Let Otter Assistant Cover Your BackLet Otter Assistant Cover Your Back

In today's fast-paced business world, employees often feel like they need to be in two places at the same time, or more precisely, two video meetings at the same time. While participating in two meetings at once might not be feasible, employees might find value in having a virtual meeting assistant, a la a newly launched offering from real-time voice transcription and notetaking service provider Otter.ai, stand in for them in one or the other concurrent meeting.

An Otter.ai user can assign an AI-based Otter Assistant for Zoom Meetings to automatically join meetings, transcribe the conversations, and share the transcript in real-time. Each licensed user gets two Otter Assistants, so they can follow “up to two meetings in parallel” as they happen or hop between the two, Simon Lau, product VP for Otter.ai, told No Jitter in a briefing. Additionally, users can comment, highlight, and add photos to the transcript during the meeting. This transcript, complete with comments, highlights, and photos, is then available for collaboration purposes afterwards.

The Otter Assistant feature is available with the Otter Business plan ($20 per user/month), Otter.ai shared in a press release.

To support Otter Assistant, Otter.ai added a new My Agenda section to their application that, via a Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook integration, allows users to view their upcoming meetings up to a week in advance, Lau said. From the My Agenda screen, users can toggle on/off automatic join and note-sharing, as well as specify the permission level (view, comment, etc.) of each participant or team, Lau explained. Additionally, users can set Otter Assistant to automatically send them a transcript link for a Zoom meeting as it's happening, Lau said.

Unlike Otter.ai’s other Zoom integrations, Otter Assistant works for both internal and external Zoom meetings, Lau added. Otter Assistant is only available for Zoom, but Lau acknowledged other meeting platforms might be possible in the future. Existing Otter.ai integrations include a Google Chrome Extension for Google Meet and Dropbox for Otter, Otter.ai stated in its Help Center. Moving forward, Otter.ai is also committed to leveraging its AI capabilities to build additional tools, Lau said.