Google Gemini vs Microsoft Copilot: Which AI Is Best for Meeting Notes?

With Google Gemini vs Microsoft Copilot, both tech giants are racing to bring AI-generated content into the workplace. Their goal? Boost productivity across meetings, documents, and communication. But while these assistants can summarize documents or generate content on command, they’re not purpose-built for one critical task: meeting notes.

If you're a meeting organizer, you're probably looking for more than just a recap. You want an assistant that:

• Works across multiple conference tools
• Has output-driven summaries
• Supports meetings in multiple languages
• Integrates with your project management tools

That’s where both Copilot and Gemini start to fall short.

Let’s break down how they compare and introduce a tool that handles meeting notes better than either.

Review: Microsoft Copilot for meeting notes

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Microsoft Copilot integrates with Microsoft 365, particularly Teams and Outlook, to help users generate summaries, write documents, and assist in calls. 

In Microsoft Teams meetings, Copilot can create a brief meeting summary with highlights and tasks. It works by using AI to summarize the transcription created by Teams when the meeting host chooses to allow transcription.

What Microsoft Copilot can do:

• Generate meeting summaries and next steps in Microsoft Teams calls
• Tag participants and organizers in tasks
• Pull content from related documents or chats in Microsoft’s 365 ecosystem
• Present notes within Teams

Microsoft Copilot limitations:

• One-platform only: Copilot only works in Microsoft Teams — no Zoom, Google Meet, or third-party support.
• Generic summaries: The output meeting summaries lack structure and context and some users say it has hallucinated sections.
• Limited organization: Notes aren’t saved in a searchable, central library, just within the Teams chat thread.
• Minimal customization: You can’t easily adjust formatting, categorize ideas, or edit output for more relevant summaries.

Ultimately, Copilot is a useful general-purpose AI that’s ok for generating a quick email in Outlook or summarizing a long Word doc. However, it’s just not for organizing meeting data across tools and teams.

Review: Google Gemini for meeting notes

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Google Gemini, part of the Google Workspace suite, brings generative AI to tools like Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Meet. 

During meetings in Google Meet, Gemini can be invited to “Take notes for me,” as well as record and transcribe the call. Gemini can then create a basic summary with discussion highlights and key takeaways.

What Google Gemini can do:

• Generate summaries of Google Meet recordings
• Suggest next steps based on what was spoken 
• Integrate with other Google applications like Docs and Gmail

Google Gemini limitations:

• Only for Google Meet: It doesn’t work with Zoom or Microsoft Teams, locking users into the respective ecosystems.
• Language support is limited: Only eight languages are officially supported and it may struggle with accents, fast conversation, or mixed spoken languages.
• Summary accuracy is inconsistent: Reviews say that Gemini’s summaries and transcripts have typos and other inaccuracies.
• No structure: Unlike a proper meeting transcript, Gemini provides a free-form text dump with little segmentation between participants or topics.
• No centralization: Gemini creates your transcription and summary in separate Google Docs, and organizing it all means sorting through Google Drive.
• Sharing: Gemini’s output needs to be manually shared one-by-one.

Without a dedicated note-taking app in Google Workspace, Gemini’s “take notes for me” option just isn’t suitable for use team or org-wide.

The verdict: Google Gemini vs Microsoft Copilot meeting notes

In the end, the meeting notes produced by Gemini and Copilot are very similar. They can both create a transcript and meeting summary, but according to user reviews on Reddit and other platforms, they are:

• Unreliable
• Hard to share
• Hard to customize
• Limited to just a few languages

In a fast-moving work environment where meeting notes need to be shared easily, neither solution hits the mark, providing only a bare-bones experience.

Thankfully, there’s a better solution for meeting notes available.

A better alternative for AI meeting notes: Fellow

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While Copilot and Gemini are trying to retrofit AI features into existing platforms, Fellow is built from the ground up to handle meeting notes with ease and automation.

Fellow is a dedicated AI note taker and meeting productivity app. It’s able to auto-join calls in more than just one call provider (making it a better alternative than the tools reviewed above). Fellow joins Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams to produce accurate transcripts, summaries, and recordings. 

Let’s take a closer look at its features and what sets it apart from Gemini and Copilot.

Fellow’s key features:

• Integration with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams
• AI-generated meeting summaries with speaker labels, highlights, and structured sections
• Automated action item capture and assignment
• A central library of recordings, transcriptions, and summaries that is searchable and shareable
• Pause/resume recording at any time and redact after the call is done
• Collaborative agendas and pre-meeting briefs for every meeting
• 50+ integrations including Linear, Notion, HubSpot, Salesforce, Jira, Slack, and more
• Support for 90+ languages
• SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance

Why Fellow is a better AI note taker than Copilot and Gemini:

• Cross-platform functionality: Use Fellow regardless of whether your team or customers prefer Google Meet, Teams, or Zoom.
• Accurate summaries and transcripts: Fellow’s AI captures what’s said, and by whom, with human-level accuracy, so users don’t miss a thing, even if they join late.
• Language and formatting support: Summaries work across 90+ languages, and you can generate custom templates to suit your team's needs.
• Secure and shareable: Store all meeting notes in a central, searchable hub. Grant or restrict access with robust privacy controls.
• Cost-effective: Copilot and Gemini are only available bundled with expensive enterprise workspace plans. Fellow has a free plan and paid plans start at just $7 per user per month. See Fellow’s pricing here.

Choose a specialized AI meeting notes tool

Both Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot aim to improve productivity, but when it comes to capturing and organizing meeting notes, they’re just not specialized enough.

Copilot’s summaries are locked into the Microsoft ecosystem, while Gemini’s capabilities remain tied to Google applications. Neither offers a seamless, reliable way to create, share, and manage high-quality meeting content across platforms.

Fellow is built specifically for meetings. It gives meeting participants the context they need, lets organizers focus on the conversation, and ensures that nothing falls through the cracks when the meeting ends. 

Whether you're running calls in Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, or Zoom, Fellow captures the transcript, organizes the notes, and helps your team follow through on every decision.

‍Get started with Fellow.