Is it legal to use an AI notetaker without telling everyone?

In most cases, do not use an AI notetaker without telling everyone. A notetaker that joins a meeting records every participant, not only the person who installed it. Whether that is lawful depends on where each participant is, and in the states that require all-party consent the answer is no unless every person has agreed. Telling everyone is also the only step that works across every rule. This page is general information, not legal advice.

The notetaker records people who never installed it

Most consent rules ask whether the people being recorded agreed, and a notetaker does not ask the people it records. In a class action filed in August 2025, plaintiffs allege that Otter.ai's Otter Notebook service, by default, does not ask meeting attendees for permission to record. ¹ The allegations have not been decided by a court as far as we could find. Treat them as claims, not findings. They do show why a host cannot assume the tool handles consent.

The federal Wiretap Act is a one-party rule, which allows interception when the person is a party to the communication or one party has given prior consent. ² A notetaker that joins as a separate attendee is not a participant in the way the host is. Whether it counts as a party, or as a device the host has set up to capture everyone, is a question courts have not settled for every tool. For planning purposes, treat the notetaker as recording everyone present, which is the safer reading.

State rules decide how much agreement you need

In California, Florida, Maryland and Washington, the statutes require the consent of all parties before a private conversation is recorded. ^{3 4} If anyone on the call is in one of these states, you should assume the all-party rule applies. Our question on which states require all-party consent lists the states we could check, and the guide to recording consent laws sets out the rules.

Other states use one-party rules or split tests, and some lists disagree about the rest. A notetaker does not change the state analysis. It only changes how many people are captured and how easily the recording is kept.

Professional and workplace rules can be stricter than the statute

Some regulators set a higher bar than the criminal statute. The New York City Bar's Formal Opinion 2025-6 says clients must be told, and must consent, when an AI-driven system records a call with them. ⁵ That opinion applies to lawyers, but it shows the direction of travel for any professional who uses an AI tool to record a client.

A 2026 NPR report describes a client who learned partway through that her therapist had recorded a session with an AI note-taking tool without her consent, and she stopped seeing that therapist. ⁶ The lesson applies beyond therapy. A recording that the other person finds out about later can damage trust even where no statute was broken.

Check the tool's default settings before the meeting

Read what the tool does by default, then decide. Otter's privacy policy, effective June 16, 2026, lists training its proprietary AI technology on de-identified audio recordings and transcriptions among the purposes for which it uses information. ⁷ Its rights section lists an opt-out from the sale of personal information and from targeted advertising, but not from AI training. ⁸ A host who does not want the audio used that way has to check the settings and the contract, not assume an opt-out exists.

Third-party notetakers may not give any notice on their own, so the host has to supply it and should not assume the tool does.

What to do before a notetaker joins

1. List every participant and where each one is, including people who dial in late.
2. Turn on the tool's notice if it has one, and check that it names the notetaker.
3. Tell everyone in writing before the meeting that a notetaker will run, what it records, and where the transcript goes.
4. Get a clear yes from each person at the start, and record that agreement.
5. Stop the notetaker if anyone objects, and keep the discussion off the recording.

For clients and patients, the stricter professional rules apply, so see our questions on whether lawyers can use AI notetakers on client calls and whether patients have to consent to AI scribes. For the company-side view, see why companies ban AI notetakers and dictation apps. For how the same consent question applies to a call that crosses a state line, read which law applies to a call across state lines. Definitions are in the all-party consent glossary entry.