Notes, meetings & to-dos on your phone
Summarising or explaining things is one of the main reasons UK adults give for using AI, cited by 48.1% of users in the government's public attitudes survey, and these apps sell exactly that for notes, meetings and lists. The bigger differences are in privacy rather than cleverness. Todoist, Notability and Goodnotes say they do not train on user notes, Granola and Gamma do unless switched off, and Otter faces a US class action over recording people without consent, which is why it sits last.
Updated monthly.
Kenning's picks
Ranked by Kenning score out of 25. Tools scoring 12 or less are marked not recommended.
Todoist
Todoist has been a popular to-do list for years, and its Ramble feature lets someone talk through a brain dump while the app turns it into tasks with dates and projects. The free plan includes a limited number of Ramble sessions and Pro costs $7 a month. A late-2025 price rise angered long-time users in user reviews, and some blamed the AI features for it.
Best for Busy people who think of jobs while walking or driving
Granola
Granola records from the device rather than sending a bot into the call, then fills in a person's rough notes from the transcript, which is why Zapier and TechRepublic both picked it in 2026. The free plan only keeps 30 days of notes, and Business costs $14 a month. It trains on de-identified data unless the user switches that off in settings, and some individual reviewers say it mangles names.
Best for People with lots of video calls who still like to jot their own notes
Notability
Notability ties a recording to what was written at each moment, and its paid plans add live transcripts, AI summaries and practice quizzes made from a person's own notes. Plus costs $15.99 a year on the official pricing page, but unlimited transcription needs Pro at $79.99 a year, and a July 2026 user thread shows buyers confused about what the Classic plan includes. Notability says it deletes audio after transcribing and does not use notes to train AI.
Best for Students who record lectures and revise from their own notes
Goodnotes
Goodnotes turns an iPad or Android tablet into a paper notebook, and its AI can read messy handwriting, answer questions about it and make practice quizzes. The basic paid plan is cheap at £11.99 a year, but the full AI needs a £9.99 monthly AI Pass on top. A November 2025 user thread asking whether anyone wanted the AI features drew hundreds of upvotes for no.
Best for Students and note-takers who write by hand on an iPad
Gamma
Gamma builds a full deck from a short description, with layouts and pictures, and Tom's Guide found the slides could be edited or redone one at a time. Free accounts get 400 credits that never refill, and Trustpilot reviews (1.6 from 125) are dominated by billing and refund complaints. individual reviewers say decks start to look alike and PowerPoint exports can break.
Best for Quick first drafts of talks, school projects and pitches
Notion
Notion holds notes, to-do lists, trackers and documents in one place, and its AI can search all of it, summarise files and transcribe meetings. Free and Plus accounts only get a trial of the AI, and full access costs £16.50 a month per person on Business, although ChatGPT Plus subscribers can link their plan since September 2026. PCMag rated it 3 out of 5 and called it overly complex for most people.
Best for People who already keep their life or work in Notion
Otter
Otter writes out speech as it happens and gives a summary and action list afterwards, and the free plan covers 300 minutes a month in chunks of up to 30 minutes. Its privacy policy says it trains its AI on de-identified recordings and transcripts, and a US federal judge let a class action over recording people without consent go ahead in August 2026.
Best for Students and workers who want live written transcripts of talks
More tools
Acrobat AI Assistant
Adobe's PDF reader can summarise long documents, answer questions about them and turn them into audio overviews.
AFFiNE
A free notes, documents and whiteboard app with an optional AI helper for writing, summaries and mind maps.
Alai
Builds slide presentations from a typed prompt, with export to PDF or PowerPoint.
Amie
Calendar and to-do app that also records meetings without a bot and writes up the notes.
Any.do
To-do list and planner with a daily 'Plan my Day' routine and an AI planning assistant.
AppFlowy
Open-source alternative to Notion for notes, task boards and databases, with AI writing and meeting notes.
Capacities
Note-taking app that links people, books, ideas and meetings together, with an AI assistant on the paid plan.
Evernote
Long-running notes and web-clipping app that has added AI search and summaries.
Fathom
Free meeting recorder for Zoom, Meet and Teams with AI summaries, the usual free pick in 2026 roundups.
Fireflies
Joins online meetings to record, transcribe and summarise them, then lets people search what was said.
Google Disco
Experimental Google Labs browser that turns open tabs into small custom apps with Gemini
IKI AI
AI workspace that saves articles, videos and documents and helps research and write from them
Keepi
WhatsApp assistant that saves forwarded notes, links and voice messages and answers questions about them
Kimi Work
Desktop agent in the Kimi app that sorts files, analyses data and builds documents on a computer
Letterly
Turns spoken rambling into tidy written notes, emails, messages or meeting summaries.
Mapify
Summarises YouTube videos, PDFs and web pages into mind maps that are easy to scan.
Mem
AI-first notes app that surfaces related notes automatically and lets people chat with everything they have saved.
Microsoft OneNote (with Copilot)
Microsoft's free notebook app, where Copilot can summarise notes and draft text for Microsoft 365 subscribers.
Microsoft To Do
Microsoft's free to-do list, a common no-cost pick in 2026 roundups, with little AI.
Minutes: AI Meeting Note Taker
Phone app that records meetings and in-person conversations and produces minutes and action points.
Napkin AI
Turns a block of text into diagrams, charts and visuals for slides and documents.
Notion Custom Agents
AI agents inside Notion that run on triggers or schedules to handle routine team work in the background
Notta
Transcription app for meetings and recordings with translation between languages.
OFFLIGHT
Pulls tasks from email and work apps, then plans them into a daily calendar.
Plus AI
Add-on that writes and formats slides inside Google Slides and PowerPoint from a short description.
Podwise
Turns podcast episodes into summaries, chapters, transcripts and mind maps so the key points are quick to find.
Raycast
A keyboard launcher for Mac and Windows with built-in AI chat, agents and thousands of extensions
Recall
Saves articles, videos, podcasts and PDFs, summarises them and links them into a personal knowledge base.
Reclaim
Calendar assistant that finds time for tasks, habits and breaks around meetings in Google or Outlook calendars.
Reflect
Minimal notes app with built-in AI prompts and Whisper voice transcription.
Replit Slides
An AI presentation maker inside Replit that builds a full slide deck from a prompt, notes or a PowerPoint
Saner.AI
Notes, tasks and inbox assistant aimed at people with ADHD, pulling email, calendar and notes into one place.
Structured
Visual day planner that lays tasks out on a timeline, with AI help to plan the day.
Summary - AI Note Taker
Phone recorder that transcribes lectures and meetings and writes a summary.
Summate
Collects the newsletters, blogs and YouTube channels a person follows and sends one short summary digest daily or weekly.
Superlist
A to-do list and notes app that can turn spoken thoughts and meetings into tasks and share lists with others.
Talknotes
Turns a rambling voice memo into tidy written text such as an email, list or summary, in many languages.
TickTick
To-do list with built-in calendar and focus timer; added AI voice task entry in 2026.
Tiimo
Visual planner aimed at ADHD and neurodivergent users, with an AI co-planner that breaks tasks into steps.
Voicenotes
Voice memo app that transcribes recordings and turns them into summaries, lists and meeting notes.
Wudpecker
AI note-taker that joins video calls and writes meeting notes in the format each user asks for.