AI Conversation Memory Tools in 2026: What Each One Remembers
Short answer for 2026: most AI notetakers remember a meeting: Otter, Fireflies, Fathom, Granola and tl;dv each give you that call's transcript, summary and action items. If you want people remembered across conversations (what someone told you three meetings ago, what you promised them, what changed), that's what Fluent is built for, including the conversations away from your desk. Shopping for hardware instead? That's a different question: see the best AI pendants in 2026.
"AI memory" means something different in every product description. Some tools record a meeting and hand you a summary. Some keep a searchable archive of every call. A few try to remember people: what someone told you three meetings ago, what you promised them, what changed. This guide compares the software side of the category on the things you can check.
A note on bias: Fluent is one of the tools below. Every competitor figure here comes from the vendor's own page, checked on October 8, 2026, with sources at the end.
The software, side by side
| Otter | Fireflies | Fathom | Granola | tl;dv | Fluent | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cheapest paid plan | Pro $16.99/user/mo, or $8.33 billed yearly | Pro $18/seat/mo, or $10 billed yearly | Premium $20/user/mo, or $16 billed yearly | Business $14/user/mo | Pro €29/seat/mo, or €18 billed yearly | Pro $9.99/mo, or $83.99/yr |
| Free plan | 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation | Limited AI summaries, 400 minutes of storage per team | Unlimited recordings and transcriptions, some AI features limited | Meeting history limited to 30 days | Free Forever plan; limits not stated | 5 conversations a month |
| Bot in your calls | Joins Zoom, Teams and Meet; desktop app records without a bot | Joins calls; desktop app records without a bot | Bot capture, or bot-free capture (Mac only, for now) | No: uses your computer's audio | Bot for Meet, Zoom and Teams; desktop app records without one | Never |
| In-person meetings | Yes, in the iOS and Android apps | Yes, in the mobile app | Yes, in the iOS app | Yes, in the iPhone and Android apps | Yes, in its iPhone app (tl;dv Mobile) | Yes: a Limitless or Omi pendant, or your iPhone |
| Trains AI on your data | Yes, on de-identified data; no opt-out found | Not by default | May, on de-identified data; opt-out in settings | Yes, on anonymized data; opt-out in settings | No | No |
Checked October 8, 2026. Head-to-heads with more detail: Otter alternatives, Granola alternatives, Fireflies alternatives.
Skip ahead
- I just need notes from my meetings
- I want my conversations kept out of model training
- My important conversations happen away from my desk
- I'm deciding between software and a pendant
Just the notes
If what you need is the record of each meeting, a summary, action items and a searchable transcript, you're choosing a notetaker, not a memory tool, and the tools above are good at it. Pick on price, on whether a bot joins the call (AI meeting notes without a bot covers which ones do), and on training. The head-to-heads go deeper: Otter alternatives, Fathom alternatives, tl;dv alternatives.
Training on your data
The answers differ more than the marketing suggests. Per their own pages: Otter trains on de-identified audio and transcripts and we found no opt-out; Granola trains on anonymized data unless you opt out; Fathom may train on de-identified data and lets you opt out; Fireflies and tl;dv say they don't. Fluent never uses your conversations to train models. Read the vendor's privacy page before you record a client.
Conversations away from the desk
Most of the tools above treat in-person meetings as a mobile-app add-on to the video-call product. Fluent starts from the other end: the lunch, the walk, the site visit, the 1:1 in a conference room. It records from a paired Limitless or Omi pendant, or straight from your iPhone.
What it does with the conversation is the other difference. Besides meeting notes, Fluent builds profiles of the people you talk to, with every claim cited back to the conversation it came from. When someone sets a plan for a specific day, the calendar agent suggests the event and one tap adds it. And its MCP server lets you query your conversation history from Claude or ChatGPT.
Fluent isn't the right pick if your conversations are mostly scheduled video calls and you want a team workspace around them: Otter or Fireflies is built for that. It runs on iPhone (iOS 26 or later).
Two questions worth asking
What are you actually trying to remember? Two goals get conflated as "AI memory": transcripts and action items (what was decided, what's the to-do) and people and patterns (who keeps coming up, what they said three months ago, how something has changed). Most notetakers are excellent at the first. Fluent is built for the second.
What happens to your archive if the company changes course? Ask how export works before you build a year of history in any tool. Capture companies get bought: Limitless went to Meta in December 2025 and Bee to Amazon in July 2025. The archive should outlive the vendor's next decision.
Where pendants fit
A pendant is hardware for the conversations that have no meeting link. If that's what you want, the pendant choice is a separate decision from the software, and we cover it separately:
- The best AI pendants in 2026: Omi, Plaud, Bee, and what's left of Limitless
- Limitless alternatives and Omi alternatives, compared with sources
- What happened to the Limitless pendant
Sources
Checked October 8, 2026: Otter pricing, Otter apps, Otter privacy, Fireflies pricing, Fireflies mobile, Fireflies desktop, Fireflies security, Fathom pricing, Fathom bot-free capture, Fathom privacy, Granola pricing, Granola, Granola security, tl;dv pricing, tl;dv, tl;dv desktop app, tl;dv security, Fluent pricing, Fluent FAQ, Fluent privacy. Acquisitions: Meta and Limitless, Amazon and Bee.
Frequently asked questions
What's the best AI conversation memory tool in 2026?
It depends on what you want remembered. For transcripts and action items from video calls, Otter, Fireflies, Fathom, Granola and tl;dv all do the job. For the conversations away from your desk, and for remembering people and patterns across them, Fluent is built for that: it never joins a call and works from a paired Limitless or Omi pendant, or straight from your iPhone.
Do these tools train AI on my conversations?
Per each vendor's own pages, checked October 8, 2026: Otter trains on de-identified audio and transcripts and we found no opt-out; Granola trains on anonymized data unless you opt out; Fathom may train on de-identified data, with an opt-out; Fireflies and tl;dv say they don't. Fluent never uses your conversations to train models.
Do I need an AI pendant for conversation memory?
No. Software covers calls and, increasingly, in-person meetings from your phone. A pendant earns its place when you want capture across conversations that have no meeting link. Our pendant guide covers Omi, Plaud and what's left of Limitless.