1
of 6— Create your Otter.ai account
What you'll accomplish
By the end of this guide, you'll have Otter.ai set up to automatically join your Teams or Zoom stakeholder meetings, transcribe every word, and generate a summary with action items — so you can fully participate in workshops instead of furiously taking notes. Your post-meeting documentation time drops from 60–90 minutes to under 10.
What you'll need
- An Otter.ai account (free tier includes 300 minutes/month; Pro plan $16.99/mo for unlimited)
- Access to Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar (for auto-join)
- Microsoft Teams or Zoom (Otter integrates with both)
- Time needed: 30 minutes for initial setup; 0 minutes per meeting after that
- Cost: Free (300 min/month) or $16.99/month for Pro
How-To Guide: Automate Meeting Transcription and Action Item Extraction
Step 1: Create your Otter.ai account
- Go to otter.ai and click Sign Up Free
- Sign in with your Google or Microsoft account (recommended — this enables calendar sync)
- Complete the brief onboarding (select "Business" as your use case)
What you should see: Your Otter dashboard with a "My Conversations" section. Troubleshooting: If sign-in with work email is blocked by your organization's SSO, use your personal email for a trial first.