email or CRM integrations, no free plan, and runs only on a Mac. Everything about the other apps comes from their own sites, checked October 16, 2026.

Mostly, the bot. Read AI's Trustpilot page scores 1.3 out of 5 from 109 reviews, 90% of them one star. The recurring story is a bot that turns up in meetings nobody invited it to, keeps coming back after it's removed, and asks for wide access to email, calendars and chat. Trustpilot doesn't verify reviews, and Read AI hasn't claimed the profile, so treat it as a pattern of complaints, not proof.

Read AI tells a different story. Its privacy page says it announces itself at the start of every meeting, needs the host's approval to join, deletes a meeting's data when a participant opts out, and doesn't train on your data unless you turn that on. It says it's SOC 2 Type II audited every year.

The plan limits push people too. Free stops at 5 transcripts a month and meetings of an hour, and audio and video playback starts on Enterprise, at $29.75 a user a month, or $22.50 yearly with at least 5 licenses.

If you only want Read AI gone, you may not need a new app. From Read AI's own guide:

1. In your Read Calendar, pick the meeting and switch off Add Read? a few minutes before it starts. For a recurring meeting you can do it one meeting at a time.
2. On Google Meet and Microsoft Teams, Read won't join if even one participant says no. On Zoom, only the host decides.
3. In a live meeting, the host can remove Read like any participant. Anyone can type Opt Out in the chat to make it leave with nothing saved, or Read Stop to end it with a report so far.
4. If someone else brought it, Read's chat message names the person who added it. Ask them to take it off.

If it still shows up under your name, remove Read AI from the connected apps in your Google or Microsoft account, so it can't read your calendar any more.

• You want meeting notes, email and messages searched by one assistant.
• You'd rather a bot that joins on schedule than remember to start anything.
• You need Notion, Salesforce, HubSpot or Jira to get the notes on their own.
• You need speaker names, or apps on Windows and your phone.
• Five transcripts a month for free covers you.

From each company's own site, checked October 16, 2026.

They don't, unless you tell them. That's the honest trade with every bot-free app. Read AI's bot at least announces itself; Koi doesn't announce itself to the call, and its dock never shows in a screen you share. Jamie's consent email is one answer. Saying “Mind if I record this for my notes?” at the start is another, and it's free.

The law takes this seriously. Some places require everyone on a call to agree. A proposed class action, Chamberlain v. Granola, alleges a bot-free note taker captured conversations without the other people's knowledge, per RuntimeWire. It's an allegation, and nothing has been decided. This isn't legal advice, so check the rules where you and the others are.

• Nothing in the meeting, and the call kept on your Mac? Koi.
• Bot-free notes that blend in your own? Granola AI.
• Bot-free, but people get told by email? Jamie.
• A team note taker with the bot switched off? Otter.
• Free, with a bot-free mode on Mac? Fathom.
• Local transcripts with named speakers, paid once? MacWhisper.

The full list of bot-free tools is in our best AI note takers for Mac. For Koi's side, see how Koi records calls and its plans, with Lifetime at $59 for the first 25 buyers, rising to $199.