On August 15, 2025, notetaker app Otter.ai, Inc. was named a defendant in litigation alleging that its artificial intelligence-powered meeting assistant called Otter Notetaker, which “engages in real-time transcription of Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams meetings for Otter accountholders and other users…records, accesses and records the contents of private conversations between Otter accountholders who use the Otter Notetaker and meeting participants who do not subscribe to Otter’s services.”

The complaint alleges that Otter Notetaker does not obtain prior consent of those attending meetings where the app is enabled prior to its recording the contents of the conversations, nor does Otter disclose to meeting participants that “their conversations are being used to train Otter Notetaker’s automatic speech recognition (ASR) and machine learning models.” The complaint further states that “When an accountholder’s Otter Notetaker joins a meeting, it will ask for consent to join and record the meeting from the meeting host if the meeting host is not an Otter accountholder. However, it does not seek consent to join the meeting from any other meeting participant so the participants in the meeting are unaware that it is being used.

These actions, according to the complaint, violate the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the California Invasion of Privacy Act, and the California Computer Data and Fraud Access Act.

As one who requests that notetakers be disabled from meetings because of issues with preserving attorney client privilege and work product privilege, I believe that, if true, the allegations in the complaint (although troubling to everyone) should be particularly troubling to lawyers and clients who have meetings with their lawyers. In addition, highly sensitive information can be discussed in Zoom and Teams meetings, and if the content of the meetings is not kept confidential, and is actually being used to train algorithms and can generate potential outputs, highly confidential information and intellectual property could be inadvertently disclosed. We will be watching the outcome of this case, and predict other cases will be filed alleging similar facts. In the meantime, I will continue to request that the notetaker be disabled during a meeting, but will now start asking on every call whether an AI notetaker is participating without my knowledge and request that it be disabled by the host.