Applications for AI meeting note-taking have come to understand that merely transcribing meetings and offering summaries fails to substantiate their business models and valuations. They are now aiming to serve as complete workspaces where users can import data from various sources, search through it, and make business decisions. Following in the footsteps of notetakers like Read AI, Fireflies.ai, and Fathom, Otter is launching enterprise search by functioning as a Model Context Protocol (MCP) client. This allows it to connect and extract data from external apps and services using a shared standard that is being quickly adopted by AI tools.

Otter has been in existence for almost ten years, but has recently been transitioning into an enterprise productivity tool. Last October, the firm introduced a method for organizations to construct custom MCPs to access Otter data externally. The company’s most recent initiative is focused on integrating external data into the application.

With this update, users are able to link their Gmail, Google Drive, Notion, Jira, and Salesforce accounts to query that information alongside existing meeting data. The company announced that it will soon facilitate connections with Microsoft Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, and Slack. Users will not only be able to search for information across these platforms but can also relay meeting summaries to Notion or compose a Gmail message.

The company has also revamped its AI assistant to be ubiquitously available throughout the interface, allowing users to pose questions at any moment. The assistant is capable of grasping the context of the screen, be it a specific meeting or channel, and respond to inquiries accordingly.

Meanwhile, a majority of notetakers are following Granola’s example by enabling botless meeting capture—recording meetings through the device’s system audio without having a bot participate. Otter indicated that it introduced this capability to its Mac app late last year and is now unveiling a Windows application with a similar function.

There has been ongoing discussion regarding meeting note-taking with bots (where a bot joins the meeting) versus without. Otter CEO Sam Liang noted that the firm’s enterprise customers prefer a meeting notetaker that actually joins the call.

“When we converse with enterprise clients, most of them actually favor the note taker that participates in the Zoom meeting because it enhances transparency. They also wish for the meeting notes to be accessible to all participants, ensuring that the notes aren’t confined to a single individual,” he shared with TechCrunch during a call.

Otter stated that it includes a deduplication feature that prevents a multitude of bots from entering a meeting at once, avoiding circumstances where bots outnumber human participants in a call.

Last year, the company reported having 25 million users and $100 million in annual recurring revenue. Although the company did not present updated financial figures, it mentioned that the platform now boasts 35 million users.