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TL;DR: Is Granola AI Worth It in 2026?
- Granola AI raised $125M at a $1.5B valuation in March, so it’s no longer just a note taker, it’s building toward enterprise AI
- It’s bot-free: no participant joins your call, it captures audio directly from your device
- No video or audio recording: if the transcript makes a mistake, you cannot go back and listen
- Trains its AI on your data by default, though you can opt out in Settings on any plan, including free Basic. Only Enterprise lets an admin enforce it team-wide
- The free Basic plan gives unlimited notes but only 30 days of history. The pricing page won’t tell you that, it just says “limited meeting history” and leaves you to find the real number inside the app
- Great for individual users who want clean, friction-free transcription; weaker for teams needing deep integrations or post-call automation
- Best for: People who want live transcription without a bot, with clean Notion-style notes, on Mac, Windows or iOS
- Not great for: Teams needing CRM automation, cross-meeting intelligence, audio/video playback, or transparent data privacy
This Granola AI review is the latest in our honest review series. In it, I’ll get into what I liked and disliked about the platform. I’ll cover my entire process as a user, as well as what real everyday users think. In the end, you’ll have enough information to make up your mind about whether Granola is worth your time and money.
Investment-wise, Granola has been on a tear. It raised $20M in Series A in October 2024, then $43M in May 2025, and in March 2026 secured $125M in a Series C round led by Danny Rimer at Index Ventures, with Kleiner Perkins also participating. That tips the company’s valuation to $1.5 billion, up from $250M less than a year ago, and brings total funding to $192M. They’re clearly serious. But what does all this money actually equate to in terms of product? That’s what I’m here to find out.
For the record: I am a writer for tl;dv, one of Granola’s German-built competitors, but I will try my best to keep bias to a minimum. I’m basing this review on personal first-hand experience using Granola across personal calls, work calls, and even online language lessons. To counter my lack of experience in team settings, I’ve gathered real user reviews from G2, ProductHunt, Reddit, and more.
Let’s get started.
Table of Contents
How Did I Test Granola AI?
I installed Granola on Windows and tested it across more than 20 real calls over several weeks, including Google Meet, MS Teams, Zoom, and a Russian language lesson on Preply. I evaluated onboarding friction, transcription accuracy, note quality, the Ask Granola feature, UI and organization, privacy controls, and how the tool holds up in multilingual and multi-speaker scenarios.
Granola vs tl;dv: Bot-free vs Bot — Which Wins on Accuracy?
| Feature | tl;dv | Granola |
|---|---|---|
| Capture model & platform | Bot or native desktop app — Mac, Windows, Linux, mobile Winner | Bot-free native app — Mac, Windows, iOS (no Android) |
| Transcription accuracy | Consistently strong | Strong, slightly behind in our testing |
| Languages supported | 30+ | ~15 |
| CRM & integrations | 5,000+ via Zapier, native HubSpot/Salesforce | Notion, Slack, HubSpot, Attio, Affinity, Zapier, plus MCP and API |
What Is Granola AI and How Has It Changed in 2026?
Granola started as a prosumer app that sits on your computer, transcribes meetings without a bot joining the call, and generates Notion-style notes afterward. In 2026 it has expanded significantly. With the Series C announcement, Granola launched Spaces: team workspaces with granular access controls, alongside a personal API (available on Business and Enterprise plans) and an enterprise API (Enterprise only) for integrating meeting context into broader AI workflows. An MCP server launched in February 2026.
Enterprise clients now include Vanta, Gusto, Thumbtack, Asana, Cursor, Lovable, Decagon, and Mistral AI. It’s no longer a personal productivity tool wearing an enterprise costume, it’s actively pushing into the space.
The core technology, however, remains the same: Granola captures device audio rather than joining as a bot. That means:
- No bot participant visible to others in the call
- Works across any platform: Zoom, Meet, Teams, Webex, Slack Huddles, even browser-based calls
- Can transcribe podcasts, YouTube videos, or any audio playing on your device
- No video recording and no audio recording: only a real-time text transcript
- You are responsible for informing participants they are being transcribed
My Honest Granola AI Review
How Easy Was Granola’s Onboarding?
I’ve tested a lot of AI meeting assistants, but not many of them require me to download actual software. This threw me off a little bit, but I bit the bullet and installed it to Windows without any problems.
Once it was all installed, I went to set up my account. At the time of testing, trying to log on with my personal email was a no-go. I got this message: “Sorry, we do not support Gmail accounts yet (but will soon). Sign in with your Google Workspace account if you have one.” Granola has since fixed this. Personal Gmail, Google Workspace and Microsoft accounts all sign in now, so you won’t hit the wall I did.
Luckily, I did have a work account so I just used that instead. In reality, the account you sign in with doesn’t matter as much as it does with other meeting transcribers, because Granola doesn’t join your calls. You can set it to run in the background, even if you’re having a call from a different email address. The downside is more to do with cohesion and organization than anything practical.
What Was My First Impression?
The first thing I did after setting up my Granola account was start a test call on Google Meet to see how it worked. It was a bit confusing at first. The call was going on, but on Granola this was all I could see.
So, I had the option to take manual notes (which I didn’t want to do as I was expecting there to be automatic notes), and I had the option to Ask Granola something. The problem was I asked it two things and it didn’t give me any response. Then a little error popped up at the bottom saying “Something went wrong, please try again.”
I had no idea where the live transcript was, why the notes were empty, or why the AI wasn’t answering my questions. There hadn’t been any tutorial to figure this stuff out, so I was left to find my way on my own.
Eventually, I discovered that by clicking the little moving circle tab at the bottom of the notes page, you get the live transcript. And from there, you can generate notes too. However, when I first used it, there was no speaker recognition at all. The transcript was a complete mess.
As you can see, not only are there no speaker names on the transcript, it’s displayed as if there’s only one speaker at all. Just text after text, displayed like a one-sided WhatsApp or Messenger chat. This was actually a two-way conversation, so I’m not sure what went wrong.
You might be thinking Granola sounds worthless after hearing everything so far, but weirdly enough, all these malfunctions seemed to happen on the first test and the first test only. In future calls, I was able to Ask Granola things without error (though its answers weren’t up to scratch with AI chatbots from tl;dv or Fireflies), I was able to see the live transcript with speaker names, and I was able to find everything I needed straight away because I already knew where it was.
I can’t explain why the first test call seemed to break everything about Granola all at once, but they are lucky that I gave it another shot. If I had just been trying Granola out for personal use, I probably would’ve looked elsewhere pretty quickly.
How Are the Meeting Notes?
Here’s an example of some meeting notes from a coffee chat with a colleague.
The notes feel different to other transcription tools. They’re formatted like a Notion-style page, meaning it’s really easy to jump in and edit parts. You just click and type.
They’re also fairly well organized, broken into categories and separated by bullet points. It allows you to quickly scan through the highlights without getting bogged down in detailed paragraphs. The downside here, of course, is that you can’t actually relisten to any of it. You can jump to specific parts of the transcript easily enough, but it’s not the same as hearing the actual audio again.
You also get to choose their style and format in advance, with a number of templates for you to choose from. For this, I just stuck with “Auto” as you can see from the bottom, but you can even create your own template if there’s a specific way you like to organize your meeting notes.
Most of Granola’s note templates are for business meetings, which is why I stuck with Auto. However, it’s nice to have so many options.
How Easy Is Granola AI to Use?
Another nice thing about Granola is that when you get a calendar reminder for a call, you get the option to set Granola to transcribe straight away. Here’s a pop-up I received recently.
This little detail makes it much easier to get started with your transcription. You don’t need to faff about trying to open Granola whilst doing two hundred other things. You just join the meeting and open Granola simultaneously. It’s a subtle feature, but it’s enormously helpful.
There are some things that could be easier though. For instance, on the transcript, there’s no scroll bar for you to quickly jump to the beginning of the meeting. Instead, you have to scroll all the way up. This is a little detail that can go a long way. Nobody wants to be scrolling through an hour’s worth of conversation to get to the top, especially not on a regular basis.
Does Granola AI Have High Transcription Accuracy?
I noticed in other test calls that Granola’s transcript accuracy is quite good. Compared to other live transcription tools like Notta, Otter, and Tactiq, I found Granola’s transcription accuracy better than all of them in my testing. It still makes mistakes, but it’s not riddled with them the way Tactiq was, for example.
The other thing about transcripts is the lack of speaker names. The AI notes usually pick up on who’s who, especially in an online meeting where people join with their email addresses. In other conversations, though, the AI cannot detect speaker names, and the transcript never shows them. This can be awkward to read, especially in conversations with more than two speakers.
I also tested Granola during a Russian language lesson on Preply. It worked fine, transcribed live, and gave a good summary afterwards. I was focused on the lesson at the time, though, not the transcript. Only when looking back did I realize how broken the transcript actually was. The notes seem to make sense of it as a cohesive whole, but some of it was just gibberish.
I understand there are bound to be some errors, since I’m learning Russian and not speaking it 100% clearly. But a lot of this isn’t even written in Cyrillic, including something my teacher said. Because of the lack of audio, I cannot go back and review the actual speech either. I’m left with a relatively useless transcript.
That said, this is looking at the minute details. When you zoom out, the AI gets the broader picture, and the notes on the lesson were fairly cohesive.
As you can see, Granola’s AI does understand what we discussed (95% of which was spoken in Russian). It provides a simple summary of the key points, including specific tense forms and vocabulary that I was learning in that particular lesson.
How Is the Ask Granola Feature?
To take this further, I wanted to test the Ask Granola feature to see if I could get more out of my lessons.
The AI is quick and straight to the point. It doesn’t add any fluff or go out of its way to help you. It’s better at identifying things than engaging in intellectual conversations about them.
This is great if you want to use it to catch you up when you zoned out of a meeting, or to identify specific things from the transcript. For me as a language learner though, in this example, I didn’t benefit from it as much as I’d hoped. I asked a few other questions before and after these and got very simple replies.
In other chats, I mostly used the Ask Granola feature to locate things from the discussion or to test its knowledge of what we discussed. It’s always quick to respond, but I did feel that the answers were lacking something.
Another thing I noticed is that when you go out of a meeting and then re-enter, all of your Ask Granola questions and answers are gone. This is a bit annoying, especially if you wanted to refer back to them later. Instead, you’re forced to ask the same question again.
What’s Granola Like for Meeting Organization and UI?
One of the biggest limitations of Granola, for me, was the lack of organization. I don’t know how this works for teams, but I imagine it must get very busy unless they have an entirely different design for the team plan.
There are folders that can be either “shared” or “private”, but that seems to be the only way to organize transcripts and notes.
Granola’s color scheme is also so bland. The gray on gray makes me think I’m on Windows 95. It’s not a huge deal, but it could do with a makeover. A splash of color never hurt anybody.
How Are Granola’s Language Settings and Custom Vocabulary?
Granola does have a custom vocabulary feature, called Internal Jargon. You can add a list of words here that you regularly use during your calls to make sure the AI picks up on them.
This feature doesn’t work, though, if you run multi-language transcripts. I tend to keep multi-language transcripts on because I never know when I might switch languages. This is also the case in many global organizations with multilingual colleagues.
If you know your conversations will be in English (or any other language) and nothing else, then you can select your chosen language and add some internal jargon to ensure it’s accurately captured. I didn’t specifically test this feature, so I’m not sure how well it actually works.
Does Granola Have Solid Privacy Features?
Now to the really interesting thing about Granola. As it doesn’t need to join your calls as a bot, you can technically run Granola in the back of any call on any platform. Whether it’s Zoom, Google Meet, Webex, Skype, Slack Huddles, or even browser-based WhatsApp calls, Granola can transcribe. That’s because it records your device’s audio.
That means you can even use it to transcribe podcasts, YouTube videos, or any other audible content you can play from your PC or into your PC’s mic.
The downside to all this is user privacy, especially in meetings, and even more so in business meetings that include sensitive information.
Granola does not tell meeting participants that it’s transcribing the call. It relies on you, the user, to do that. And because Granola does not technically record audio and video, it is slightly less problematic than something like MeetJamie. Still, Granola records text, and this can be an issue depending on your jurisdiction. It’s worth noting Granola is piloting an org-wide consent notification feature called Heads Up, though it’s not yet widely available.
Regardless of your situation, it’s good practice to ask permission from your fellow meeting participants if you can transcribe the call. Not only can it keep sensitive information private, it’s just all-round good ethics.
tl;dv, for instance, has just released a bot-free recording feature on its desktop app that has a built-in consent collection mechanism, keeping it compliant with GDPR and APPI.
Does Granola Train Its AI Models On Your Data?
Yes, by default. Granola openly admits to training its AI model on your conversations, but you can opt out. The toggle lives in Settings and works on any plan, including free Basic, so you don’t have to pay to turn it off.
What the Enterprise plan adds is org-wide enforcement: one admin switch that opts the whole team out at once, off by default. So the fair criticism isn’t that opt-out is locked behind Enterprise. It’s that training runs unless each person digs into their own settings to stop it, and only Enterprise lets an admin do it for everyone.
Granola claims this training is based on anonymized data, but it does not offer any examples of how that data is anonymized. For an individual using Granola on light conversations, this might not be a deal-breaker. For small businesses regularly dealing with clients and sensitive information, it gives more cause for concern, which is why the per-user opt-out being on-by-default matters.
So that’s Granola and my opinion of it, but how much does it actually cost?
Granola AI Pricing: How Much Does It Cost in 2026?
Granola Pricing Calculator
For a long time, Granola had two simple plans. One was free and one was $10 per month. Then they switched that up to a four-plan structure. Since testing Granola, though, they’ve changed their pricing structure a third time.
Now, they’ve scrapped the Individual plan and have a total of 3 plans:
- Basic ($0)
- Business ($14)
- Enterprise ($35)
All prices are per user per month. Granola has not disclosed on its pricing page whether this is the month-by-month price or an annual average.
It’s worth noting here that what was once called the free trial has now become Basic. It’s rather silly, though, that Granola doesn’t spell out the Basic plan’s limits up front. The pricing page just says “limited meeting history” with no number attached. The vagueness continues app-side too. I re-downloaded Granola to see how much I actually got on the Basic tier, and the app itself was no clearer at first glance.
I ended up asking their customer support bot, which was unable to answer a simple question, so I forwarded it to a human. A day later they told me the free plan has no cap on how many meetings you can transcribe. What it does have is a time limit: the in-app plan comparison shows Basic keeps only 30 days of meeting history, after which older notes drop out of view. So the honest version is that the number does exist, Granola just doesn’t put it on the pricing page. You have to dig into the app to find it.
There must be some limitation though, because 1. it’s free, and 2. the Business plan unlocks “Everything in Basic, plus unlimited meeting notes and history.” That second point tells you what the catch is: the unlimited history is what you’re paying for, so Basic’s history is the thing that’s capped, at 30 days, as the in-app comparison confirms. Transcription itself looks uncapped on Basic, going by what support told me. So the rough shape is unlimited transcription, but only a 30-day window to keep it, which sounds about right compared to the general AI note taker market.
Granola Business costs $14 per user per month, providing unlimited meetings for the whole team, as well as team-wide folders for collaboration and consolidated billing and admin. Enterprise costs $35 per user per month. Its headline addition is org-wide control: an admin can opt the whole team out of model training in one go, rather than each person doing it in their own settings. It also adds more admin controls for meeting link sharing, usage analytics, priority support, and single sign-on. SSO covers Okta, Azure AD and Google Workspace, and is available to teams with 50 or more users.
One of the newer Enterprise features, in pilot as of April 2026, is an org-wide notification that tells participants Granola is being used. It’s called Heads Up, and it could be a useful way to gather meeting consent within your organization. How well it works for external calls, though, is still an open question.
What Do Everyday Users Think of Granola AI?
It’s all well and good listening to my Granola review, but I’m just testing the free trial. What do actual paid users think? Are they satisfied or do they regret it? Does it work well for teams? Let’s find out.
I scoured the web to find Granola reviews across a wide range of popular third-party review sites, but as it turns out, most of them don’t feature Granola at all. Here’s what I found:
- Granola scores 5/5 from just 11 reviews on G2.
- Granola scores 4.8/5 from 37 reviews on ProductHunt.
- TrustPilot and Capterra do not feature Granola AI at all.
That gives Granola a weighted average of 4.85/5 from just 48 reviews.
While the rating is good, the low amount of reviews is a little worrying. To support these, I also checked out Reddit, YouTube, and some independent Granola reviews. Most were feature lists that had no personal experience whatsoever, while others were the complete opposite, clearly affiliates and desperate for you to download it. I’ve excluded these.
All in all, there aren’t too many reviews. Here is the best YouTube video I found, and you can see him testing Granola in the call, using the “Enhance Notes” feature as well as discussing shareability.
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The review is mostly positive, highlighting beneficial features and some of the comments agree.
One commenter says “this app is perfect. Best AI note taker I’ve used.” Even this commenter, though, goes on to say that the price is “steep” and that the AI lacks “full workspace context.”
What this means is Granola can only understand one meeting at a time. It cannot comprehend multiple meetings simultaneously to give you strategy analysis or identify recurring strengths and weaknesses across sales calls. tl;dv, by contrast, can.
One of the other commenters says, “I’m surprised it doesn’t identify speakers in its transcription.” This surprised me too. I understand it uses a different technology, so it can be difficult to work out who’s speaking when it’s not actually in the call, but after trying out dozens of note takers it’s something I’ve come to expect, and going without feels like a step backwards.
A third commenter noted that it “currently requires a Google Workspace account to work,” which was a problem I hit too when I first tested. That’s since changed. As @digit432 points out, a personal account works now, and Granola’s current sign-in supports Google Workspace, personal Gmail and Microsoft accounts. The older comments reflect how it used to be, not how it works today.
One commenter found the Granola review to be too biased, even claiming that it was a “paid review.” This user claims to have tried Granola with a friend to check its accuracy and was disappointed that it was only “90-92%.” They make a point that there are other platforms out there that are more accurate and cheaper. He’s not wrong there, but I do have to say that 92% is pretty good for an AI live transcription tool.
To jump back to the Google Workspace comment, a user asked about smoother integrations for it on Reddit.
The poster uses Granola to transcribe meetings. Even though the Google Workspace calendar triggers transcripts, they say there’s no post-call workflow to automatically send meeting notes from one place to another.
The user specifies in a comment that they want to automatically sync notes to a Google Doc without copying and pasting, but that appears to be impossible to do natively as of January 2026. However, if you have Zapier, they are more than willing to help out. Just look how much effort they’re putting in to get ranked on Google.
This is a bit of a red flag for teams that require post-call automation. A large part of the reason why AI meeting assistants are becoming so popular is because they help to automate tasks that were previously too manual, like transcription. But what good is that, if there’s no post-call automation too?
Most tools in today’s market facilitate deep integrations with various different tools. Not just Google Workspace, but also Notion, Slack, and CRM systems like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive. If Granola struggles with a simple Google Docs integration, it’s hardly ready to transfer a business load over to Salesforce.
Over on G2, only 11 users have reviewed it, but they’ve all left 5 star reviews.
This particular verified user says that Granola makes transcriptions and follow ups “a breeze.” It produces “clean, reliable meeting transcripts and smart follow-up summaries without any fluff.” I can attest to that. The transcripts are generally clean, if a little clunky as they’re stuck in a small box.
As a small negative, the user highlights that “sometimes the speaker attribution isn’t perfect on larger group calls, but it’s minor and improving.”
Over on ProductHunt, there’s 37 reviews. Still not loads, but enough to get some variety.
Andrew Wang rated Granola 2/5 because it doesn’t work for the Chinese language. He does say, however, that “Granola is great for English.”
Meanwhile, both Den on Rails and Jorge Escobar gave Granola 4 stars. Den struggled to get it set up on his Mac, but to make matters worse, he couldn’t find any contact points on both the website and the app to share his problem.
Jorge on the other hand was using it with his Google Workspace account but wanted his wife to use it on an Outlook account. This was a no-go for Granola (they apparently drop to bits if you use anything other than a Google Workspace email). Jorge describes the problem as a “must-solve issue” for Granola to really take off. Besides that hiccup, he had a positive experience with the app.
Back on Reddit, some users share concerns.
Cookielcy4693 says, “Is it weird that [Granola] doesn’t tell other people that it’s recording? Like nobody in your meeting knows.” I agree that this is a little bit sketchy.
Another user chimes in saying that “it’s illegal in certain jurisdictions to not notify parties you’re recording them.” That’s also true, but Granola may sneak into a gray area.
As JasonWorthing8 points out: Granola doesn’t actually record anything. “It retains and generates transcripts, retains your own notes, and its AI-generated notes,” but it doesn’t record or store meetings anywhere. That’s why there’s no audio or video playback. Granola doesn’t have them. It just transcribes the audio to text in real-time and then makes notes based on the complete transcript.
Obviously don’t take this as legal advice. It is possible that transcribing (especially with AI tools) without consent can still be deemed as illegal in certain areas without prior consent.
The original poster asked for the best AI note taking app. The first comment suggests transcription heavyweights Fireflies and Otter, and the second heaps praise upon Granola. This was in early 2025, back when Granola was only available for iOS. I have Windows, and I can confirm that Granola does work for Windows as of January 2026, and has done for several months.
This commenter claims Granola is so good that one of their execs “is contemplating making the switch from PC to Mac or even buying a Mac just for note-taking.” That’s quite high praise.
The Verdict
Here’s the kicker. The reviews listed here are from scraping the bottom of the barrel. The Reddit posts feature fleeting mentions of Granola with single-digit upvotes. The total reviews across the usual 4+ third-party review platforms is a measly 48. The YouTube videos have microscopic view counts.
Content and reviews on Granola are hard to find. Part of this could be down to the fact that Granola’s name is also an oaty cereal, which is far more popular (and a better thing to spend money on).
In reality, it’s quite likely Granola just doesn’t have that many users yet. They’ve recently raised a large sum of money, so I’d expect that to change over the next few years, but for now, Granola is a bit of an odd egg.
Granola vs tl;dv: Who Is Each One For?
Granola and tl;dv solve the same problem in opposite ways. Granola sits on your device, captures audio without a bot, and gives you clean notes with no recording kept. tl;dv joins (or records bot-free) and keeps a searchable library of the actual calls, with deeper team and sales tooling on top. Neither is “better” in the abstract, it comes down to whether you’re a solo note-taker or running meetings at scale.
Granola is the better fit if you:
- Want lightweight, bot-free transcription for your own use
- Like clean, editable Notion-style notes and don’t need the raw recording
- Work solo or in a small team and value a tool that stays out of the way
- Are happy on Mac, Windows or iOS (there’s no Android app)
tl;dv is the better fit if you:
- Need recorded video and audio you can replay, not just a text transcript
- Want intelligence across multiple meetings, not one call at a time
- Rely on CRM automation, sales coaching, or 5,000+ integrations
- Run a larger team that needs proper admin controls and scale
- Want built-in consent collection for GDPR and APPI compliance
That’s the short version: Granola for the solo note-taker who wants to stay light, tl;dv for teams and anyone who needs the recording, the call library, and the integrations to back it up.
Is Granola Worth the Money?
I enjoyed using Granola, despite its limitations. The free Basic plan is genuinely usable: unlimited meeting notes, with the catch that you only keep 30 days of history before older notes roll out of view. The Business plan isn’t the cheapest, but it isn’t terrible if you require integrations with CRM systems or MCP. As for Enterprise, it states its pricing openly, which is rare, and whether it’s worth it really depends on how much you need enterprise-grade security and how that price compares to Granola’s competitors.
There are lots of other tools that provide more for less. tl;dv, for instance, has always had unlimited transcripts and AI moment summaries for free. It might lock some things behind paywalls, like deep integrations, sales coaching, and multi-meeting AI insights, but the basics are free forever. On top of that, tl;dv now has bot-free recording as well as a built-in consent collection mechanism, so you can rest assured it’s legally compliant with GDPR.
As for businesses and teams, I can’t say I’ve read any Granola reviews that suggest it’s a strong fit. From my own experience, the organization element and admin access didn’t look anywhere near good enough for large teams, and I haven’t seen any reviews that say otherwise. Granola is building toward this, though: Spaces (team workspaces with access controls) and the new admin features arrived with the Series C, so it’s clearly a focus. I just couldn’t test them as a solo user, and the user reviews aren’t there yet to judge.
All in all, the Basic plan (free) is great and worth trying if you’re an individual, but the Business and Enterprise plans aren’t quite up to speed.
FAQs About Granola AI
What is Granola AI?
Granola AI is a meeting transcription tool that runs locally on your device. Unlike most AI meeting assistants, it doesn’t join your call as a bot. Instead, it transcribes audio from your device in real-time, letting it work with any video call platform: Google Meet, Zoom, Teams, and more.
Does Granola record video or audio?
No. Granola does not record video or audio. It only transcribes audio that plays through your device. This means there’s no audio playback and no visual recording, just text-based transcripts and AI-generated notes.
Is Granola free?
Not really. Granola offers a Basic plan that’s free to use, but doesn’t really explain what you get beyond AI meeting notes and AI chat. The meeting history is only kept for 30 days on this plan, too.
Paid plans start at $14/month per user, which is relatively high compared to competitors that offer unlimited free usage.
Can I use Granola with a personal Gmail account?
Yes.
Granola signs in with Google Workspace, personal Gmail or a Microsoft account. This wasn’t always the case, personal Gmail used to be rejected and there was a waitlist while support was rolling out, but that’s done now. Any Google or Microsoft account works. You can see the current sign-in options in Granola’s help docs.
Is it legal to use Granola without informing other meeting participants?
That depends on your local laws. Granola doesn’t technically record audio or video, but it does transcribe conversations. In many jurisdictions, you are legally required to inform or gain consent before transcribing or recording any conversation. Always check local laws and notify others before using it.
Does Granola identify who’s speaking in the transcript?
Mostly no. Granola’s AI can work out who said what in the AI notes if your call was on a popular video conferencing platform. But even then, the transcript itself won’t have speaker names.
This is particularly confusing in multi-speaker calls, where the transcript is formatted like SMS between two unnamed parties.
Does Granola work in other languages?
Yes. Granola can transcribe in around 15 languages. You can even switch language mid-call and have it automatically transcribe in the new language, so long as you have the multi-language transcript turned on.
I tested this with Russian, and although the AI notes were good, the transcript wasn’t. With no audio playback to fall back on, I had no way to check what was actually said.
According to some reviews, there’s no support for Chinese as of now.
Does Granola train its AI on my data?
Yes, by default, but you can opt out. Granola uses your meeting data to train its AI models unless you turn that off, and the opt-out toggle is in Settings on any plan, including free Basic. What the Enterprise plan adds is org-wide enforcement, so an admin can opt the whole team out at once. The company says the data is anonymized, but offers little detail on how that anonymization is performed.
Can I customize Granola's meeting notes?
Yes. Granola includes multiple meeting note templates, or you can create your own. Notes are editable in a Notion-style interface, making it easy to refine or reorganize content after the meeting.
