Otter.ai CEO Sam Liang isn’t satisfied with his company being viewed and used simply as a meeting note-taker. Liang wants Otter.ai to become the go-to source for businesses, and the batch of new products released Tuesday is the first step in that evolution.
The Silicon Valley-based AI meeting assistant startup on Tuesday released a new suite of tools for businesses designed to better incorporate data from meetings into other workflows by centralizing that information into a central knowledge base. The aim is to grow Otter’s business by helping companies get more encounters from recorded meetings.
Otter’s suite of new products includes APIs that allow users to create custom integrations with platforms such as MCP Server that connect users’ Otter data to external AI models, as well as a new AI agent that allows users to search their company’s meeting notes and presentations.
Leanne told TechCrunch that it’s the next stage in Otter’s life.
“We are evolving from a meeting note-taker to a corporate meeting knowledge base,” said Leanne. “It’s a system record of conversations. It helps companies scale growth and drive measurable business value.”
When Otter was founded in 2016, there were only a handful of transcription companies that met. We’ve come a long way from today. The AI boom that kicked off in 2022 has fueled the proliferation of startups like Granola and Circleback. Even older players like the Fireflies have seen a surge in interest.
Liang claims this transition puts the otter in a different category than its former comrades.
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Meetings are where most of a company’s knowledge is stored, whether it’s notes from customer sales calls or discussions about marketing strategy. But without a central location for these meeting notes, that information can greatly help companies.
“Inefficiencies often occur because of information silos,” Liang said. “One team doesn’t know what the other team is doing and thinks it was planned like a month in advance. Often not everyone is notified. So the idea is to create a permission system so they know that most of the (non-conventional) information will be shared as much as possible.”
Not every meeting with Otter is added directly to this company-wide knowledge base, and users can choose to restrict meeting notes access for sensitive recordings.
Despite access controls, employee and information privacy remains a concern. Even if the meeting is on a neutral topic, Otter Transcription picks out the small talk and chit-chat that occurs before and after the meeting.
Otter is also the subject of an August class action lawsuit that claims the company records private conversations without users’ consent and uses that information to train transcription services.
Liang cannot comment specifically on the lawsuit, but this is not an issue specific to Otter, and when looking at the bigger picture, increased access to information is for the better.
“If they blamed us, they could blame everyone else. “My view is that we’re on the right side of history. We’re building this new AI revolution. If we want AI to help, we need to bring AI to the table.
