Read AI or Dalm: how the meeting went, or who said what

Read AI and Dalm each produce a transcript and a summary of a call or a meeting in the room, and each can record from the computer with no one joining the call. Read AI’s bot also scores how a meeting went, and by default its reports are shared with the people in the meeting. When its desktop app records instead, its help says it does not know who is speaking. Dalm tells the voices apart with nothing in the call: the speech is recognised on your Mac and the audio goes nowhere; the transcript is synced to our servers automatically, and a language model reads it to write the summary.

Read AI and Dalm, side by side

	Read AI	Dalm
Getting into a call	A bot that joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet from your calendar, or Record in its desktop app with nothing in the call	Your microphone and what your Mac plays, as two streams; no one joins the call
Who said what, with nothing in the call	Its help: in desktop and mobile mode it does not know who is speaking, and the transcript has no speaker attribution	Each voice kept apart, in a call and across a table, and you can name them
A meeting across a table	Its iPhone and Android app, or the desktop app	The Mac’s microphone
During the meeting	A live dashboard with the transcript	A draft of what has been said, marked preliminary; the full transcript when you stop
Audio and video afterwards	You choose whether they are saved for playback; playback is on Enterprise and Enterprise+, and its policy keeps them no longer than two years	Never sent anywhere, and deleted once the text exists, with the one exception below; nothing to play back
Where speech becomes text	Not found; its privacy policy names AI tools among the vendors that receive personal information	Recognised on your Mac; the transcript syncs to our servers automatically
Dictation into other apps	Not found	One key, into any app; no language model rewrites it, and the text syncs to our servers
Questions beyond one meeting	Its assistant searches meetings, email, chat and documents, on every plan	One meeting per question; across every recording — in development
A file you already have	Upload an MP4 or M4A; upload credits from Pro up, 100 a month	Audio or video up to 4 hours, on the Free plan; the original stays where it was
Apps	Windows, Mac with Apple Silicon or Intel, iPhone, Android	Mac with Apple Silicon · macOS 15.0 or later; iPhone app in development

The audio is deleted once the text exists. Not found means Read AI’s documentation does not describe it, not that it cannot be done. What Read AI does is taken from its help center, pricing page, privacy page and privacy policy, checked on 2 October 2026.

Where Read AI is better than Dalm

• A read on how the meeting went. With its bot in the call, Read AI scores a meeting from the sentiment and engagement of the people in it — their faces, voices and talk time — and coaches the speaker; you can switch these metrics off, and in the EU and UK the score uses no video or faces. Dalm’s summary is about what was said and decided.
• A bot when it suits you, with video. Read AI’s bot joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet from your calendar and can capture video, and on Enterprise you can play the audio and video back and cut video highlights. Dalm never sends anyone into the call and has nothing to play back.
• A live view of the meeting. Read AI shows a live dashboard with the transcript while the meeting runs; Dalm shows a draft marked preliminary and finishes the transcript when you stop.
• Search beyond meetings. Its assistant looks through your meetings and also your connected email, chat and document apps, on the free plan too. Dalm answers about one meeting per question, and a question across every recording is in development.
• Notes that reach everyone. Read AI shares a report with the people in the meeting, sends the recap by email, Slack or Microsoft Teams, and about an hour before the next meeting in a series sends a recap of the last one; Pro adds Notion, Salesforce, HubSpot, Jira, Confluence, Zapier and webhooks. Dalm connects to Google Calendar.
• Windows, older Macs and phones. Read AI has a desktop app for 64-bit Windows 10 and 11 and for Macs with Apple Silicon or Intel, and an iPhone and Android app that records a meeting in person. Dalm needs a Mac with Apple Silicon · macOS 15.0 or later; its iPhone app is in development.
• Written answers on training and audits. Read AI’s privacy page says contributing to model improvement is off by default, and states a yearly SOC 2 Type II audit, a BAA for HIPAA and a DPA under GDPR. Dalm does not train models of its own, but what the provider of its language model does with the text is not set out on this site, and Dalm has no certification.
• Cheaper for a team. Read AI Pro is $19.75 a month for each user or $15 billed annually, and even Enterprise+ is $39.75; Dalm Team is $40 a month for each member, or $32 a month billed annually (paid plans are not open yet).

Where Dalm is better than Read AI

• Who said what, with nobody in the call. Read AI’s help says that when it records from the desktop or phone, it does not know who is speaking, and those reports come without coaching or video. Dalm keeps every voice apart in a call and in a room with nothing joining, and you can name them afterwards.
• The audio stays with you. Read AI lets you decide whether audio and video are saved for playback, its policy keeps them no longer than two years, and it lists AI tools among its vendors. Dalm recognises speech on your Mac, from calls, rooms and dictation, and sends no audio anywhere. What travels is text: transcripts and dictations go to our servers automatically, and a language model reads each meeting’s transcript for its summary. What leaves your Mac, piece by piece.
• Recording that does not stop at an hour. Read AI’s free plan transcribes five meetings a month, each up to an hour, and its paid plans stop at four or eight hours. No plan puts a limit on recording minutes, on the length of a recording, or on how long anything is kept.
• A summary that starts from your notes. What you type during the meeting sets the order of the summary, and each point carries the words that were said. Every quote shows you where it was said — open it and the transcript opens at that place. Action items and decisions from all your meetings gather in two running lists.
• Everything said, in one archive. Everything you say lands in one archive you can search: meetings, phone calls, conversations in the room, and what you dictate to a model. Asking one question across all of it is still in development.
• Cheaper for one person. Dalm Pro is $16 a month, or $12 a month billed annually; Read AI Pro is $19.75 a month, or $15 a month billed annually.

Prices, and what the free plans leave out

	Read AI	Dalm
Free plan	5 meeting transcripts a month, each meeting up to 1 hour; search across your sources with no cap; a meeting coach	Free: a plan, not a trial
Billed monthly	Pro $19.75 a month for each user; Enterprise $29.75; Enterprise+ $39.75	Pro $16 a month; Team $40 for each member
Billed annually, per month	Pro $15; Enterprise $22.50; Enterprise+ $29.75, from five licenses	Pro $12; Team $32 for each member
Longest meeting	1 hour on Free; 4 hours on Pro and Enterprise; 8 hours on Enterprise+	See below

On the Dalm side the Free plan is not a trial and has no end date. No plan puts a limit on recording minutes, on the length of a recording, or on how long anything is kept. Recording, the transcript and the summary of a meeting all come with the Free plan; what Pro and Team add on top sits on the pricing page, and how a group works in one shared space explains the common dictionary, templates and tags. Until Dalm is released, the waitlist is the way in. Read AI’s prices are its regular ones, from its own pricing page, checked on 2 October 2026.

Recording from the computer: what each one still knows

Read AI has two ways in: its bot, or recording from your desktop or phone. When it records from your device instead, its help is direct about the trade: it captures audio only, it does not know who is speaking, so the transcript has no speaker attribution, and those reports leave out video, coaching and the deeper metrics. Nobody in the call sees it either, and its help says that in this mode telling the others and collecting their consent is up to the person recording.

Dalm has only this way of recording, and builds around it: your microphone and the sound your Mac plays arrive as two streams, the voices are kept apart in a call and across a table, and when Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack or FaceTime takes the microphone, a prompt asks “Record this meeting?”. What you get is a transcript with times and numbered voices, which you can name, or send with the macOS Share menu. As with Read AI’s desktop mode, nobody in the call is told by the app, so the people you record hear it from you.

Meeting metrics for a team, or notes for one person on a Mac

• Read AI, if a team wants every meeting scored and coached, wants the report to reach everyone in it on its own, searches email and chat alongside meetings, needs video, or works on Windows, Intel Macs and phones.
• Dalm, if you work on a Mac with calls, client meetings across a table and calls on speaker, need to know who said what without anyone joining, and want the audio to stay off other people’s computers; the text still syncs to our servers.
• Neither, if you need to replay the recording and also want no audio to leave your computer: Read AI keeps it for playback on Enterprise, and Dalm has nothing to replay.

Comparing more than two note takers

For a wider view, seven note takers compared, with where each one is stronger than us, and the same side-by-side with a note taker that sends call notes into your CRM. The step-by-step difference between local and cloud recognition is laid out here. The same comparison with a note taker that keeps the recording itself.