Picture the attendee list a minute before a client call. You, your client, their colleague, and one more name with no face behind it: a notetaker. Maybe your salesperson connected it to their calendar months ago. Maybe it belongs to the client. Either way, something is about to record and transcribe the conversation, and nobody on the call has said out loud that it's fine.
If nobody sets a rule, the meeting app offers notes, a separate tool offers notes that follow you to every call, and the policy becomes whatever each person clicked. There are three rules an owner can set for calls with clients, prospects and vendors:
- Built-in only. Staff may use the note-taking feature inside the meeting platform the business already runs, and nothing else.
- Joining bots allowed. Staff may also use a third-party notetaker that joins the call as its own attendee, often automatically from a connected calendar.
- Nobody. No AI recording or transcription on client calls. People take their own notes.
The provider details below come from Google's, Microsoft's and Otter's own pages, checked on October 3, 2026. Otter is here as one example of a joining bot. Every vendor writes its own terms, so don't read Otter's as the rule for all of them.
What each rule looks like from the other side of the call
Each row is a question a client, or your lawyer, could fairly ask. "Not stated" means the provider pages checked don't say. It doesn't mean the answer is no.
| Built-in only (Google Meet's "Take notes for me", Microsoft Teams transcription) | Joining bot allowed (Otter as the example) | Nobody | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What the other people see, and when | Google: a pencil icon and a notice that notes are being taken, on every participant's screen. Microsoft: every participant sees a notice that the meeting is being transcribed. | An extra attendee in the meeting. Any further notice: not stated in the Otter pages checked. | A person writing things down. |
| Who has to turn it on | Google: turned on during the call, or ahead of time from the calendar invite. With host management on, only hosts can switch it. On work accounts it "may be automatically on" depending on admin settings. Microsoft: transcription starts automatically when a meeting is recorded, and both the organizer and the person recording need recording permission. | The account holder, once. Otter says connecting a calendar lets its notetaker "automatically join and record" meetings on Zoom, Teams and Google Meet. | Nobody. |
| Can it run in a meeting nobody from your business attends? | Not stated in the Google or Microsoft pages checked. | Not stated in the Otter pages checked. Calendar-driven joining is the reason to ask. | No. |
| Where the transcript ends up, and who inside can open it | Google: the organizer's Google Drive, shared as the organizer chooses. Microsoft: the organizer's OneDrive, reachable from the meeting chat and Recap tab until an organizer deletes it. | With the bot's vendor, which is why its terms matter. Where it's stored and who can open it: not stated in the Otter pages checked. | Wherever your notes already live. |
| Whose terms govern it, and does the vendor say it trains on it | The agreement you already have with Google or Microsoft. Google's AI privacy page for Workspace, which names Meet, says content isn't used for AI model training outside your domain without permission. Training: not stated in the Microsoft Teams pages checked. | The bot vendor's. Otter's privacy notice lists training its AI on de-identified recordings and transcriptions. | No vendor involved. |
| What you, the owner, can switch off centrally | Google: admins configure the feature and can require everyone's explicit consent first. Microsoft: admins can turn meeting recording off by policy and can require explicit consent to be recorded or transcribed. | Not stated in the Otter pages checked. Ask the vendor what an owner can turn off for the whole team. | The rule itself. |
Sources for the table, checked October 3, 2026: Google's Meet help page, launch post and Workspace AI privacy page; Microsoft's Teams transcription help page and recording admin guide; Otter's meeting notes page and privacy notice.
Zoom isn't in the table because its help pages couldn't be checked word for word for this piece. If your business runs on Zoom, put the same six questions to Zoom's current documentation before you decide.
A notice on screen tells people. It doesn't ask them
Google's help page for "Take notes for me" in Google Meet says: "Google Meet informs all meeting participants that notes are being taken and the pencil icon appears on all participants' screens." Microsoft's page on live transcription in Teams says: "All participants see a notification that the meeting is being transcribed."
That's a notice, not a question. Both platforms treat asking for agreement as a separate setting. Google's page says: "Your administrator may require all participants to provide explicit consent before the use of certain meeting features like: 'Take notes for me,' Record, Transcribe." Microsoft's admin guide to Teams recording describes a policy setting "To require participants to give their explicit consent to be recorded or transcribed in any meeting that organizers with this policy create."
With a joining bot, check what its vendor expects from the person who brought it. Otter's privacy notice (effective June 16, 2026) tells users who provide a recording: "please make sure you have the necessary permissions from your co-workers, friends or other third parties before sharing Personal Information or referring them to us." Under Otter's terms, then, your staff member is the one expected to have asked. Other vendors word this their own way.
When the decision to record gets made
Built-in notes can start before anyone clicks anything in the call. Google's August 2024 launch post says you can "turn this feature on in advance from the Calendar invite." It also told admins at launch: "Take notes for me will be ON by default." The current help page says that on work accounts the feature "may be automatically on for certain meetings based on your admin settings." In Teams, Microsoft's support page says: "When you record a meeting, transcription starts automatically."
Joining bots are built around that idea. Otter's meeting notes page says: "Connect our notetaker to your Google or Microsoft calendar to automatically join and record your meetings on Zoom, MS Teams, and Google Meet." That's convenient. It also means the decision to record a call can be made once, long before a particular client is on it.
Otter is also the defendant in a proposed class action, In re Otter.AI Privacy Litigation (case 25-cv-06911), in federal court in Northern California. The plaintiffs allege the Otter Notetaker "joins meetings as a 'silent participant,' recording and transcribing conversations in real-time without obtaining the consent of all participants." Those are allegations. On August 13, 2026, the judge granted Otter's motion to dismiss in part, letting the plaintiffs refile some claims, and wrote: "The motion is DENIED in all other respects." At this early stage a court accepts the complaint's factual allegations as true, so the order is a procedural ruling that lets the case continue. It isn't a finding that Otter broke any law, and one case about one vendor doesn't tell you how other bots work.
Where the transcript ends up, and whose terms it lives under
With a built-in feature, the transcript joins the rest of your business files. Google says the notes document "is saved in the meeting organizer's Google Drive in the 'Google Meet' folder," and the organizer can share it automatically. One of the sharing choices on Google's help page is "All invited guests, including those outside of my organization." That's worth a deliberate choice, not a default someone clicked once.
Microsoft's support page says Teams transcripts "are stored in the meeting organizer's OneDrive for Business" and "can be accessed through the meeting chat and Recap tab in Teams until a meeting organizer deletes the transcript." Its admin guide adds that file storage and "access permissions apply to the meeting recording files the same as with other files."
On training, Google's Generative AI in Google Workspace Privacy Hub, which names Meet among the apps it covers, says: "Your content is not human reviewed or otherwise used for Generative AI model training outside your domain without permission." The Microsoft Teams pages checked for this piece don't address training either way.
A joining bot adds a second company holding a copy, under its own terms. Otter's privacy notice lists, among its uses of data, "training our proprietary AI technology on de-identified audio recordings and on transcriptions (which may contain Personal Information)." Other vendors say other things. Read the one your staff actually want to use. It's the same personal-terms-versus-business-terms question we looked at for staff using AI chat tools, except here the words belong to your client, not your employee.
Consent: what Nevada and California actually say
Recording a call can require everyone's consent, not just yours. For a business in Las Vegas or Henderson that talks to California clients, two states matter most. What follows is what the statutes and one attributed legal summary say. How they apply to your calls is a question for your own lawyer.
Nevada. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which publishes a state-by-state recording guide for reporters, says in its Nevada guide (last updated May 2020): "Nevada requires an individual to get the consent of all parties to a telephone call before it may be recorded." It adds that the Nevada Supreme Court held this "applies to both cellphone calls and text messages," and that "An individual who has the consent of at least one party to an in-person conversation can lawfully record it or disclose its contents."
For the telephone rule, the guide cites Nevada Revised Statutes section 200.620. The same guide notes that "The law permits an exception in emergencies, but the Nevada Supreme Court stated that the one-party-consent recording authorized in those situations applies mainly to law enforcement officers who proceed without a warrant." The rules quoted here cover telephone calls, cellphone calls, text messages and in-person conversations. Whether and how they reach a video meeting, or a bot sitting in one, is a question for your lawyer.
California. California Penal Code section 632(a) opens: "A person who, intentionally and without the consent of all parties to a confidential communication, uses an electronic amplifying or recording device to eavesdrop upon or record the confidential communication, whether the communication is carried on among the parties in the presence of one another or by means of a telegraph, telephone, or other device, except a radio, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500) per violation, or imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or in the state prison, or by both that fine and imprisonment." A further sentence sets higher penalties for repeat offenses.
The key words are "confidential communication." Section 632(c) defines it: "For the purposes of this section, 'confidential communication' means any communication carried on in circumstances as may reasonably indicate that any party to the communication desires it to be confined to the parties thereto, but excludes a communication made in a public gathering or in any legislative, judicial, executive, or administrative proceeding open to the public, or in any other circumstance in which the parties to the communication may reasonably expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded." So California's rule isn't "every call needs everyone's consent." It turns on whether the conversation was the kind people expect to stay private. Whether a particular client call qualifies is exactly the question to put to your lawyer.
None of these sources settles how either state's rule applies to a Zoom, Meet or Teams call, to a joining bot, or to a call with people in several states. Ask your lawyer before you pick a rule, not after a client asks. If your calls involve patient information, privileged legal matters or anything a contract restricts, take the vendor's agreement to that same conversation.
Which rule fits which kind of call
The honest answer changes with the call, so sort your calls first.
Calls where nobody is the right answer. Conversations about someone's health, money, legal trouble or job. Anything covered by a confidentiality agreement. Any call where someone has already said no. And any call where you haven't yet asked your lawyer the consent question for the people on it. Human notes are slower and miss things. On these calls that's a price worth paying.
Calls where built-in notes earn their keep. Calls you host on your own platform, with clients who've agreed at the start. Long scoping calls where the details matter and a missed requirement costs real money later. Calls where someone on your team relies on a live transcript to follow along. Here the built-in feature gives everyone the same on-screen notice, keeps the file in your own account and stays under a switch you control.
Calls where a joining bot is reasonable. Built-in notes live on your own platform. If your salespeople spend most of their week as guests on other companies' Zoom, Meet and Teams calls, your platform's feature isn't in those rooms. Even on Meet, the host may hold the switch: Google's help page says that with host management on, "only meeting hosts can turn 'Take notes for me' on or off." A bot that follows your people across platforms is a fair choice when one named person uses it, you've read that vendor's terms, you've confirmed it can be limited to the meetings they choose, and they announce it at the start.
A sensible default for most small teams
If your Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 plan already includes meeting notes, make built-in the only AI allowed on client calls. Have your admin turn on the explicit-consent setting, and keep a short list of calls that are never recorded. If your plan doesn't include it, nobody is a perfectly good default while you get the consent question answered. It costs nothing and it's easy to explain.
Treat joining bots as an exception someone asks for, not a blanket yes. The deciding issue isn't note quality. It's that a calendar connection makes the recording decision ahead of time, and a second company's terms then cover your client's words. Nothing here needs a new subscription unless you decide a bot is worth it.
Your call rule, in the order a call happens
Whichever rule you choose, staff need answers they can use mid-call. Write them in the order they come up.
- Before the call: is this one ever recorded? Name the calls that never are. Use your own examples: a client's billing dispute, a staff discipline conversation, anything under a confidentiality agreement.
- The first minute: what do we say? Give staff one line to read, such as: "Is it OK with everyone if we use AI notes on this call? It helps us not miss anything, and we can send you the summary." Then wait for an answer.
- If someone says no. Turn it off, say out loud that it's off, and take notes by hand. No sigh, no follow-up email asking them to reconsider.
- If another company's notetaker joins your meeting. Ask whose it is and whether its notes will be shared. If the call covers anything on your never-recorded list, ask for it to leave or save that part for a separate call. For Teams, Microsoft's admin guide covers one narrow case: when an outside user enabled for compliance recording joins, "the other organization records that meeting or call for compliance purposes, regardless of the Meeting recording setting in your organization," and organizers "are notified and can remove the external participant from the meeting." That describes Teams compliance recording, which a company sets up for its own users. It isn't a notetaker someone adds to their calendar, so don't assume it applies to other bots.
- After the call: who checks the summary? Name the person who reads an AI summary before it goes to a client or gets saved as the record of what was agreed. A summary with the wrong price or deadline becomes the version everyone remembers. Drafting and approving are separate jobs, the same split we argue for in why a drafting agent shouldn't hold the publish key.
- Months later: when is it deleted? Microsoft says Teams transcripts stay available "until a meeting organizer deletes the transcript," and Google's notes sit in the organizer's Drive like any other file. Pick how long you keep transcripts and who deletes them, then put a reminder on someone's calendar.
If what you're actually weighing is an AI agent answering your phones, that's a different question, covered in whether voice AI is safe for a business phone.
The bottom line
An AI notetaker on a client call is a recording decision, made on behalf of people who aren't on your payroll. Built-in notes keep that decision inside the tools and agreements you already control. A joining bot is reasonable for specific people on specific calls. Nobody is the right answer for the sensitive calls, and a fine default until your lawyer has answered the consent question. Whichever you pick, the six answers above are the part your team will actually use. Put them on one page, and check the provider pages again when you review it.