Avoma vs Read AI

Avoma is a US-based AI meeting assistant that records, transcribes and summarizes calls, then extends into scheduling, lead routing, conversation intelligence and revenue intelligence. It is aimed at sales, customer success and recruiting teams that want call notes, CRM updates and coaching insights in one tool instead of stitching together a notetaker, a scheduler and a separate coaching platform.

The core plan records Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams meetings, transcribes in more than 70 languages, writes AI notes from templates, drafts follow-up emails and pushes notes and fields into Salesforce, HubSpot or Pipedrive. Ask Avoma answers questions about a meeting or, on Enterprise, across all meetings. Paid seats are only needed for people who record; viewers are free. Conversation Intelligence (call scoring, talk patterns, topic trackers), Revenue Intelligence (deal and churn risk, MEDDIC or BANT scoring, forecasting) and Lead Router are sold as per-seat add-ons.

Avoma fits SMB and mid-market revenue teams that want Gong-style insight at a fraction of the price. Gong is deeper for large sales organizations, Fireflies and Otter are cheaper if you only need transcripts, and tl;dv is lighter and friendlier for product and research calls.

Buying tip: annual billing saves up to a third on the base plan, but add-ons quickly double the per-seat cost, so trial the Organization plan for 14 days with all add-ons enabled and keep only the ones reps actually use. Avoma also offers an MCP server and API that expose meeting transcripts and notes to AI assistants.

Read AI is an AI meeting assistant made by Read AI, Inc., a Seattle startup founded in 2021 by David Shim, the former CEO of Foursquare, with Rob Williams and Elliott Waldron. It now joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet to produce transcripts, summaries, action items and highlights. The company has raised $81 million, including a $50 million Series B led by Smash Capital in October 2024.

What sets Read AI apart is scope: besides meetings it summarizes email and chat from Gmail, Outlook and Slack, and Ask Read answers questions across all of them with citations. Speaker Coach measures talk time, pace and engagement, mobile apps capture in-person meetings. Free allows 5 meetings a month with a one-hour limit. Pro unlocks unlimited transcripts and reports, Enterprise adds playback, video highlights and premium support for teams of five or more, and Enterprise+ adds HIPAA, SAML, SCIM and custom retention.

Read AI fits professionals in back-to-back calls across several platforms who want one searchable record of meetings, email and chat. Engagement scores feel intrusive to some guests, a bot joining calls needs clear consent practices, and playback is not part of Pro. Otter is strong for live transcription and in-person notes, Fireflies goes deeper on CRM sync and conversation analytics, and Granola records without a bot, which many prefer for external calls.

A practical tip: Pro costs $19.75 monthly or $15 a month billed annually, but video playback starts at Enterprise, which needs at least five licenses. Read AI also works as a connector in Claude and ChatGPT.