You know the feeling: you’re in an online meeting, trying to listen and take notes at the same time, and before you know it, you’ve missed half of what was said. Tactiq is a Chrome extension that automatically transcribes your meetings and uses AI to turn them into summaries and action items. It works with Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams, without other participants in the meeting seeing that you’re using it.
Who is behind Tactiq?
Tactiq was founded in 2020 by Ksenia Svechnikova and Nick Nikolaiev in Sydney, Australia. The company emerged at precisely the moment when the entire world switched to working from home due to COVID-19. Meetings multiplied rapidly, but a lot of information was lost because people weren’t effectively taking notes during video calls. The founders wanted to solve this problem by automating note-taking.
The idea took off. Tactiq raised a total of $1.3 million from investors such as Flashpoint, Mucker Capital, and Antler. The company grew quickly and now has over 1 million users, including employees from Fortune 500 companies. The Chrome extension has been installed over a million times and processes millions of meetings weekly. Tactiq Pty Ltd is still an independent company and hasn’t been acquired.
What stands out is the focus on simplicity. Where other tools send bots into your meeting that are visible to everyone, Tactiq works as a silent extension in your browser. You install it, and it does its work in the background without others noticing. That invisible approach proved to be a winning formula in a market full of intrusive meeting assistants.
Who is Tactiq for?
Tactiq is especially useful for people who have many online meetings and want to do something with them. Product managers collecting user feedback, sales teams wanting to analyze customer conversations, freelancers capturing briefings, and remote teams needing to update each other from a distance. If you’re regularly in Google Meet, Zoom, or Teams and you’re frustrated with taking notes, this is a tool that saves you time.
But it’s not suitable for everyone. Do you mainly work offline or in physical meetings without a video connection? Then it won’t help you much. Also, if you work in a company where you’re not allowed to install browser extensions for security reasons, you can’t use Tactiq. The tool only works as a Chrome extension on top of existing video platforms, not as a standalone app that can also record offline meetings.
What can Tactiq do?
Tactiq offers quite a bit of functionality in the free version. You get real-time transcription during your meetings and 5 AI credits per month to generate summaries and action items. For unlimited transcriptions, more AI credits, advanced integrations, and team features, you need a paid plan. Here are the main capabilities:
- Real-time transcription: Tactiq transcribes while your meeting is in progress. You see the text appear directly in a side panel. It works by converting the video platform’s captions into searchable text. Useful if you want to look something up later.
- AI summaries with GPT-4: After the meeting, you can generate a summary with one click. The AI picks out the key points and puts them in a clear format. This saves you from manually going through an entire transcript.
- Action item generation: The AI recognizes tasks and agreements in the conversation and lists them. You don’t have to figure out yourself who was supposed to do what. Especially useful for project meetings with many follow-up tasks.
- Speaker identification: In Google Meet, Tactiq recognizes who is speaking and labels the transcript per person. In Zoom and Teams this works less well, there you mainly see “Speaker 1” and “Speaker 2” unless you manually add names.
- Integrations with other tools: You can forward transcripts to Notion, Slack, Google Docs, HubSpot and other platforms. This way your meeting notes automatically land in the place where your team needs them, without manual copying and pasting.
- Support for 60+ languages: Tactiq doesn’t only work with English. You can transcribe meetings in Dutch, German, French, Spanish and dozens of other languages. The quality does depend on how well the video platform itself supports captions.
What Tactiq doesn’t do: record audio or video. It only saves the text. If you want to listen back to something later, you’re out of luck. The tool focuses entirely on textual notes and AI analysis of them. For some users this is a dealbreaker, for others it’s actually an advantage because it takes up less storage space and is more privacy-conscious.
What does Tactiq cost?
Tactiq has a free plan that lets you transcribe 10 meetings per month and gives you 5 AI credits. That’s enough for light users who want to capture a meeting occasionally. You use the AI credits for summaries and action items, so you need to be frugal with them if you stay on the free plan.
The Pro plan costs 12 dollars per month, or 8 dollars per month if you pay annually (96 dollars total). With this you get unlimited transcriptions, more AI credits, and access to advanced integrations. For individual users who have daily meetings, this is the logical choice.
The Team plan costs 20 dollars per month, or 16.67 dollars per month with annual payment (200 dollars total). This is intended for teams who want to share collaborative transcriptions, need collaboration features, and want to centrally manage who has access. If you’re working with multiple people on the same projects and meetings, this plan pays off quickly.
There is no free trial period for the paid plans, but the free plan does give you a good impression of what the tool can do. So you can first try out whether Tactiq fits your workflow before you start paying. A lifetime deal is not offered.
What should you watch out for?
The biggest downside of Tactiq is that it doesn’t record audio or video. You only get text. If you want to listen back to something later or want to check how something was said exactly, you can’t. For many users this is a problem, especially with important conversations where nuance matters.
The transcription accuracy leaves something to be desired with speakers who have an accent or non-native English. Tactiq depends on the video platform’s own captions, and those aren’t always great. With Dutch meetings using English as the working language, you sometimes get strange translations or incorrectly recognized words.
The free plan is fairly limited with 10 meetings per month. If you have meetings every day, you’ll be through that within two weeks. You’ll then need to upgrade or be selective about which meetings you transcribe. The 5 AI credits also run out quickly if you want a summary for every meeting.
There is no full mobile app. Tactiq only works as a browser extension, so you need to be on a laptop or desktop. Attending meetings on your phone and using Tactiq for that isn’t possible. That’s difficult for people who are on the go a lot.
Some users complain that older transcriptions are hard to find. The search function isn’t great and if you have a lot of meetings, you sometimes have to scroll for a long time. Better organization with tags or folders would help, but that functionality is largely missing.
Tactiq alternatives
There are multiple tools that tackle the same problem, but in a different way. Here are the main alternatives and when you would choose them:
- Otter.ai: Choose this if you want a standalone app that also records audio and that you can use for interviews or offline meetings. Otter works not only as an extension but also as a standalone recorder. The downside is that it integrates less well with video platforms than Tactiq.
- Fireflies.ai: Go for this if you’d rather have a bot that automatically joins your meetings without you having to install an extension. Fireflies sends a virtual participant that records and transcribes. That’s visible to others, but you don’t have to install anything yourself. Useful if you’re not allowed to use extensions.
- MeetGeek: Choose this if you want deeper analytics and need sales coaching. MeetGeek analyzes not only what is said, but also how. It gives feedback on conversation techniques and measures things like talk time and engagement. Tactiq focuses purely on notes, MeetGeek goes further.
Which one you choose depends on your priorities. Want to remain invisible? Tactiq. Want to listen back to audio? Otter. Don’t want to install an extension? Fireflies. Want to improve your conversation skills? MeetGeek.
Frequently asked questions
Here are answers to the most frequently asked questions about Tactiq:
Does Tactiq record the audio?
No, Tactiq doesn’t record audio by default. It only transcribes the live captions from your video platform and saves that as text. You can set it to save an audio file, but that’s not the standard method. For most users this means there’s no option to listen back to something.
Do other participants see that I’m using Tactiq?
No, Tactiq works as a browser extension on your side of the meeting. No bot is sent into the meeting and no notification appears for other participants. It’s completely invisible unless you tell people you’re using it. That’s a big advantage over tools that do add a visible bot.
Does it work with Google Meet, Zoom, and Teams?
Yes, Tactiq supports all three major video platforms via the Chrome extension. You just need to install the extension and Tactiq automatically detects when you’re in a meeting. The functionality is similar across all three platforms, although speaker identification works best in Google Meet.
Conclusion
Tactiq is a useful tool if you have a lot of online meetings and want to take notes from them without hassle. It works invisibly, is quick to set up, and the AI summaries really save you time. The free plan is good enough for light users, and the paid plans are reasonably priced for what you get. The biggest drawback is the lack of audio recording, which is a dealbreaker for some people. If you only need text and you’re annoyed by meeting bots that are visible to everyone, Tactiq is a good choice. Do you want to listen back to audio or do you work a lot on your phone? Then you’re better off looking at an alternative.
