Meet Granola AI ✨

My Favorite AI Notepad

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 has transcribed and summarized nearly 1,000 of my meetings since I began using it in September 2024. It helps me keep track of what I’ve learned and what I’ve promised to do.

What it does: It’s a software download, not a bot, so it’s not visible in meetings. It just runs on my computer or phone. I connected my Google Calendar. Now it auto-detects my meetings and opens automatically. I can use it to record in-person meetings, or anything online: Zoom, Google Meet, or even Substack Live.

How it’s different: Unlike other bots that spit out a generic summary, Granola gives me a typing window for my own note-taking. That means I can include my own thoughts and highlight what I find most important. Afterwards, I can search for patterns across my meetings, projects and presentations.

Pricing: Granola’s free plan includes unlimited meeting summaries and access to 30 days of meeting history. I pay $14/month for a full archive and AI integrations.

Cheat-Sheet: Here’s a PDF summary of this post for easy reference.

👇10 ways Granola stands out

1. Write your own notes while AI fills in details

Most AI note-takers give me only the AI’s version of what happened. Granola shows my own notes alongside the live transcript. I can refer back to either.

Knowing I’ll have a thorough record frees me to focus on listening. I can be more present when I don’t have to worry about jotting down each detail.

I type my own most important observations, priorities, and reactions during a meeting. The AI assistant fills in other details. That ensures I’m not reliant on a generic synopsis. My own emphasis and perspective help shape the summary.

• Smart design: After a meeting, the summary weaves in my own points in black, distinct from the gray AI summary notes. I can easily distinguish my own material. I can later revisit my own notes or the AI-assisted summary.

• Zoom in for detail: I like being able to click on any summary line to see a more detailed view of that section of the transcript.

2. Catch up mid-meeting

This is the feature that surprised me the most. During a meeting, I can ask Granola to summarize what’s been said, or to catch me up on what I missed.

This saved me recently. I was in a live session. My mind wandered. I didn’t hear what a couple of people said. I asked Granola for a concise recap of the last few minutes. It caught me up while continuing to transcribe. I like that I can also scan back manually through the live transcription while a meeting progresses.

3. Take private notes without a bot joining your call 🔒

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.

That’s a deliberate design choice. As CEO Chris Pedregal told me when I interviewed him for Fast Company, 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.

Granola’s team cut many less-useful features to keep the design simple

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 getting people’s consent.

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. And you can delete parts of a transcript.

4. Take it to conferences, workshops, or doctor visits

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.”

• Capture medical or personal appointments. Ask for permission to use Granola for therapy sessions, vet visits, or doctor appointments. When you later forget what the expert said about dosage or next steps, ask Granola.

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5. Search across meetings by person or company 🔍

Granola organizes meetings by people and organizations. I can select someone’s name and search across all of our conversations. Or I can search through discussions I’ve had with people at Dorot, where I volunteer.

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

You can also create folders for specific projects or events. If I’m attending or teaching workshops, I can search across all of those sessions. I can use natural language rather than hunting for keywords.

Tip: If you’re a writer 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 material. Instead of using AI to think for you, use it to help you organize and make more of your own ideas.

6. 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.

Granola uses a device’s built-in mic. I’ve been surprised that works well even when I’m not sitting near the person presenting. I can even transcribe and summarize outgoing phone calls, with permission, if I initiate the call from the Granola app.

Other recorders I’ve tried occasionally crash when I get a call or open other apps. Granola has been consistently reliable, even for long meetings.

Available on: Mac, Windows, and iOS. There’s no Android app yet, though I expect that will launch later this year.

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. To use these, open up an individual Granola meeting note, or query a folder or your whole library of notes. (Screenshot)

A few I recommend:

• List recent to-dos. Scans recent meetings for tasks mentioned. I recently caught a missing follow-up this way. Someone asked me for a logo. I forgot to put it on my to-do list. The recipe surfaced it.

• Prep next meeting. Reminds me about prior conversations I’ve had with someone I’m meeting, including any relevant follow-up questions.

• Coach me. Analyzes my comments and suggests what I might do differently.

• YouTube description. I created this for workshops I lead. Some of them end up on my YouTube channel. Granola has the full text, so the recipe helps me generate a description.

Browse the 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.

I wish there were more recipes designed for writers, teachers, creatives, and other non-business use-cases. Fortunately, it’s easy to create your own recipes. It’s as simple as writing a prompt.

8. Give Claude or ChatGPT access to your Granola notes

I upgraded to the paid plan so I can give other AI assistants access to my meeting history through the Model Context Protocol. MCP provides a simple way to link Granola to AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT.

Why this is so useful: I can ask Claude to cross-reference what I’ve talked about in my presentations with what I’ve published. Claude can also help me generate dashboards, spreadsheets, handouts, and reports from material I’ve presented. All of that is possible because Claude has access to my newsletter archive, via a tool called Mizal, and my presentation transcripts, via Granola.

9. 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 search the transcript. They won’t see your private queries, and you won’t see theirs. You can also share an entire folder with a colleague or team, or even a workspace with lots of folders.

Example: Here’s a Granola summary of my most recent Wonder Tools Live workshop. For context, this is one of the live monthly sessions I host for paid subscribers. I show how I’m using tools, new ways to use AI, and tips on working productively and creatively.

10. Start free with unlimited meetings

• Students at accredited universities in the US, UK, and Canada get Granola free for a year.

• Startups with fewer than 30 employees who have raised pre-seed or seed funding also get a free year.

• The paid plan is $14 a month. That’s worth it for me for unlimited access to past meeting summaries, being able to query my notes from other AI tools like Claude, and access to the strongest AI models for analysis.

• The free plan limits you to 30 days of meetings. That’s not an issue unless you often reference old summaries or need to access your notes from other AI tools.

Try Granola free for a month with this link.

How to make the most of Granola

• Create “personal hashtags.” In any note-taking tool I use, I find simple shorthand helpful, like triple asterisks (***) for key points and &&& for memorable quotes. Pick symbols easy to type during a live meeting. Search for your symbols later to find what you flagged.

• 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.” Turn on Automatic Consent Messaging to send a chat message when meetings start letting people know you’re using Granola.

• 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 does everything. Here are some of Granola’s limits 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, consider these alternatives instead:

• 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 for this reason.

• 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 just launched version 2.0, which I’m testing. So far I like the new desktop app. It no longer sends bots to meetings; like Granola, it runs on your device. Unlike Granola, it can also act as an AI agent, creating materials for you. In my testing, its agent generated helpful post-meeting summary slides. Here’s how Supernormal compares its tool to Granola.

• 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.

• 🦄 Unicorn: Back when I started using Granola, it was a small startup. Now it’s valued at $1.5 billion dollars, with a $125 recent investment round.

How to get started 🚀

1. 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 notes. See how Granola combines them afterwards with the transcript into a summary.

2. 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.

3. Chat with your first summary. After your meeting, try asking:

   • “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 note taker do you use and why? Leave a comment 👇

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