🇺🇸 United States · Fireflies.ai — AI Meeting Notes and Transcription
Status: 🟩 COMPLETE 🟦 LIVING Section: 10 — AI and LLMs
| Vendor | Fireflies.ai |
| Country/origin | 🇺🇸 United States (San Francisco; founded by Indian-American team) |
| Recommended for AUS? | ✅ Yes — US-based; standard enterprise controls |
| Privacy summary | AWS hosting; SOC 2 Type II; GDPR compliant; meeting recordings encrypted; data not used for training on paid plans |
| Free tier | Yes — limited transcription credits; meeting recordings stored 30 days |
| Paid tiers | Pro (~19), Enterprise (custom) |
| First released | 2016 (founded); 2019 (current AI meeting product) |
| Last reviewed | June 2026 |
| Official site | https://fireflies.ai |
What it is
Fireflies.ai is an AI meeting assistant — a bot that joins your Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, or Webex calls, records and transcribes everything, and then provides:
- Full searchable transcript
- AI-generated meeting summary (the key points in 5 bullet points)
- Action items (who will do what by when)
- Searchable meeting library across all your past meetings
- Integration with Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, Notion, and 20+ apps
The “bot” appears as a participant in your meeting (named “Fireflies Notetaker”) and can optionally announce itself so participants know they’re being recorded.
How it works
- You connect Fireflies to your calendar (Google Calendar or Outlook)
- Fireflies automatically joins every calendar meeting with a video call link
- During the meeting: audio is recorded and transcribed in real-time
- After the meeting: AI analyses the transcript and produces the summary, action items, and topic breakdown
- Everything is searchable: “find all meetings where we discussed pricing” works across your full meeting history
How to sign up + first 5 minutes from Australia
- Go to https://fireflies.ai → Sign up free
- Connect your Google account (allows calendar access)
- Fireflies appears in your upcoming meetings automatically
- For immediate use: go to the app → Invite Fireflies to any live meeting by sharing the meeting link
- After the meeting ends: check your Fireflies dashboard for the transcript and AI summary
Australian users: Fireflies works with any video conferencing tool; no special setup needed for Australian-based meetings.
What it costs
| Plan | Price | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 800 mins transcription/month; 30-day storage; 3 AI summaries |
| Pro | ~$10 USD/month | Unlimited transcription; unlimited storage; AI summaries |
| Business | ~$19 USD/month | Team workspace; analytics; more integrations |
| Enterprise | Custom | SSO; compliance; advanced security |
How it compares to alternatives
| Tool | Best for | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Fireflies.ai | General meeting AI; broad integrations; generous free tier | Free / $10 |
| Otter.ai | Consumer; live captions; education | Free / $17 |
| Grain | Sales teams; CRM integration; call highlights for coaching | $19+ |
| Gong | Enterprise sales; revenue intelligence (much more than just notes) | $1,200+/user/year |
| Microsoft Copilot (Teams) | Teams users with M365 | M365 subscription |
| Google Meet AI | Meet users; Workspace | Workspace subscription |
| Zoom AI Companion | Zoom users | Included in Zoom plans |
Fireflies is the most popular standalone meeting AI for non-enterprise teams. For enterprise sales specifically, Gong provides much deeper analytics. For platform-native notes, Teams/Meet/Zoom’s own AI is often sufficient.
Privacy / data handling
- Meeting audio and transcripts are stored on Fireflies’ AWS infrastructure
- SOC 2 Type II certified
- GDPR compliant; enterprise DPA available
- Data is not used to train AI models on Business and Enterprise plans (verify current terms for free/Pro)
- End-to-end encryption for recordings
Critical: Australian meeting recording laws apply. Recording meetings requires consent from all participants. Fireflies’ Notetaker bot joining a meeting is visible to participants, but you should also:
- Announce at the start of each meeting that it’s being recorded
- Enable the “Announce entry” setting in Fireflies
- Check state-specific Listening Devices Acts for your jurisdiction
Gotchas
- Participants may be uncomfortable with an AI joining their meetings. Be transparent — tell meeting participants Fireflies is present.
- Speaker identification is imperfect. For meetings with multiple speakers, Fireflies identifies who spoke based on voice analysis, but can confuse similar voices or make errors in noisy calls.
- The bot can’t join phone calls. Fireflies works with video conferencing (Zoom, Teams, Meet). Traditional phone calls or in-person conversations need a different approach.
- Recording laws vary. Australian states have different consent requirements. Err on the side of announcing recording at the start of every meeting.
- AI summaries miss nuance. The 5-bullet summary is useful but won’t capture the full context, emotions, or implicit understandings from a meeting. Always read the transcript for anything important.
- CRM integration requires configuration. The Salesforce/HubSpot integration is powerful but requires setup. Don’t expect it to “just work” out of the box.
- Free plan has significant limits. 800 minutes = about 13 hours — enough for 2-3 meetings per day. Heavier users will quickly hit the limit.
See also
- speech-to-text — the transcription technology powering Fireflies
- zoom-ai — Zoom’s built-in AI meeting notes (free for Zoom users)
- m365-copilot — Microsoft Teams AI (free for M365 subscribers)
- gong-ai — enterprise-grade meeting intelligence for sales teams
- salesforce-einstein — CRM that Fireflies integrates with
Sources
- Fireflies.ai documentation: fireflies.ai
- Fireflies privacy and security: fireflies.ai/security
- Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Australia)
- NSW, VIC, QLD Listening Devices Acts
- G2 and Capterra reviews of Fireflies vs alternatives (2024)