Otter.ai

Otter.ai focuses on using artificial intelligence (AI) for speech-to-text solutions. In April 2020, it launched ‘Otter Live Notes’ to provide live transcription for Zoom calls, where users could highlight and comment on the meeting notes, making it suitable for brainstorming sessions. In February 2023, Otter.ai announced the launch of its new AI meeting assistant, OtterPilot, which was incorporated with Otter Assistant, which was the tool that automatically joined meetings on calendars and transcribed conversations. While Otter launched an Automated Outline beta feature for Business users in 2022, the new Automated Summary feature is the result of a new AI summary model and includes improved summarization. In June 2023, the company launched the Otter Chat feature, an AI-powered chatbot that can participate in online meetings, summarize information, and recall important details such as dates or figures. The feature is available to all Otter users at no extra cost, with limitations on free accounts and no restrictions for premium accounts.

Following a meeting, OtterPilot will automatically send an AI-generated summary of important meeting topics to either the meeting attendees or an Otter group. It can also capture images of slides that are shared during virtual meetings and automatically insert them into meeting notes.

Otter.ai appointed Adam Cheyer and Larry Heck as strategic technology advisors in June 2021 to oversee the implementation of Speech and NLP technologies to meetings. Adam Cheyer brought significant experience as an entrepreneur, investor, and engineering executive at four successful startups including Siri. Larry Heck brought experience in speech and speaker recognition, NLP, and dialogue systems and was most recognized for his role in creating the Microsoft Cortana Personal Assistant.

In February 2024, Otter.ai launched 'Meeting GenAI' for enhanced meeting assistance including key features like AI conversation summary providing an overview of the meeting, an AI chat with a group chat feature for team usage and an AI chatbot.

Key customers and partnerships

Otter announced ‘Otter Assistant’ for Zoom (May 2021) to plug into the user’s calendar to automatically join and transcribe meetings. Subsequently, in August 2021, it expanded to Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Cisco Webex. It also offers similar services for larger events through Otter For Events (launched in August 2020).

The total number of transcribed sessions amounts to more than 100 million meetings, with more than 300 billion minutes since inception. The company’s clients include Dropbox, Zoom, and IBM.

Funding and financials

In February 2021, the company announced a USD 50 million Series B funding round led by Spectrum Equity. As part of the investment, the managing director at Spectrum Equity, John Connolly, joined Otter.ai’s board.

The round included USD 10 million raised as a convertible note in January 2020. The fresh capital was allocated to triple its headcount by growing its sales team, which includes hiring a VP of sales, and increasing headcount across its R&D, marketing, AI science, backend and frontend engineering, and design and product management teams. Furthermore, the funds were also used for customer acquisition through social and content marketing.