Meeting notes and speech-to-text glossary

An action item is a task agreed in a meeting, with an owner and ideally a due date — for example, “Priya sends the compliance checklist by Friday”. NoteOwl lists the action items by owner in every meeting summary.

Action items that become commitments

An AI note taker is software that records a meeting and writes the notes for you: a transcript, a summary, the decisions and the action items. Many AI note takers send a bot into the call to record it; NoteOwl records on your Mac instead, so nothing joins the call.

Private AI note taker for Mac

A cited answer is an answer that shows where it came from. In NoteOwl’s Chat, every answer cites the meeting passages it used, and clicking one opens the recording at that moment; if nothing in your meetings matches, Chat says so instead of guessing.

Chat with your meetings, offline

Code-switching is moving between languages in the same conversation or sentence — for example Hindi and English, often called Hinglish. NoteOwl’s speech recognition keeps up when you switch between Hindi and English mid-sentence.

The 34 languages NoteOwl understands

In NoteOwl, a commitment is a promise pulled out of a conversation — who owes what to whom, and by when. Commitments sit on one board of what you owe and what you are owed, sorted by what is due, each linked to the moment it was said.

The commitments board

Dictation turns your own voice into text as you speak, straight into the app you are typing in. Transcription turns a recording — a meeting, an interview, a voice memo — into text afterwards, often with speakers labelled. NoteOwl does both: free dictation into any app, and transcription of meetings and files.

Transcription with speaker labels

A meeting bot is an automated participant that joins a video call so a note-taking service can record it; everyone in the call sees it in the participant list. A bot-free note taker records from your own computer instead, which is how NoteOwl works.

AI meeting notes without a bot in your call

Meeting minutes are the written record of a meeting: who attended, what was discussed, what was decided and by whom, and who will do what by when. NoteOwl’s Meeting Report template writes minutes in that shape from the recording.

A meeting minutes template, with an example

On-device AI means the AI model runs on your own computer rather than a company’s servers, so the audio and text you give it do not have to be uploaded. NoteOwl’s transcription, summaries and chat all run on your Mac with on-device AI models, and keep working with Wi-Fi off.

On-device AI models, no uploads

A personal CRM is a record of the people you deal with: who they are, what you last talked about, and what is still open between you. NoteOwl builds one from your meetings, with a profile for everyone you meet.

People profiles built from your meetings

Speaker diarization is the process of splitting a recording by who is speaking — answering “who spoke when” — before anyone’s name is known. NoteOwl separates speakers automatically on your Mac and labels every line of the transcript.

Speaker diarization, explained in full

Speaker recognition identifies a person by their voice, so a transcript can say “Daniel” instead of “Speaker 2”. In NoteOwl you name a speaker once, and that voice is recognised in later meetings; the voice profile stays on your Mac.

Speaker recognition that learns voices

Speech to text is software that turns spoken words into written text; it is the technology behind both dictation and transcription. In NoteOwl, speech to text runs on your Mac and understands 34 languages, detected automatically.

Free speech to text for every app on your Mac

An SRT file (SubRip Subtitle) is a plain-text subtitle file: numbered cues, each with a start and end time in hours:minutes:seconds,milliseconds and the words spoken. Video players and editors read it as captions. NoteOwl can export any transcript as an SRT file.

What an SRT file is, with an example

System audio is the sound your computer plays: the other people on a call, a video, any app’s audio. On a Mac, recording it needs the Screen & System Audio Recording permission. NoteOwl records system audio and your microphone as two channels, so both sides of a call are captured.

How to record a meeting without a bot

A voice note is a short recording of your own thoughts, kept to listen to or read later. In NoteOwl, voice notes are free and unlimited: each one is saved with its recording and a cleaned-up transcript, with your raw words kept beside it.

Voice notes on your Mac