Use Otter.ai for Hands-Free Meeting Notes

1. Go to otter.ai and click Get Started Free
2. Sign up with your work Google or Microsoft account
3. On the setup screen, choose your role: Project Manager
4. You'll land on the Otter dashboard, a simple interface showing past transcripts and a record button

What you should see: A dashboard with a large blue Record button, and if you connected your calendar, a list of upcoming meetings.

1. Click your profile icon (top right) → Settings
2. Under Connections, click Connect to Google Calendar or Connect to Outlook
3. Authorize the connection
4. Back in Settings, turn on OtterPilot, Otter's meeting bot that joins and transcribes automatically

What you should see: "OtterPilot is enabled." From this point, Otter's bot joins your scheduled Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet calls without any action from you.

For the best transcription quality on video calls:

1. Go to the Chrome Web Store or Firefox Add-ons
2. Search "Otter.ai" and install the extension
3. When you start a Zoom or Teams call in your browser, the Otter extension activates automatically and captures audio with high quality

For the desktop Zoom or Teams app:

• OtterPilot joins as a meeting participant automatically if you connected your calendar in Step 2

Start a test call with a colleague (or use a recording of a past meeting):

1. For video call: Start Zoom/Teams and you'll see "OtterPilot has joined" as a participant
2. For in-person meeting: Open the Otter app on your phone → tap the blue Record button
3. Talk for 5 minutes
4. End the meeting or tap Stop
5. Within 60-90 seconds, the transcript appears in your Otter dashboard

What you should see: A scrolling transcript with speaker labels (Otter learns to identify voices over time), timestamps, and an AI Summary at the top with key points and action items.

Troubleshooting: If speaker identification is wrong, click any mis-labeled section → Assign speaker → select the correct name. Otter learns from corrections. After 3-5 meetings, speaker ID is usually 90%+ accurate.

Open a completed transcript:

1. The Summary section at the top contains: Overview paragraph, action items, keywords
2. Click Action Items tab to see extracted tasks with owners (when names were mentioned)
3. Click the Ask Otter button to ask questions about the transcript: "What did we decide about the go-live date?" Otter searches the transcript and answers

Sharing options:

• Click Share → copy a link for meeting participants to review
• Click Export → download as PDF or text
• Connect Slack in Settings to auto-post summaries to a channel