After using this free Pixel app, I stopped paying for the AI ​​note taker

As I’ve been into AI tools lately – in part because it’s my bread and butter after all – one category I’ve consistently relied on is AI note-taking tools. I have been using these online recording tools for online meetings and media briefings for the past year. And honestly, they’ve been incredibly helpful. It’s impossible to remember every detail, quote and specification off the top of your head when you attend multiple briefings every week.

The problem is that AI infrastructure is not cheap, and running these services is a high cost for the companies that provide them. As these tools improve, subscription prices have risen.

However, over the past few months, I’ve heard from several fellow journalists that Google’s Pixel Recorder app is surprisingly capable and can provide at least a fraction of the experience offered by dedicated AI recording services. After using it extensively myself, including during my recent trip to Taipei for Computex 2026, I actually canceled my AI note-taking subscription altogether.

With the launch of the Pixel 9 series in 2024, Google updated its Recorder software. Pixel phonesadds support for Gemini Nano on the device with multimodality. What this meant was that Recorder could not only record audio, but also analyze it and create live transcripts with punctuation and grammar corrections.

This means that the program provides a live transcription of what is being said every time you type. Not only that, but thanks to Gemini, the Recorder app can also tag multiple speakers if you’re in a meeting with a lot of people. This makes it easy to see who’s saying what and then switch between different parts of the conversation.

Plus, the best part of this tool, in my opinion, is that you can see all the recordings and transcripts in the recorder’s web app. By simply going to recorder.google.com and signing in with the same Google account, you can access all recordings and transcripts directly from your desktop device.

This has been incredibly helpful for me. As someone who spends most of the day working from a laptop, it’s easier to grab quotes and information from a media briefing than to constantly reach for my phone and hunt through posts.

I wish Google would add AI-generated summaries to the top of the transcripts directly in the web version, but as a workaround, you can export the transcript as a text file and use Google Docs or Twins to summarize.

Of course, accuracy is one of the most important factors in AI-powered note taking tools. While I wouldn’t say Recorder is as accurate as some cloud-based AI transcription services, it’s still surprisingly good.

I used Pixel Recorder to record a nearly hour-long meeting during Computex 2026, and the transcript was almost entirely usable. There were very few moments when I had to stop and understand what was actually being said.

The best part about using the Pixel as a dedicated recorder is that it all works on the device. The phone uses the on-device Gemini model to process audio (and convert it to text), which means the data never leaves your phone and your recorded meeting stays on the device unless you choose to share it publicly.

This eliminates many of the compromises that come with traditional AI note taking tools. Adding a third-party bot to a meeting is convenient, but it’s not always the most personal choice. Plus, when you’re dealing with embargo briefs and NDAs, as I often am, having everything handled locally provides added convenience.

Most services work by uploading your meeting audio to cloud servers, where it is processed, transcribed, aggregated and stored. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean you’re trusting another company to handle potentially sensitive conversations.

Of course, the Pixel Recorder app is still a workaround, and it doesn’t do everything that proper AI note takers can do — most obviously, it can’t join a meeting virtually. In this scenario, you need to hold the Pixel near a speaker or device that plays the meeting audio so that it can record and transcribe it. There is also no team collaboration or shared workspace functionality. That said, for what the program does, it works surprisingly well and can save you a few bucks every month.

I think the reason the Recorder app doesn’t get a lot of attention is because Google didn’t market it the way it did. Gemini Live or Circular to search. But since I’ve been using the feature for over a month now, I really think Recorder is one of the most underrated Pixel features available today.

It’s not a complete replacement for every AI note taking service on the market. If your workflow depends on bots joining meetings on your behalf or with your collaboration features, you’ll probably still want a dedicated platform.

But if all you really need are reliable recordings, searchable transcripts, and a quick way to review important conversations, Google’s free Recorder comes surprisingly close to what many paid AI recording services offer. It got so close for me that I stopped paying a dime.