When you’re deep in a Zoom meeting, capturing every key point while staying engaged feels nearly impossible. That’s why many teams now look for smarter ways to automate repetitive tasks like manually taking meeting notes.
On average, office workers collaborate with others for almost half of their time (42%). This makes tools that simplify transcription and action tracking more important than ever.
Otter.ai is one such tool. Its Zoom integration generates live transcripts for the host and all meeting participants, helping everyone stay engaged and access clear meeting notes afterward.
In this article, we’ll walk through exactly how to use Otter AI with Zoom to simplify your Zoom meetings, improve note-taking, and boost productivity across teams.
Summarize this article for me please⭐Featured Template
Looking to capture your meeting notes effectively with minimal setup? ClickUp’s Meeting Notes Template has you covered with predefined meeting agendas and action item tracking.
How to Use Otter.ai with Zoom (Live Transcripts & Recordings)
- ⭐Featured Template
- What Is Otter.ai + Zoom Integration?
- How to Set Up OtterPilot for Live Zoom Transcripts
- How to Use Otter Live Notes in Zoom
- Step 1: Set up Otter Live Notes in the Zoom Marketplace
- Step 2: Allow live streaming in the Zoom web portal
- Step 3: Allow live streaming as a Zoom meeting host
- Step 4: Connect Otter.ai to Zoom
- Step 5: Automatically start live transcription in Zoom
- Step 6: Access the live transcript during the meeting
- Step 7: Collaborate on Otter Live Notes with your team
- Post-Meeting Transcription: Zoom Cloud Sync Method
- Limitations of using Zoom and Otter
- Take Meeting Notes Effectively with ClickUp
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Is Otter.ai + Zoom Integration?
It’s as simple as it sounds. The Otter.ai and Zoom integration allows users to automatically join, record, transcribe, and summarize Zoom meetings without any manual effort.
With Otter Business or Enterprise plans and a Zoom Pro, Business, or Enterprise Zoom account, you can generate live transcripts, capture slides, and instantly share meeting notes with your team. This functionality is especially useful for Zoom meeting hosts, educators, and remote teams looking to reduce admin work.
Here are some more perks from this integration:
✅ Join scheduled Zoom meetings from the waiting room and automatically start transcription
✅ Provide real-time transcripts so meeting participants can follow along and review instantly
✅ Capture and highlight key points and action items, and automatically sync summaries during the live meeting
✅ Include shared notes and slides directly in your meeting notes
✅ Use Otter’s AI bot to answer questions, generate follow-up emails, and summarize discussions across Zoom and Zoom Phone
Summarize this article for me pleaseHow to Set Up OtterPilot for Live Zoom Transcripts
Setting up OtterPilot to take live notes during your Zoom meetings is simple. All you have to do is follow these straightforward steps:
Step 1: Set up Otter Assistant
Start by logging into your Otter.ai account. To allow Otter to recognize your upcoming meetings, connect your calendar. In your Home Feed, use the right-hand panel to click Connect for each calendar app (Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook), then sign in and grant access.
Once your calendar is synced, you’ll see upcoming Zoom meetings. From there, you can schedule Otter Assistant to automatically join your calls, transcribe them, and share meeting notes with participants.
Once enabled, Otter Assistant lets you:
You can choose which meetings to join by adjusting preferences directly from your calendar.
📖 Also Read: Best Zoom Alternatives
📮 ClickUp Insight: Data from ClickUp’s meeting effectiveness survey shows that nearly 46% of meetings involve just 1–3 people.
While smaller meetings may seem efficient, many of them could be replaced with smarter communication methods, such as better documentation, asynchronous video communication, or streamlined knowledge sharing.
💫 Real Impact: Teams like Trinetrix report cutting unnecessary meetings and back-and-forth discussions by 50% using ClickUp.
Step 2: Manage Otter Assistant for all meetings
To control default behavior for all future meetings, go to Account Settings > Meetings. You can make modifications to the following options:
- Automatically join all or selected Zoom meetings
- Automatically share meeting notes with calendar guests or specific people
- Send Otter.ai links in chats for easy access to meeting notes
Step 3: Manage Otter Assistant for individual meetings
If you want to fine-tune Otter’s behavior for specific meetings, you can override the defaults directly from your calendar.
Auto-join:
Toggle Auto Join on or off for any upcoming meeting. This gives you the flexibility to choose which sessions the Otter Assistant attends.
Click on the meeting card and adjust sharing settings for individual sessions.
- Enable sharing with calendar event guests
- Select or create an Otter group to share Zoom notes with your team
📖 Also Read: One-on-One Meeting Templates for Managers
Summarize this article for me pleaseHow to Use Otter Live Notes in Zoom
Otter Live Notes is an add-on that allows meeting hosts to enable live transcription for all Zoom meeting participants while also supporting collaborative note-taking. The live transcript opens as a web page, which you can view alongside your Zoom meeting or on another device.
This option is a paid feature available on the Otter Business plan and works with Zoom Pro, Business, Enterprise, or Education accounts.
Who can use Otter Live Notes in Zoom?
- Meeting host: Can start live transcription automatically
- Collaborators: Can join in note-taking, highlighting, and adding comments
- Participants: Can access and review the live transcript
Step 1: Set up Otter Live Notes in the Zoom Marketplace
- Sign in to the Zoom Marketplace
- Search for Otter Live Notes for Zoom
- Click Visit Site to add and install the app
👀 Fun Fact: In Japan, nemawashi is the practice of informal pre-meeting alignment. Important decisions are often agreed upon quietly before the official meeting, turning formal discussions into confirmations rather than debates.
Step 2: Allow live streaming in the Zoom web portal
- Sign in to the Zoom web portal
- Go to Admin > Account Management > Account Settings
- Under Meeting (Advanced), enable:
- Allows live streaming for meetings
- Custom live streaming service
Step 3: Allow live streaming as a Zoom meeting host
- Sign in to the Zoom web portal with your meeting host account
- Go to Settings > Meeting tab
- Enable:
- Allows live streaming for meetings
- Custom live streaming service
📖 Also Read: Virtual Meeting Etiquette Rules
Step 4: Connect Otter.ai to Zoom
- Log in to Otter.ai and go to Apps on the left panel
- Find Otter Live Notes and click Add
- If prompted, sign in to Zoom and click Authorize
- Complete the setup and click Test Configuration to verify everything
Step 5: Automatically start live transcription in Zoom
- Start a Zoom meeting with your connected Zoom account
- A red LIVE indicator in the top left shows that Otter.ai is transcribing the meeting
To manually stop or restart live transcription:
- Click Otter.ai Live Transcript next to the LIVE indicator and select Stop Live Stream
- To restart, click More and select Live on Custom Live Streaming Service
Step 6: Access the live transcript during the meeting
- Join the Zoom meeting
- Click Otter.ai Live Notes next to the LIVE indicator
- Select View Stream on Otter.ai Live Notes
- The live transcript will open in a browser window
Step 7: Collaborate on Otter Live Notes with your team
- Collaborators, like a teaching assistant or scribe, can highlight text, add comments, and insert images into the live notes
- After the Zoom meeting, the meeting notes can be reviewed, edited, and shared with participants
- Collaborators need to be signed into your Otter.ai account to edit
📖 Also Read: How to Use AI for Meeting Notes?
Summarize this article for me pleasePost-Meeting Transcription: Zoom Cloud Sync Method
If you’re using Zoom cloud recordings, Otter.ai makes it easy to generate post-meeting transcripts automatically. As soon as a meeting ends and the recording finishes processing, Otter syncs the file and transcribes it, storing the result in My Conversations.
This Zoom sync feature is available only to meeting hosts on the Otter Business plan and requires a Zoom Pro or higher plan.
Step 1: Add Otter.ai Live Notes for Zoom from the Zoom Marketplace
via Otter.ai
- Sign in to the Zoom Marketplace as the Zoom administrator
- Search for Otter.ai Live Notes for Zoom
- Click Visit Site to Add and complete the authorization
Step 2: Connect Otter.ai to Zoom
- Sign in to Otter.ai, click Apps on the left panel
- Go to Sync cloud recordings and click Add
- When prompted, sign in to Zoom and click Authorize
- If not done already, complete the setup steps from Step 2
- To test the connection, create a short Zoom recording
Step 3: Enable Zoom recording downloads
For Zoom administrators:
- Go to Admin > Account Management > Account Settings > Recording
- Enable:
- Cloud recording
- Local recording
- Record an audio-only file
- Cloud recording downloads
- Disable:
- Prevent hosts from accessing cloud recordings
- IP Address Access Control
- Require password to access shared cloud recordings
- Only authenticated users can view cloud recordings
For personal accounts:
- Go to Settings > Recording
- Enable:
- Cloud recording
- Record an audio-only file
- Allow cloud recording sharing
- Automatic recording (recommended)
- Record in the cloud (recommended)
- Disable:
- IP address access control
- Authentication requirements for viewing
- Password requirements for shared recordings
- On-demand recordings by default
📖 Also Read: Best AI Meeting Note Taker Tools
Step 4: Download Zoom recordings
- Sign in to the Zoom web portal
- Go to Personal > Recordings
- Find the desired recording and open it
- Click the download icon next to Audio Only to save it to your computer
Step 5: Import Zoom recordings into Otter.ai for transcription
- Sign in to Otter.ai and click the Import button at the top right
- Click Browse files and select your downloaded recording
- Default save paths for local recordings:
- Windows: C:\Users\User Name\Documents\Zoom
- macOS: /Users/User Name/Documents/Zoom
- Once uploaded, wait for Otter to transcribe and click Go to transcript to access and edit
👀 Fun Fact: Roman senators used gestures and symbolic items in meetings to express opinions without speaking. Signals like a raised hand or thumb conveyed votes or dissent, proving that structured communication doesn’t always require endless talking.
Summarize this article for me pleaseLimitations of using Zoom and Otter
As the Washington Post once summed up their Otter experiences in an article, “At one point, Otter misheard ‘roaches’ as ‘Russians,’ and Zoom heard ‘barky’ as ‘Mark.’ And transcripts degraded with sound quality.”
While Otter.ai with Zoom makes meeting notes easier, it still comes with a few challenges users should know about.
- Accuracy depends heavily on audio quality, leading to mishearings and transcription errors during noisy Zoom meetings
- Speaker identification often fails, requiring meeting hosts or users to tag participants after the session manually
- The bot joining feature can feel intrusive and may join unexpected meetings if calendar settings are not carefully reviewed
- Otter’s AI summaries are basic and often require manual editing to make them usable for follow-up emails or action items
- Requires a stable internet connection, making it unreliable for hybrid teams or meetings in low-bandwidth environments
These restrictions often force users to look for Otter.ai alternatives that are more conducive to how their team works.
📖 Also Read: Crafting an Effective Meeting Recap
Summarize this article for me pleaseTake Meeting Notes Effectively with ClickUp
Most meeting hosts aren’t short on tools; they’re drowning in them.
You schedule Zoom meetings in your calendar, invite an Otter assistant to generate a transcript, store meeting notes in separate documents, and then copy and paste decisions into a project tool.
That’s classic work sprawl.
On top of that, every new AI app promises “smart summaries” to manage meeting summaries while quietly creating yet another inbox to check. That brings AI sprawl: multiple AI meeting management software in use, with no single source of truth for what actually needs to happen after a Zoom call.
ClickUp is built to solve both problems. Instead of using one tool for live transcripts and another for task management, ClickUp’s features work together in one converged AI workspace. Your Zoom meetings, meeting notes, action items, and follow-ups all live inside your ClickUp Workspace, so nothing gets lost between tools.
Here’s how that workflow looks in practice:
How ClickUp AI Notetaker turns Zoom calls into follow-through
With ClickUp AI Notetaker, every important Zoom meeting becomes a connected record: transcript, summary, and action items linked directly to your work.
Instead of shifting between a separate Otter tab, you can:
- Invite ClickUp AI Notetaker to your Zoom meetings from your ClickUp Calendar or tasks
- Let it record, transcribe, and summarize the conversation into a structured ClickUp Doc
- Automatically pull out decisions and action items and help turn them into ClickUp Tasks with owners, due dates, and priorities
- Keep transcripts searchable inside ClickUp, so you can quickly revisit what was said instead of replaying full Zoom recordings
This directly addresses one of the biggest limitations of using Zoom + Otter alone: you no longer stop at “here’s your transcript.” ClickUp AI Notetaker connects those notes to your actual workflow, so the next steps are clear and trackable.
Here’s a visual guide on how easy ClickUp’s AI makes note-taking:
💡 Pro Tip: If you run recurring Zoom meetings (like weekly standups or client check-ins), pair ClickUp AI Notetaker with a recurring task in ClickUp Meetings and let AI build summaries and follow-up tasks from the same place each time.
Turn transcripts into decisions with ClickUp BrainGPT and ClickUp AI Agents
Otter’s summaries can still feel like a wall of text you need to clean up before sending, especially when you’re drafting follow-up emails or deciding what to do next. With BrainGPT, every meeting becomes input for smarter decisions and workflows.
In a single AI workspace, you can:
- Ask BrainGPT questions like “What did we decide in the last Zoom meeting with Acme?” and get instant answers pulled from your tasks, Docs, and Chat threads
- Rely on AI-generated summaries that are already linked to tasks and projects, so you don’t need to rewrite them by hand for follow-up emails or reports
You can go even further with ClickUp AI Agents powered by ClickUp’s AI:
- They can automatically create and organize action items from your meeting notes and transcripts
- Help with scheduling, note-taking, and routing meeting decisions into the right tasks and owners
Together, ClickUp AI Notetaker, ClickUp BrainGPT, and AI Agents turn your Zoom meetings into an end-to-end system, all without bouncing between multiple AI tools.
While you’re in a Zoom meeting or reviewing an Otter/Zoom transcript, use ClickUp Brain MAX’s Talk to Text to clean up notes.
This desktop AI turns your voice into clean, structured notes you can drop straight into your ClickUp Meeting Notes Doc or follow-up email.
📖 Also Read: Free Screen Recorder No Watermark Tools
Run Zoom meetings from your tasks with ClickUp’s Zoom integration
Instead of copying Zoom links into calendar descriptions and chat threads, you can run your Zoom meetings directly from ClickUp Tasks, Docs, or Chat using the ClickUp Zoom integration.
Here’s how it fits into your workflow:
- Start or join a Zoom meeting from a task using the Zoom button or /zoom command
- Automatically drop the join link into a task comment so assignees and followers can join with one click
- After the call, view Zoom recording links right from the task, keeping context, transcript, and recording together
If the host hasn’t set up a personal Zoom integration, they can still approve ClickUp AI Notetaker to record the session from within Zoom. This helps keep control over which AI bots can access the meeting.
This solves another Otter + Zoom pain point: instead of transcripts living in one system and recordings in another, ClickUp pulls meetings, recordings, notes, and action items into a single thread tied to the work you’re actually doing.
What ClickUp users say:
👀 Fun Fact: The phrase “on the same page” comes from choir practice, not business. Singers needed to follow the same sheet of music, a habit that later became a metaphor for team alignment and shared understanding during meetings.
Keep post-meeting conversations in context with ClickUp Chat, Clips, and comments
With Otter, follow-up often means jumping back to Slack or email to discuss what the transcript captured. In ClickUp, the discussion stays right next to your tasks and meeting notes:
- ClickUp Chat lets your team discuss next steps, clarify AI-generated action items, and make decisions inside the same space where work lives. No extra messaging or team communication app required
- ClickUp Assign Comments turns feedback into accountable work. You can highlight a line in your meeting notes, Doc, or a task detail and assign it to a team member, so nobody has to ask, “Who’s owning this?”
- ClickUp Clips let you record quick screen and voice updates instead of scheduling yet another Zoom meeting. ClickUp BrainGPT can then automatically transcribe and summarize ClickUp Clips, pulling out action items for teammates who don’t have time to watch the full video
💡 Pro Tip: Combine ClickUp Clips with the ClickUp Meeting Minutes Template to send short recap videos after high-stakes Zoom meetings. Attach the clip, paste the AI summary, and everyone stays aligned without adding another call to the calendar.
Structure every session with ClickUp meeting templates
Transcription alone doesn’t resolve unclear meetings. You still need structure. That’s where ClickUp’s meeting templates come in.
Start by organizing your Zoom meetings around a consistent format using the ClickUp Meeting Notes Template. By structuring every call with clear meeting agendas and action item tracking, this meeting notes template keeps teams aligned and follow-ups effortless.
Here’s why you’ll love this template:
- Keep recurring Zoom meetings consistent with ready-made sections for agenda items and decisions, so every session follows the same structure
- Support different meeting types, from weekly team check-ins to quick daily standups
- Turn raw notes into next steps by capturing action items, owners, and due dates in one place
💡 Pro Tip: For formal review sessions or client check-ins, switch to the ClickUp Meeting Minutes Template to log who attended, what was discussed, and what was agreed.
However, if you manage a high volume of Zoom meetings across hybrid teams, consider using the ClickUp Meetings Template or the ClickUp Meeting Tracker Template to track all sessions, notes, and follow-ups in one place.
Summarize this article for me pleaseTired of Messy Meeting Transcripts? Connect ClickUp with Zoom
Why are AI meeting tools no longer optional?
Because video calls consume more time than ever before, making manual note-taking inadequate. AI transcription tools, such as Otter, have stepped in to help teams capture conversations, but they often stop at just delivering a transcript.
While Otter focuses on standalone transcription, ClickUp AI Notetaker blends transcripts, smart summaries, action items, and task assignments.
Plus, with features like Zoom integration, BrainGPT for AI-powered insights, and built-in meeting templates, you get a complete system that supports collaboration before, during, and after every call.
Ready to make your meetings actually productive? Sign up for ClickUp today!
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