AI meeting assistants have moved from novelty to necessity for many knowledge workers. We tested the three leading options — Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai, and tl;dv — over 30 days and 60 meetings to find the definitive winner.
Transcription Accuracy
Otter.ai and Fireflies.ai both achieved approximately 92–94% accuracy in our testing, which is excellent for clear speech in controlled conditions. In noisy environments or with strong accents, accuracy dropped to 80–85% for both. tl;dv leveraged OpenAI Whisper and achieved slightly lower accuracy (89%) but faster processing times.
Meeting Summaries
All three tools generate AI summaries, but the quality varies significantly. Otter.ai’s summaries were consistently the most useful — concise, well-structured, and capturing the most important decisions and action items. Fireflies’s summaries are comprehensive but sometimes verbose. tl;dv’s summaries are the most customisable with different summary styles.
CRM Integration
Fireflies.ai is the clear winner for teams using Salesforce, HubSpot, or Pipedrive. Its CRM integration automatically logs meeting notes, updates contact records, and creates follow-up tasks without any manual input. For sales teams, this alone justifies the cost.
Video Playback & Search
tl;dv excels at video-first meeting review. Its clip creation feature allows you to cut and share specific moments from meetings easily — invaluable for user research, sales call coaching, and training purposes. Otter.ai and Fireflies.ai are more text-focused.
Pricing
All three offer free plans with limitations. Otter.ai Pro: $16.99/month. Fireflies.ai Pro: $18/month. tl;dv Pro: $20/month. Business plans range from $25–40/user/month.
