AI Meeting Assistants & Notetakers

Grain

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Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: 2 of 6 dimensions proven

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Grain Intelligence, Inc. · grain.com

An AI-assisted analysis of public evidence — not a hands-on test.

Every score, rationale and verdict on this page is AI-generated. Every claim cites the source it was read from. Nothing here is a human star review — and no score can be bought. How scores are made →

Method and versions

The Management Consultant v1.0 · The Sales Team Lead v1.0 · The Works Council Chair v1.0 · The Data Protection Officer v1.0 · The IT Lead v1.0 · The Skeptic v1.0 · rubric v1 · evaluated 6 Nov 2026

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Grain at a glance

Vendor: Grain Intelligence, Inc.
Headquarters: Incorporated in United States source, captured 5 Nov 2026
Data hosting: Outside the EU by default; pages mention United States source, captured 5 Nov 2026
Free plan: Yes, per the vendor’s own page source, captured 5 Nov 2026
Panel verdict: The AI panel rates Grain 3/5, the mean of 6 judges. Grain is an AI meeting assistant that captures calls with a bot on Zoom, Teams, Google Meet and Webex or through botless desktop recording, producing transcripts, summaries, action items and sync to HubSpot and Salesforce. how scores are made
As of: Vendor pages captured 5 Nov 2026; evaluated by the panel 6 Nov 2026. all sources

Grain alternatives, European ones first →

Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The Management Consultant

Weighted verdict

Partner at a twelve-person management consultancy in Munich with six client calls a day, half in German, half in English, and workshops in the client's meeting room. Writes the minutes at night and wants that to stop. Wants accurate German transcripts with the right names, minutes by meeting type with decisions and action items, capture of in-person workshops without a laptop on the table, and a promise in writing that client conversations train nobody's model.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Management Consultant

Panel median The Management Consultant This judge’s scores over the panel median. Each label opens its reasoning below.

Scores per criterion, in stars out of 5
Criterion	Panel median	The Management Consultant
Recording, transcription & languages	3.5 of 5	3.5 of 5
Summaries, action items & meeting knowledge	3.5 of 5	3.5 of 5
Integrations, API & workflow	4 of 5	3.5 of 5
Consent, participant rights & works council	3 of 5	3 of 5
Retention, AI training & administration	3.5 of 5	3.5 of 5
European sovereignty	2 of 5	2 of 5
Pricing transparency	3 of 5	3 of 5

Recording, transcription & languages

How this is scored

How the conversation gets in and how faithfully it is written down: a bot that joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and Webex, botless capture from a desktop or mobile app, in-person meetings and phone calls, file upload, live transcription, speaker identification and names, the languages supported with German stated, meetings that switch language, custom vocabulary for names and jargon, timestamps linked to the recording, and editing of the transcript.

0 — Does not record or transcribe meetings; a note template or agenda tool without capture.

3 — A bot that joins one or two conferencing tools and produces a transcript; languages, speaker names, in-person capture and accuracy are basic or not described.

5 — A bot for Zoom, Teams and Google Meet, a desktop or mobile app for in-person meetings, file upload, speaker identification, German among the supported languages, timestamps linked to the recording, and an editable transcript.

8 — Botless capture documented next to the bot, Webex and phone or dialer calls, live transcription, mixed-language meetings handled, custom vocabulary, speaker names learned across meetings, and the transcription engine or its accuracy per language stated.

10 — Capture a regulated team relies on: every channel above with accuracy published per language and method, dialects and specialist vocabulary documented, on-device or customer-hosted transcription as an option, and how errors are corrected and fed back stated.

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The Management Consultant

Both capture paths I need are documented: a bot for Zoom, Teams, Google Meet and Webex alongside botless desktop recording of the computer's audio, with live transcripts, speaker identification by voice, custom vocabulary, external-recording upload, and transcripts downloadable in several formats — and the speech-to-text suppliers (AssemblyAI, Rev AI) are even named on the sub-processor page. What I did not find: phone or dialer capture, handling of meetings that switch language, or published accuracy per language; German itself is never named, only counts of 99 and 100-plus languages, which for my German client calls is a number rather than a promise. 1 4 9 11

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Summaries, action items & meeting knowledge

How this is scored

What the tool makes of the transcript: summaries and minutes by meeting type with editable templates, decisions and action items with owners and due dates, summaries in the meeting's language or a chosen one, follow-up emails, clips and highlights, search across all meetings, questions answered over the archive with citations back to the transcript passage, shared team folders or channels, and the minutes exported to Word, PDF or a wiki.

0 — No summaries of any kind; only the raw transcript or recording.

3 — One generic summary per meeting; templates, action items, search across meetings and citations are basic or not described.

5 — Summaries with templates per meeting type, action items and decisions extracted, the summary language selectable with German available, search across meetings, questions answered over one or several meetings, and sharing or export of the minutes.

8 — Custom templates per team, action items with owners pushed to task tools, answers that cite and link the transcript passage they rest on, topic or keyword tracking across meetings, team libraries with permissions, and the AI models used for summaries named.

10 — Meeting knowledge a company can audit: every generated statement traceable to its source passage, hallucination handling and human review documented, summary quality by language stated, and the archive queryable through an API or MCP server with the same permissions as in the app.

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The Management Consultant

Summaries, action items, next steps and automatic recaps are there, and Ask answers questions across the whole meeting library 'with precise citations', with search by company, topic and keyword, team libraries, trackers, clips, playlists and stories embeddable in Notion or Confluence — and the summarising models are identifiable as OpenAI and Anthropic on the sub-processor list. We found no public information on minutes templates by meeting type, on action items with owners and due dates pushed to a task tool, or on choosing the summary language; for workshop minutes with decisions that is the gap that decides my evenings stay long. 1 2 4 9 10

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Integrations, API & workflow

How this is scored

How the notes reach the place where work happens: calendar connection with rules for which meetings are recorded, CRM fields filled from the call (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Microsoft Dynamics), project and task tools, Slack and Microsoft Teams channels, Notion, Confluence and SharePoint, Zapier, Make or n8n, a documented REST API and webhooks, an MCP server for AI assistants, and browser extensions and native apps.

0 — No integrations and no export; the notes stay in the app.

3 — A calendar connection and an email or Slack summary; CRM, API and task tools are basic or not described.

5 — Google and Microsoft calendars, a native CRM integration (HubSpot or Salesforce), Slack or Teams, a task or wiki tool, Zapier or Make, and a documented API or webhooks.

8 — CRM field mapping per meeting type, several CRMs including Microsoft Dynamics or Pipedrive, a full REST API with webhooks and reference documentation, an MCP server, SharePoint or Confluence export, and recording rules per calendar or meeting type.

10 — An integration layer a company builds on: every object reachable by API with rate limits and versioning stated, granular OAuth scopes, data residency kept across integrations, and the integrations administered centrally with logs.

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The Management Consultant

Google and Microsoft calendars, HubSpot and Salesforce, Slack, Notion, Confluence, Productboard, Asana and Zapier are documented, and the v2 REST API is genuinely built-on material: webhooks with named events, OAuth, personal and workspace tokens, 300 requests per minute, version headers with a sunset date, plus an MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor with per-tool toggles and permissions that mirror in-app access. The CRM list stops at HubSpot and Salesforce — we found no public information on Microsoft Dynamics or Pipedrive — and field mapping is stated generally as notes and properties syncing to contacts and deals rather than per meeting type. 1 2 4 11 12

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Consent, participant rights & works council

How this is scored

Whether every person in the meeting knows and can decide, and whether the tool can be introduced under German co-determination: a recording notice to all participants including external guests, consent or opt-out before the recording starts, a visible bot or a stated notice for botless capture, rules for when the assistant joins automatically, stopping and deleting a recording on request, per-person analytics (talk time, sentiment, engagement scores) off by default or switchable per organisation, material or a template for a works agreement (Betriebsvereinbarung, § 87 (1) no. 6 BetrVG), and support for a data protection impact assessment.

0 — Built to record people without their knowledge, or sells covert recording or individual performance scoring as a feature.

3 — A general privacy statement and a bot that appears in the participant list; notices to guests, opt-out, per-person analytics and works councils are basic or not described.

5 — A recording notice to participants by chat message, email or the bot's name, a way for a participant to stop the recording or opt out, admin rules for when the assistant joins, recordings deletable on request, and per-person analytics described with how to switch them off.

8 — Consent collected before recording starts for external participants, per-person analytics off by default or switchable per organisation, botless capture with its notice method documented, a works-council information pack or works-agreement template published, DPIA support, and the EU AI Act classification stated.

10 — Co-determination built into the product: every analytic and its granularity documented for the works council, consent and opt-out logged per participant, configuration changes logged, minimum group sizes for any team statistics, and references of works-council-approved rollouts published.

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The Management Consultant

For bot meetings this is better than most: an email 24 hours before auto-captured meetings asking attendees to consent or decline, one decline turns auto-capture off for the whole meeting, participants see a consent-or-leave disclaimer modal, and a bot joining someone else's meeting needs the host's permission before recording. But the consent record lives in the recorder's email inbox rather than in the product, no response is treated as consent, a 'Record anyway' override records against a stated preference, and the help pages themselves state desktop capture has no in-meeting consent mechanism and the user is responsible for informing participants. We found no public information on works-council material or a works-agreement template, DPIA support, EU AI Act classification, or how to switch off the per-person coaching scorecards and conversation intelligence a works council would ask about first. 4 12 13 14 15 16

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Retention, AI training & administration

How this is scored

What the employer can govern: retention periods and automatic deletion of recordings, transcripts and summaries, whether audio and video can be discarded after transcription, sharing defaults and link permissions, customer content excluded from model training by contract, the AI and transcription providers named with their region and their own retention, encryption, single sign-on (SAML), SCIM, roles and workspaces, admin policies on auto-recording and sharing, audit logs, export of the whole archive, and security certifications such as ISO 27001 and SOC 2.

0 — No administration and no deletion; every user decides alone and recordings are kept indefinitely.

3 — Users can delete their own recordings and a security page exists; retention policies, model training, SSO and audit logs are basic or not described.

5 — Retention settings per workspace, customer content excluded from model training, team workspaces with roles, single sign-on, admin control over sharing and auto-recording, encryption at rest and in transit, and ISO 27001 or SOC 2 stated.

8 — Automatic deletion by policy with audio discardable after transcription, the AI and transcription subprocessors named with region and zero retention, SAML with SCIM, granular roles, audit logs, legal hold or export of the full archive, and certifications with their scope published.

10 — Governance an auditor accepts: every retention, sharing and recording policy enforceable centrally and logged, models run on the vendor's own or the customer's infrastructure as an option, audit logs exportable to a SIEM, and the deletion of every copy, including at subprocessors, documented.

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The Management Consultant

'Grain never trains AI with your meeting data on any plan' is the sentence in writing I ask every vendor for, and it sits alongside a stated no-retention arrangement with the LLM providers, workspace-wide auto-deletion, per-recording deletion, link and team sharing rules, encryption at rest and in transit, SOC 2 Type II, and Enterprise SAML with SCIM, audit event logs and bring-your-own-LLM on Azure, Bedrock or Vertex. Against that, we found no public information on discarding audio after transcription, legal hold, or the scope of the SOC 2 audit, and audit logs plus SCIM sit behind the Enterprise plan; sub-processors are named with locations but their own retention terms are only referenced as addendum links. 4 5 9 15 16

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Who the contracting entity and the parent company are, where recordings, transcripts, summaries, voice profiles and account data are stored and processed, which language model and transcription providers read them and where, and who the other subprocessors are (hosting, email, support, analytics and payment tools). Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline. A conferencing platform outside Europe that the customer already uses is part of the meeting, not counted against the notetaker; where the notetaker stores and processes the conversation is.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting unstated, subprocessors unnamed, and no data processing agreement offered.

3 — A privacy policy and a data processing agreement exist, but hosting location is unstated or non-EU and the subprocessors are not listed.

5 — EU hosting available and an EU contracting entity or EU representative, but parts of the chain (language models, transcription, email, support, payment) run through non-EU providers without a stated safeguard.

8 — EU hosting on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, subprocessors including the AI providers listed with their locations, a data processing agreement published, and security certifications (ISO 27001, SOC 2) stated.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: European ownership, entity, hosting and every subprocessor, with transcription and language models run in Europe by European operators, data export and deletion documented, and certifications published with their scope rather than implied.

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The Management Consultant

The contracting entity is a Delaware corporation in San Francisco with California governing law, every data centre is in the United States on AWS, and the sub-processor list — a genuine plus for transparency — names OpenAI, Anthropic and AssemblyAI, all located in the United States, for summarisation and speech-to-text. We found no public information on a European hosting option, an EU entity or representative, or a data processing agreement confirmed on the vendor's own pages; for client conversations in Munich this is where my evaluation ends, whatever the transcript quality. 4 5 7 9

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Pricing transparency

How this is scored

Whether a buyer can compute the real annual cost from public pages alone: price per seat and tier, what counts as a seat (every invited user, only recording users), transcription minutes or credits included, storage limits, which features (CRM integrations, API access, SSO, custom retention, EU hosting, AI credits) cost extra, the free tier and its limits, monthly versus annual billing, minimum seats and VAT.

0 — No public prices at all; every customer is a sales call.

3 — A starting price or a free tier exists, but how cost scales with seats, minutes or features is unclear.

5 — Tiers are public with their seat price and main inclusions, but at least one commonly needed piece (SSO, CRM integration, API, custom retention, EU hosting, minute or credit limits) is unpriced or "on request".

8 — Every tier priced publicly with its scaling rule (seats, minutes, credits, storage), add-ons priced, what counts as a seat stated, overage handling stated, minimum term and VAT treatment stated.

10 — Complete price computability: annual cost derivable for a given team size and meeting volume, with every add-on, overage and support fee and the cancellation and data-return terms published.

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The Management Consultant

Free forever without a credit card, Pro at $15 per month billed annually and $19 billed monthly, Business at $29 per seat/month billed annually and $39 billed monthly with a two-seat minimum, and the per-tier meeting-length limits (45 minutes to unlimited), upload limits and feature gates — consent requests, trackers, workspace API tokens, MCP scope — are published, so I can price most of a rollout from the page alone. Enterprise is 'Contact sales for demo & pricing', which puts SSO, SCIM and audit logs effectively on request, and we found no public information on VAT treatment, storage limits or overage handling. 4 10 11 13

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European sovereignty — proven facts

2 of 6 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Legal entity	Incorporated in US	0/2 pts	7 Report an error
Hosting location	Outside the EU ⚠ unverified	0/4 pts	5 Report an error
Hosting options	Not determined	—	uncited Report an error
Open source	Not determined	—	uncited Report an error
Data processing agreement	Not determined ⚠ unverified	—	uncited Report an error
Transfer impact assessment	Not determined	—	uncited Report an error

Questions about Grain

Is Grain European?

No. whats-best.ai classifies Grain as Rest of world. Its vendor, Grain Intelligence, Inc., is incorporated in United States, per the vendor’s page captured 5 Nov 2026.

Where does Grain store data?

Grain stores customer data outside the EU by default, per the vendor’s page captured 5 Nov 2026. The vendor’s pages mention United States as hosting location, per the vendor’s page captured 5 Nov 2026.

Does Grain have a free plan?

Yes. Grain has a free plan, per the vendor’s page captured 5 Nov 2026.

What are the best alternatives to Grain?

As of 6 Nov 2026, the panel rates MeetGeek (3.5/5), Noota (3.5/5) and Jamie (3.5/5) highest among the other 14 AI Meeting Assistants & Notetakers products evaluated. Ratings that look equal are rounded to half stars; the order uses the unrounded rating, then the name. The highest-rated European alternative is MeetGeek (EU-Made). Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made. The full list, with European products first: Grain alternatives.

Where this could be wrong

Evidence ages. The oldest capture behind this page is from 5 Nov 2026. Vendors change pricing and policies without notice; every fact reflects its source as of the capture date shown in the registry.
Weak sourcing — Data processing agreement. Not confirmed on the vendor’s own pages as captured.
Weak sourcing — Hosting location. The page speaks of hosting Grain's software rather than customer data explicitly, but this is corroborated by the sub-processor list showing video call recording storage with AWS in the United States.
AI can misread a source. Extraction and judgement are automated; a citation guarantees traceability, not infallibility. If something here is wrong, say so — no account needed, every report is decided within 5 business days, and accepted corrections are published.

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

4 product facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
3 legal facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
1 data fact could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and was left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
1 sovereignty dimension could not be confirmed on the vendor’s own pages and is shown as unknown. Know more? Tell us

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Sources (16)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

1 Vendor homepage grain.com Checked 5 Nov 2026 Details →
2 Features page (product and UX teams) grain.com Checked 5 Nov 2026 Details →
3 Integrations page grain.com Checked 5 Nov 2026 Details →
4 Pricing page grain.com Checked 5 Nov 2026 Details →
5 Security / trust page grain.com Checked 5 Nov 2026 Details →
6 Privacy page (recording and sharing) grain.com Checked 5 Nov 2026 Details →
7 Terms of service grain.com Checked 5 Nov 2026 Details →
8 Privacy policy grain.com Checked 5 Nov 2026 Details →
9 Subprocessor list grain.com Checked 5 Nov 2026 Details →
10 Summaries, action items & meeting knowledge — found from sitemap support.grain.com Checked 5 Nov 2026 Details →
11 Integrations, API & workflow — found from sitemap support.grain.com Checked 5 Nov 2026 Details →
12 Integrations, API & workflow — found from sitemap support.grain.com Checked 5 Nov 2026 Details →
13 Consent, participant rights & works council — found from sitemap support.grain.com Checked 5 Nov 2026 Details →
14 Consent, participant rights & works council — found from sitemap grain.com Checked 5 Nov 2026 Details →
15 Retention, AI training & administration — found from sitemap support.grain.com Checked 5 Nov 2026 Details →
16 Retention, AI training & administration — found from sitemap support.grain.com Checked 5 Nov 2026 Details →