Fathom vs Read AI

Fathom is an AI meeting assistant founded by Richard White, who previously founded UserVoice. It joins Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams calls, records and transcribes them, and produces summaries with action items within seconds of the meeting ending. Its generous free plan made it one of the most widely used notetakers, especially among sales and customer success teams.

The free plan offers unlimited recording, transcription and storage for individuals, with a monthly cap on advanced AI summaries. Premium removes that cap and adds Ask Fathom, which answers questions across your meeting history. Team and Business plans add shared call libraries, automatic CRM sync to HubSpot and Salesforce, deal views and coaching features for sales managers. During calls you can highlight moments with one click, and afterwards create shareable clips, which is useful for product feedback and rep coaching.

Fathom fits individuals who want reliable free notes and sales teams that want call data flowing into the CRM without manual work. A bot visibly joins the call, which some participants dislike, and although Fathom transcribes dozens of languages, summary quality is strongest in English. Granola records without a bot for people who prefer a lighter footprint, Otter.ai and Fireflies.ai offer broader transcription and integrations, and Gong is the enterprise choice for revenue intelligence. For most people starting with AI notes, Fathom's free plan is the easiest place to begin.

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.