Otter Unifies Search Across Enterprise Tools

The landscape of AI meeting notetaker applications is rapidly evolving, as developers realize that mere transcription and summarization are no longer sufficient to sustain their business models and valuations. These platforms are now striving to become comprehensive workspaces, enabling users to consolidate data from diverse sources, conduct cross-platform searches, and facilitate informed business decisions. Following the lead of innovators like Read AI, Fireflies.ai, and Fathom, Otter is now introducing an enterprise search capability by operating as a Model Context Protocol (MCP) client. This strategic move allows Otter to connect with and retrieve data from external applications and services, leveraging a standardized protocol that is gaining widespread adoption across the AI tool ecosystem.

With nearly a decade in operation, Otter has recently intensified its efforts to position itself as an indispensable enterprise productivity tool. Last October, the company rolled out a feature enabling organizations to develop custom MCPs, thereby allowing external access to Otter's data. Its latest initiative, however, marks a significant shift, focusing on seamlessly integrating external data directly into the Otter application.

This new launch empowers users to link their Gmail, Google Drive, Notion, Jira, and Salesforce accounts, allowing them to query this consolidated data alongside their existing meeting information. Otter has also announced plans to soon extend these integration capabilities to include Microsoft Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, and Slack. Beyond comprehensive search functionality across these diverse tools, users will gain the ability to push meeting summaries directly to platforms like Notion or even draft Gmail messages from within Otter.

Furthermore, Otter has revamped its AI assistant, ensuring its consistent presence throughout the entire interface. This enhancement allows users to pose questions at any point, with the assistant intelligently understanding the on-screen context, such as a specific meeting or channel, to provide highly relevant answers.

In parallel, many notetaking applications are adopting Granola’s pioneering approach to "botless" meeting capture, which records meetings using a device’s system audio rather than requiring a bot to join the call. Otter introduced this feature to its Mac app late last year and is now extending it to its newly launched Windows application.

Despite the industry trend toward botless capture, a debate persists regarding the efficacy of note-taking with or without bots. Sam Liang, CEO of Otter, shared that the company’s enterprise clientele generally prefers the presence of a meeting notetaker during calls.

“When we talk to enterprise customers, most of them actually prefer the note taker that joins the Zoom meeting because it provides the transparency. They also prefer the meeting notes to be shared with all the meeting attendees, so that the note is not limited to one person,” Liang explained to TechCrunch during a call.

To address potential concerns about multiple AI entities joining a single discussion, Otter has implemented a deduplication feature. This mechanism prevents a multitude of bots from simultaneously entering a meeting, ensuring that the number of AI participants does not outweigh human attendees.

Last year, Otter reported a user base of 25 million and an annual recurring revenue of $100 million. While the company did not disclose updated financial figures, it confirmed a significant growth in its user base, now reaching 35 million individuals on the platform.