Transcription is a commodity feature now. The winners differentiate on integrations, search, summaries, and team permissions. Otter is the familiar name for fast meeting capture. Fireflies targets teams that want CRM and workflow hooks around call records. Rev still matters when you want human-reviewed accuracy for publishable media.
If nobody searches the transcript, you bought storage, not productivity.
The short answer
Use Otter for straightforward capture, Fireflies for team records and automation hooks, and Rev when accuracy bar is publish-grade.
Top picks
Best best AI transcription tools
Otter is easy to adopt, which matters more than marginal accuracy wins for many teams.
Fireflies is strong when transcripts should connect to the rest of the stack.
Human-in-the-loop services still win when mistakes are expensive.
Accuracy is table stakes
Most tools are good enough for internal notes. The fight is now about speaker diarization, vocabulary tuning, and search.
Test with your worst audio: cheap mics, accents, and overlapping talk.
Why summaries beat raw transcripts
People skim. A one-page recap with owners and deadlines beats a 40-page transcript nobody opens.
Pick tools that extract decisions, not only text.
Privacy and retention policies
Calls can include HR issues, customer data, and trade secrets. Know where audio is stored, who can access it, and how long it is kept.
If your security team says no, the best transcript in the world does not matter.