What is the Canto notetaker bot?

The Canto notetaker is a bot that joins your Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Zoom meetings as a visible guest participant, records the call, and turns it into a normal Canto recording — transcript, summary, and action items included. You attend the meeting; the notes arrive in your library afterwards.

How does the notetaker get into a meeting?

There are two ways to send it:

1. From your calendar — turn on Enable notetaker ("Watch your calendar and join your meetings") and connect a calendar. Meetings with a Teams, Meet, or Zoom link get a bot toggle on your home screen, and the bot joins when the meeting starts. See Auto-join meetings from your calendar.
2. By pasting a link — under Send to a meeting now, paste any Teams, Meet, or Zoom link and the notetaker joins right away. See Send the notetaker to a meeting by link.

What do participants see?

The bot appears in the participant list under your chosen Bot name — the default is Canto Notetaker. It is never hidden. The meeting organiser has to admit it before it can record: Teams and Zoom put it in the lobby or waiting room, and Google Meet shows the host an explicit approval prompt. If nobody lets it in, the meeting card shows Notetaker wasn't let in and nothing is recorded.

What do I get afterwards?

A regular recording, with a few extras a phone on the table can't give you:

• Real speaker names. Canto matches the platform's record of who spoke when against the participant list and your calendar's attendees, so the transcript says who said what — see Speaker separation.
• Meeting context. The event's title, attendees, and agenda are attached to the recording and feed the summary — see How Canto links recordings to meetings.
• Everything else works as usual: chat with the recording, run Views, share it, export it.

While the meeting runs, the card shows status pills — Notetaker joining…, Notetaker in call, Notes ready, and a few failure states. All of them are defined in Rename the bot and read its status.

Does everyone in the meeting need Canto?

No. Only you need an account. If several participants use Canto, one shared bot joins and each person gets their own copy of the notes — see Why did only one notetaker bot join? The meeting's audio counts against the transcription minutes of the person whose bot it is.

Consent

Recording laws vary — make sure participants are okay with the notetaker before sending it. The bot is clearly labelled in the participant list and only records after the organiser lets it in. See Do I need consent to record?