Otter.ai for Irish Businesses: Stop Typing Up Your Notes
You finish a meeting. Or a site visit. Or a supplier call. And then comes the part nobody enjoys — sitting down to write up everything that was said before you forget half of it.
Otter.ai does that job for you. It listens to your conversations and turns them into written notes, automatically, in real time. No typing required.
Here is what it actually does, what it costs, and whether it is worth your time.
What Is Otter.ai, in Plain English?
Otter.ai is an app that records audio — from a meeting, a phone call, a voice note, a site visit — and converts it into a written transcript while you talk.
It does not just dump out a wall of text. It labels who said what, pulls out key topics, and can generate a summary of the main points when the recording is done.
You end up with a searchable, readable record of what was discussed. You can share it with a colleague, paste it into an email, or just use it as your own reference without having to write a single word.
💡 Quick tip
Otter.ai works with your voice even in noisy environments — on a building site, in a busy kitchen, or walking around a farm. You do not need to be sitting quietly at a desk.
How Does It Work?
There are a few different ways to use it, depending on your situation.
On your phone: Download the Otter.ai app (iOS or Android). Hit record before a conversation starts. It transcribes live as you talk. When you are done, the transcript is saved to your account and you can read, search, or share it.
On Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet: Otter.ai can join your online meetings as an automated note-taker. When a meeting starts, it connects itself, records the audio, and produces a transcript and summary once the call ends. You do not have to do anything during the meeting.
As a voice memo tool: Some people use it the same way they would use a voice note — walking to the car after a meeting, recording their thoughts and action items out loud. Otter turns that into a written note they can actually use later.
Real Business Examples
Let us look at how this works for the kinds of businesses that actually run Ireland.
A tradesperson on a site visit
A plumber does an initial visit to a house in Athlone. The customer walks them through everything — the boiler that keeps cutting out, the radiators that never get hot, the en suite that needs a full fit-out. The plumber hits record on their phone at the start and just listens and asks questions like normal. When they get back to the van, Otter has the whole conversation written out. They use it to write up the quote without forgetting a single detail.
A restaurant owner on a supplier call
The owner of a restaurant in Killarney is on a 45-minute call with a new food supplier. Prices, minimum orders, delivery schedules, seasonal availability — a lot of information coming fast. Instead of scribbling notes on a bit of paper, they record the call through Otter. Afterwards, they have a searchable transcript they can refer back to, and can quickly pull out the agreed prices when they need to check.
An accountant with back-to-back client meetings
An accountant in Waterford has six client meetings on a Tuesday. Each one has its own issues, numbers, and action items. Writing up notes for all of them at the end of the day is exhausting and easy to get wrong. With Otter running during each meeting, the notes are already there. The accountant just needs to review and tidy them up, rather than writing from scratch.
A sole trader who hates admin
A self-employed electrician who would rather be wiring a house than sitting at a computer uses Otter to capture everything on the go. After any visit or call, they do a 90-second voice memo into the app — "Dunne house in Portlaoise, they want a full rewire, two-storey, mentioned budget around eight grand, call them Thursday." Otter turns that into text. Their entire job log lives in the app without a single word typed.
Free vs Paid
300
free minutes per month
€17
Pro plan per month
1,200
Pro minutes per month
Free plan: You get 300 minutes of transcription per month. Each individual recording is capped at 30 minutes. That is enough to try it properly and see if it fits your workflow. You get three automated meeting imports (connecting it to Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet) per month on the free plan.
Pro plan (€17/month): 1,200 minutes per month, 90-minute recording limit per session, unlimited automated meeting notes, and an AI summary feature that generates a condensed overview after each meeting. For most sole traders and small businesses, this is the tier that makes practical sense if you want to use it daily.
Business plan (€30/user/month): Aimed at teams. Adds shared workspaces, admin controls, and better integration with corporate tools. Most small Irish businesses will not need this tier.
💡 Quick tip
Start on the free plan for a month before paying anything. Use it on real meetings and voice memos. If you keep hitting the 300-minute limit and wishing you had more, upgrade. If you forget it exists after two weeks, it is not the right tool for your workflow.
How to Get Started
Create a free account
Go to otter.ai and sign up with your email or Google account. No credit card required for the free plan.
Download the mobile app
The phone app is where most people get the most value. Download it on your iPhone or Android and keep it easy to access.
Connect your calendar (optional but useful)
If you use Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar, connect it in the settings. Otter will then offer to join any video meeting on your calendar automatically.
Try it on your next real conversation
Do not save it for a "big" meeting. Use it on the next call or site visit that involves information you would normally have to write up. See how accurate it is with your voice and accents.
Integrations Worth Knowing About
Zoom: Otter connects natively to Zoom. Once linked, it automatically joins any Zoom meeting on your calendar, records, and produces a transcript without you lifting a finger.
Microsoft Teams: The same automated note-taking works with Teams meetings. Particularly useful if your business runs on Microsoft 365.
Google Meet: Works with Google Meet as well. If you use Google Workspace for your business, this fits in cleanly.
Slack: Otter can send meeting summaries to a Slack channel automatically once a meeting ends. Useful for teams who need to share meeting outcomes quickly.
Privacy and GDPR: What Irish Businesses Need to Know
This is an important one, and you should take it seriously.
Otter.ai is an American company. Your audio recordings and transcripts are processed and stored on servers in the United States. Under Irish and EU data protection law (GDPR), transferring personal data to the US requires specific safeguards.
⚠️ Watch out
If your meetings include personal information about customers, employees, or patients — names, addresses, health details, financial information — you need to think carefully before recording them with any third-party app. Otter.ai's data is stored in the US. For most informal business conversations this is low risk, but for sensitive industries like healthcare, law, or financial services, you should check with your data protection advisor before using it for anything involving personal data.
Practical guidance:
- For general business conversations — supplier calls, internal team catch-ups, project discussions — the risk is low and Otter.ai is widely used across Europe.
- For conversations involving customer personal data (full names, addresses, payment details, health information), be more cautious. Tell participants at the start that the call is being recorded, the same way you would with any recording.
- Otter.ai does publish a privacy policy and terms of service, and claims compliance with GDPR. You can read these at otter.ai/privacy.
- If you are in a regulated industry (healthcare, financial services, legal), speak to your GDPR advisor before recording client conversations.
The same common-sense rules apply here as with any recording: tell people you are recording if personal topics will come up, do not share transcripts with people who have no business reason to see them, and delete old recordings you no longer need.
Alternatives Worth Considering
Otter.ai is not the only option. Here are a few others worth knowing about.
Microsoft Copilot (built into Teams): If your business already pays for Microsoft 365 Copilot (€30/user/month), it includes meeting transcription and AI summaries inside Teams. You do not need Otter at all if you are already paying for Copilot. But it only works inside Teams meetings — not phone calls, site visits, or voice memos.
Notion AI: Notion has a basic transcription feature, but it is weaker than Otter for live recording. Better used for turning voice notes into structured documents after the fact.
Fireflies.ai: A direct competitor to Otter, strong for online meetings. Similar features, slightly different pricing. Worth comparing if you primarily want to record Zoom or Teams calls and find Otter's pricing does not suit.
Your phone's built-in notes app: For very simple voice memos that you just want stored as audio and quickly reviewed, your phone's native tools might be enough. This is not transcription, but it is free and already on your device.
Is Otter.ai Right for You?
It is genuinely useful if any of these describe you:
- You come out of meetings or site visits and have to reconstruct what was said from memory
- You take a lot of calls with information that needs to be recorded somewhere
- You hate typing up notes
- You regularly forget action items or details from conversations
It is probably overkill if:
- Most of your work is physical and does not involve conversations that generate information you need to keep
- You already have a good system for capturing notes that works for you
- You rarely attend meetings or calls
The free plan costs nothing and takes five minutes to set up. Give it a try on your next three meetings before deciding whether it is worth paying for.
Not sure which AI tools make the most sense for your kind of business? Take the free 5-minute AI Readiness Assessment on TrueClarity and we'll point you in the right direction.