Are AI meeting notes the same as on-device meeting notes?

No. Most AI meeting notes products transcribe in the cloud, whether a bot joins the call or an app captures system audio on your laptop. On-device means the speech model runs on your hardware, so the audio does not take that trip.

Does VeloxWaves join Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams?

No. Nothing with a VeloxWaves name appears in the participant list. You start capture on the computer that is in the meeting. It cannot record a call you did not attend.

Is Granola on-device meeting notes?

Granola's app runs on your laptop and captures microphone plus system audio without a bot. Transcription still goes to cloud providers; notes are stored on AWS in the United States. That is device capture with cloud speech recognition, not on-device STT. See the Granola alternative page for the split.

Do other people on the call need to know?

Yes. A missing bot does not remove the duty to tell participants you are taking notes. Recording and transcription laws vary by place. Obtain consent before you start.

Does this work offline?

Yes for the transcription and summary path after the app is installed and any extra models you chose are downloaded. Account status, billing, updates, and optional support still need the internet when you use those features.

AI meeting notes

On-device AI meeting notes for Windows and Mac

Most AI meeting notes products send the call to a server, even when no bot appears in the participant list. VeloxWaves transcribes and summarizes on your computer. Raw meeting audio is not uploaded for speech recognition.

Download free

No credit card. Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Architectures

Three ways “AI meeting notes” actually work

Search results mix meeting bots, bot-free desktop capture, and on-device speech recognition. Those are different products. Capture on the laptop is not the same as transcribing on the laptop.

Architecture	What actually happens
Bot joins the call	A named participant appears in Zoom, Meet, or Teams, records the session, and sends audio to a hosted notetaker. Useful when you want the tool to attend without you. The transcript lives in someone else's cloud.
Device capture, then cloud STT	An app on your laptop taps the microphone and system audio. No bot appears in the participant list. Speech recognition still runs on a remote model. Notes are stored on the vendor's servers.
VeloxWaves	Capture, transcription, and the meeting summary run on your computer. There is no cloud transcription mode to turn off. Notes feed a private second brain on the same machine.

Fireflies and Read.ai are in the first row. Granola and Notion AI Meeting Notes are in the second. VeloxWaves is in the third. A product-by-product view is in the 2026 on-device meeting notes roundup.

Pipeline

How VeloxWaves takes meeting notes on your computer

Point it at a call, a meeting, or whatever is playing on your computer — not just your mic. Transcription and the summary stay on the machine. This is the same local speech path as on-device dictation, used for a meeting instead of a cursor insert.

Step 1
You start capture on your machine
VeloxWaves listens from the computer you are on — your microphone and, when you point it there, the audio playing on that computer. It does not join Zoom, Meet, or Teams as a participant, and it does not attend a call you skipped.
Step 2
Audio stays in memory
Meeting audio is buffered on the device for transcription. Raw voice is not uploaded to a hosted speech service. Other people on the call still need to know you are taking notes — that duty is yours, not the app's.
Step 3
A local speech model runs
The same on-device engines used for dictation transcribe the meeting. Moonshine is the default English path. Whisper is available for other languages after an explicit download.
Step 4
A local model writes the summary
Takeaways and action items are produced on the computer. The summary is not a round-trip through a cloud note-enhancer.
Step 5
Notes become private memory
The transcript can feed the local knowledge graph. Later you can search it by meaning, translate it, or ask the on-device assistant about it. None of that is a hosted meeting library.

Network

What still uses the network

Local meeting notes do not mean the app never talks to a server. They mean the content path — audio, transcript, embeddings, and local AI prompts — is not a hosted transcription product. The Trust & Privacy guide maps the same split in more detail.

Account and billing

Sign-in, trial status, and subscription checks contact the account service. They do not include meeting audio.

Consented model downloads

Larger speech or local AI models download only when you ask. Inference after that stays on-device.

App updates

The updater checks for new desktop builds. Release files are product binaries, not your transcripts.

Optional support reports

Logs and screenshots leave the machine only if you submit an issue. Review them before sending.

Who each tool is for

Pick the architecture, not the slogan

VeloxWaves does not replace a team meeting library, a CRM notetaker, or a bot that sits in on a call you missed. Those jobs belong to other products. The fit here is private notes that never leave the workstation.

Fireflies or Read.ai

You want a bot that can join when you cannot, a shared team library, CRM or Slack handoff, or vendor certifications those products advertise.

Granola

You already type notes during calls and want them enhanced afterward. Bot-free capture matters; sending audio to a cloud speech model is acceptable.

Notion AI Meeting Notes

Your team's pages, tasks, and projects already live in Notion, and the meeting output should land on a Notion page without an export step.

VeloxWaves

The transcript itself must never leave the workstation. You also want the same local path for dictation, search, and on-device answers.

Fair write-ups: Granola, Fireflies, Notion AI Meeting Notes, and Read.ai. If you already like Granola's bot-free capture and want the speech model local too, start at the Granola alternative page.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Are AI meeting notes the same as on-device meeting notes?: No. Most AI meeting notes products transcribe in the cloud, whether a bot joins the call or an app captures system audio on your laptop. On-device means the speech model runs on your hardware, so the audio does not take that trip.
Does VeloxWaves join Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams?: No. Nothing with a VeloxWaves name appears in the participant list. You start capture on the computer that is in the meeting. It cannot record a call you did not attend.
Is Granola on-device meeting notes?: Granola's app runs on your laptop and captures microphone plus system audio without a bot. Transcription still goes to cloud providers; notes are stored on AWS in the United States. That is device capture with cloud speech recognition, not on-device STT. See the Granola alternative page for the split.
Do other people on the call need to know?: Yes. A missing bot does not remove the duty to tell participants you are taking notes. Recording and transcription laws vary by place. Obtain consent before you start.
Does this work offline?: Yes for the transcription and summary path after the app is installed and any extra models you chose are downloaded. Account status, billing, updates, and optional support still need the internet when you use those features.