Key Takeaways
- On paid Zoom, Companion is effectively free and hard to beat; off it, Log covers what Companion cannot. Count your last twenty meetings first.
- Zoom's AI notes cost nothing extra if you already pay for Zoom. Summaries and in-meeting questions come with paid Workplace plans.
- The catch is the boundary: Zoom's AI lives where Zoom hosts. Teams, Meet, phone and in-person meetings sit outside it, and it is not included on free Basic.
- Data goes through Zoom's cloud; Log transcribes on the device. Zoom states it does not train on customer content, but processing still happens on its servers.
If your company already pays for Zoom, the cheapest AI notetaker is the one you have. That is the pitch, and it is a good one. The question is the edges: meetings not on Zoom, free seats, the export you want to own. Facts as of August 2026.
Reconsidering Zoom itself? That is a separate question, covered in our Zoom alternatives roundup. For notetakers specifically, best AI note taker ranks the field and the AI notetaker comparison indexes the matchups.
Zoom AI Companion vs meetergo Log at a glance
| Zoom AI Companion | meetergo Log | |
|---|---|---|
Cost | Included with paid Zoom Workplace plans (Pro and up) | Free without limits; Light 9.90 EUR for speaker labels and templates |
Cost Zoom AI CompanionIncluded with paid Zoom Workplace plans (Pro and up) meetergo LogFree without limits; Light 9.90 EUR for speaker labels and templates | ||
Works in | Zoom meetings and Zoom Phone primarily | Any audio on your machine: Zoom, Teams, Meet, calls, in person |
Works in Zoom AI CompanionZoom meetings and Zoom Phone primarily meetergo LogAny audio on your machine: Zoom, Teams, Meet, calls, in person | ||
Free tier | Not included on Zoom Basic | Free on every platform, no subscription and no account to record, transcribe or export; summaries free |
Free tier Zoom AI CompanionNot included on Zoom Basic meetergo LogFree on every platform, no subscription and no account to record, transcribe or export; summaries free | ||
Capture | Inside the Zoom client, host-controlled | Local mic + system audio, participant-independent |
Capture Zoom AI CompanionInside the Zoom client, host-controlled meetergo LogLocal mic + system audio, participant-independent | ||
Data | Zoom cloud; Zoom states no training on customer content | Local on device by default; EU cloud optional |
Data Zoom AI CompanionZoom cloud; Zoom states no training on customer content meetergo LogLocal on device by default; EU cloud optional | ||
Add-ons | Custom AI Companion $12/user/mo; ZoomMate agentic tier from $20 | Suite plan 29.90 EUR for auto-capture and the full toolset |
Add-ons Zoom AI CompanionCustom AI Companion $12/user/mo; ZoomMate agentic tier from $20 meetergo LogSuite plan 29.90 EUR for auto-capture and the full toolset | ||
Vendor lock | Deepens the Zoom subscription | Independent of any meeting platform |
Vendor lock Zoom AI CompanionDeepens the Zoom subscription meetergo LogIndependent of any meeting platform | ||
Who is Zoom AI Companion best for?
Teams that host most meetings on paid Zoom and want summaries with zero new vendors, zero installs and zero invoices. The summaries are decent, in-meeting questions ("what did I miss?") are genuinely useful, and admins control everything centrally from the AI Companion settings. If that describes 90% of your meetings, you may not need anything else. If Zoom itself is what you are reconsidering, we keep a separate Zoom alternatives roundup.
Who is meetergo Log best for?
Anyone whose meeting life is not one platform. Sales teams meet where the customer is: today Zoom, tomorrow Teams, then a phone call. meetergo Log records all of it identically because it captures the machine, not the meeting. It is also the answer for Zoom Basic users, for external participants who are never the host, and for organisations that want transcripts on their own terms, local by default, exportable, inside the meetergo suite next to scheduling and CRM.
Pricing
Zoom AI Companion
The meeting AI features are included at no additional cost with paid Zoom Workplace plans, Pro and up; they are not included on the free Basic tier. Beyond that, Zoom monetises upward: the Custom AI Companion add-on at $12 per user per month, and since June 2026 the ZoomMate agentic tier from $20 per user per month with 2,200 AI credits. The entry cost is really the Zoom Pro subscription itself, currently the first paid step on Zoom's plan list, and the feature set is described on the AI Companion product page.
meetergo Log
Free forever for recording, transcription, dictation and export with no account and no Zoom subscription; summaries and search are free too. Light at 9.90 EUR per user per month adds speaker labels and your own templates, and it costs the same whether or not you also pay for Zoom. Suite at 29.90 EUR adds automatic capture.
Verdict
Already on paid Zoom and Zoom-only in practice: Companion is effectively free, hard to beat. Everyone else is comparing a Zoom subscription against a free app.
The platform boundary
Zoom AI Companion
Zoom's AI works where Zoom hosts. Guest in someone else's Teams meeting? Outside. Customer insists on Meet? Outside. Landline call, hallway conversation, podcast recording? Outside. Host disabled AI for the meeting? Outside, even on Zoom.
meetergo Log
Log does not care who hosts. It records microphone and system audio locally, so every platform, every role (host or guest) and every offline conversation is inside scope. No bot appears anywhere; disclosure to participants stays your responsibility.
Verdict
This is the deciding section for most teams. Count your last twenty meetings: if fewer than fifteen were Zoom-hosted by you, Companion covers less of your week than it feels like.
Data protection and hosting
Zoom AI Companion
Processing runs in Zoom's cloud. Zoom states on its AI Companion security and privacy page that it does not use customer audio, video, chat or other communications-like content to train its own or third-party AI models, which matters, and enterprise controls are mature. It is still cloud processing by a US-headquartered provider, with everything that means for EU transfer assessments.
meetergo Log
Transcription runs locally on the device by default; the optional cloud path is EU-hosted under a German vendor. The default configuration gives a DPO nothing to transfer-assess, which is a different claim from a promise about training data. Our guide to GDPR-compliant AI meeting notes sets out the distinction.
Verdict
Zoom's posture is better than most US SaaS; Log's local default is still the stronger answer for EU-sensitive content.
Notes quality and workflow
Zoom AI Companion
Summaries, action items and in-meeting Q&A that keep improving, delivered into the Zoom ecosystem (and email). Export and downstream workflow are the weak side: the notes want to live in Zoom.
meetergo Log
Transcripts with timestamps in 40+ languages, summaries, nine ready-made minute templates, dictation, search across recordings, export, and the meetergo suite as the downstream: the CRM record, the booking context, the follow-up. Speaker separation with Light. The template set is also published as a free meeting minutes template.
Verdict
Companion wins on zero-effort inside Zoom. Log wins the moment the notes need to become minutes, land in a CRM, or leave the Zoom world.
What reviewers say
On G2, Zoom Workplace holds 4.5/5 from 56,598 reviews as of August 2026, by far the largest sample of any product in the AI meeting assistants category comparison set.
The G2 figure covers Zoom Workplace as a whole, not the AI notes in isolation; no separate G2 listing for the AI features exists. Within Workplace reviews, the AI summaries are mostly mentioned positively as an included convenience, while the critical AI-specific notes concern summary quality on accented or multilingual meetings and admin confusion during the 2026 renaming of the AI lineup.
That caveat cuts both ways: a 56,598-review average tells you Zoom is mature software, and tells you almost nothing about whether its meeting notes beat a dedicated tool. No review platform scores the AI features separately, so there is no honest way to quote a reviewer on Companion specifically. Judge the notes on a week of your own meetings instead.
The test that settles it: count your last twenty meetings and mark the ones you hosted on paid Zoom. That ratio predicts Companion's usefulness better than any review score can.
Where each falls short
Zoom AI Companion
Its world ends at Zoom's edge: nothing for Teams, Meet, phone or in-person meetings, and the AI meeting features are not included on free Basic at all. The notes are made to live inside Zoom, so export and downstream workflow are weak. The 2026 rebranding (AI Companion features folded into descriptive names, ZoomMate on top) has made capability-per-plan genuinely confusing to track. And it deepens dependence on a subscription you may one day want to leave.
meetergo Log
Inside a Zoom-only company, Log is a second tool where Companion is zero extra effort, centrally administered and already paid for; that convenience is real. Log's cloud notetaker covers auto-join scenarios only on paid tiers (10 recaps on Light). Speaker labels need Light. And Zoom's enterprise admin controls are more mature than Log's today.
How to choose
Are you the paid Zoom host for nearly all your meetings?
Count your last twenty meetings and mark the ones you hosted on paid Zoom. If fewer than fifteen qualify, Companion covers less of your week than it feels like, because it produces nothing when you join as a guest, when the host disables AI, or when the call happens anywhere else. Above fifteen, try Companion first: it is already paid for and centrally administered.
Do you need notes for Teams, Meet, phone or in-person too?
Then you need capture that belongs to you rather than to the meeting platform. Log records microphone and system audio locally, so a Teams call, a landline conversation routed through the laptop and a conversation in a room all produce the same artifact. That independence is the whole reason to add a second tool alongside a Zoom subscription you are keeping.
Does meeting content need to stay local or in the EU?
Zoom processes in its cloud and publishes a no-training commitment, which is a real assurance but not the same thing as no transfer. Log's default keeps audio on the device, and its optional cloud is EU-hosted under a German vendor. If your answer to a DPO has to be architectural rather than contractual, that difference decides it.
Zoom AI Companion vs meetergo Log: which should you choose?
Use Zoom AI Companion if you live on paid Zoom and want free, admin-managed summaries there. Choose meetergo Log if your meetings cross platforms, you sit on free Zoom or join as a guest, or local and EU processing is a requirement. They also combine well: Companion for the internal all-hands on Zoom, Log for everything else. One-off file instead? The free browser transcription tool handles it without any install.
FAQs
Is Zoom AI Companion free?
It is included with paid Zoom Workplace plans at no extra cost, from Pro upward. It is not included on the free Basic plan. The Custom AI Companion add-on ($12/user/month) and ZoomMate (from $20) are separate products on top.
Can Zoom AI Companion summarize Teams or Google Meet calls?
No. It works where Zoom hosts the meeting. meetergo Log records any platform because it captures audio locally on your machine.
Does Zoom train AI on my meetings?
Zoom publicly states it does not use customer meeting content to train its AI models. Processing still occurs in Zoom's cloud, which EU compliance teams must assess as a transfer.
Does meetergo Log work when I am just a guest in a meeting?
Yes. Host settings, platforms and bots are irrelevant to it; it records your machine's audio locally. Tell participants you are recording, as with any recording method.
How does Companion compare to Otter or Fireflies?
Those are cross-platform bot notetakers; see Otter.ai vs meetergo Log and Fireflies vs meetergo Log. For tools judged on the finished document, see meeting minutes software.
Booking + video conferencing in one tool.
Booking + video conferencing in one tool.
Sources
- Zoom plan tiers and the paid entry point: zoom.us/pricing (checked August 2026)
- Zoom AI feature scope, the Custom AI Companion add-on at $12 and ZoomMate from $20 per user per month: Zoom AI Companion product page (checked August 2026)
- Zoom's statement that it does not train AI models on customer content: AI Companion security and privacy (checked August 2026)
- Zoom Workplace G2 rating and review count: G2: Zoom Workplace reviews (captured August 2026), category context: G2: AI meeting assistants
- meetergo Log pricing and features: meetergo.com/en/apps/ai-notes (checked August 2026)
