Zoom AI Companion is Zoom's built-in meeting-summary feature, bundled free into paid Zoom Workplace plans. CraftNote is a standalone, bot-free AI meeting assistant that works across any video platform plus in-person conversations. The real differences aren't about summary quality, they're structural: Zoom's AI features live inside a video-conferencing subscription you have to already be paying for, cross-platform capture on Teams or Google Meet requires an extra paid add-on that joins as a visible bot, and in mid-2026 Zoom split off a separate $20/user/month agentic product called ZoomMate that is not a replacement for AI Companion. This page is written against Zoom's own pricing and product pages, plus Zoom's public 2026 announcements, as of 2026-08-25.
Overview
CraftNote
CraftNote is a bot-free AI meeting assistant for iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and the web. It records meeting audio directly from your device, no bot joins the call, on any video platform (Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Webex) as well as in-person conversations and phone calls. It has a genuinely free tier (no Zoom subscription required) plus Individual at $9.99/mo ($8.33/mo billed annually) and Teams at $15/user/mo ($12/user/mo billed annually).
Zoom AI Companion
Zoom AI Companion is Zoom's native meeting-summary feature: highlights, smart chapters, in-meeting Q&A ('what did I miss'), and chat/email compose. It's included at no extra charge with paid Zoom Workplace plans (Pro at $13.33/user/month billed annually and up), it isn't sold as a standalone product and doesn't work on Zoom's free Basic tier. As of 2026, Zoom also sells ZoomMate, a separate $20/user/month agentic add-on (launched June 1, 2026) for task automation and deep research; routine meeting summaries don't require ZoomMate.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | CraftNote | Zoom AI Companion | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| How it's sold | Standalone product with a real free tier. No other subscription required to start. | Bundled feature of paid Zoom Workplace plans (Pro $13.33/user/mo annual and up). Not purchasable on its own, you're paying for Zoom video conferencing first, AI notes second. | ✓ |
| Cost if you don't already use Zoom for meetings | Free tier available immediately; Individual is $9.99/mo ($8.33/mo billed annually) regardless of which platform you meet on. | You'd need to buy a paid Zoom Workplace seat ($13.33+/user/month annual) just to unlock AI Companion, even if your actual meetings happen elsewhere. | ✓ |
| Platform / meeting-app coverage | Bot-free on Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Webex, phone calls, and in-person meetings, the platform doesn't matter. | Core notes are native to Zoom meetings. As of 2026, capturing Teams/Google Meet/Webex meetings is possible, but only via the paid Custom AI Companion add-on (~$12/user/month) that joins those meetings as a visible bot participant. | ✓ |
| Bot-free recording | Always bot-free, on every platform, including in-person conversations captured from your phone. | Bot-free only inside native Zoom meetings, where it's built into software you're already running. On other platforms it joins visibly as a bot via the paid add-on, the opposite of bot-free. | ✓ |
| In-person / mobile capture | Native iOS and Android apps record in-person meetings, lectures, and sales calls directly from your phone. | Scoped to Zoom meetings run through the Zoom app. It is not a general-purpose recorder and can't capture a conversation that isn't a Zoom call. | ✓ |
| AI summaries and action items | Automatic summary, decisions, and action items generated after every meeting, on every plan including free. | AI Companion generates meeting highlights, action items, and smart chapters automatically for hosts on paid plans; also offers live in-meeting Q&A for catching up on missed discussion. | ― |
| Agentic task automation | Not offered. Paid tiers add 'chat with your notes,' but no autonomous multi-step agent. | ZoomMate ($20/user/month add-on, launched June 2026) includes 2,200 monthly AI credits for agentic search, task orchestration, and deep research, a third paid layer on top of an already-paid Zoom seat. | ✓ |
| Language support | 100+ languages with automatic detection across transcription and AI summaries. | Meeting transcription and summaries in 30+ languages per Zoom's own marketing. Zoom's live Voice Translator is still in beta and covers only 5 languages as of 2026. | ✓ |
| Speaker identification across meetings | Persistent Speaker Memory, identify someone once and CraftNote recognises them automatically in every future meeting. | Distinguishes speakers within a single meeting/transcript using account directory data; no publicly documented cross-meeting persistent speaker memory. | ✓ |
| Setup and access | Requires creating a separate CraftNote account and installing the app. | Enabled automatically for eligible hosts inside the Zoom app they already use, zero extra setup once you're on a qualifying paid plan. | ✓ |
| Compliance | GDPR-compliant; data is not used for model training; raw audio auto-deleted after 60 days. CraftNote has not yet completed a SOC 2 audit. | SOC 2 Type II certified; enterprise admin controls to disable AI features org-wide; Zoom's published AI policy states meeting content isn't used to train third-party foundation models without consent. | ✓ |
Who Should Pick Which?
Choose CraftNote if…
Teams whose meetings actually happen across multiple platforms, Zoom, Meet, Teams, Webex, or in person, and who don't want to buy a full Zoom Workplace seat just to get AI meeting notes. Also the better fit if you need 100+ language coverage, mobile/in-person recording, or persistent speaker memory across meetings.
Choose Zoom AI Companion if…
Organizations already paying for Zoom Workplace Pro, Business, or Enterprise as their primary video platform, who want meeting summaries bundled in at no extra marginal cost, and who might layer ZoomMate's paid agentic automation on top when they need it.