You probably haven’t heard of Read AI. The company has been quietly making a name for itself in the crowded AI field by signing up 50,000 customers a day in recent months. At first glance, Read AI looks like apps like Otter.aiYou can use the software to transcribe and summarize meetings, but it’s even more ambitious than that,
“This is AI on standby,” explains David Shim, CEO of Read AI. The company’s goal is to give people a tool that can record, transcribe, and analyze almost every professional conversation they have, no matter where those discussions take place and whether they are online or in person. Today, Reed AI is taking a big step toward realizing that vision with the release of its new Operator Agent (I admit, the company could have chosen a more original name) and new apps for Windows, macOS, and Android.
Between its own software, including existing iOS apps and third-party integrations, Read AI users can now connect their accounts to more than 22 other platforms. Some of the more notable inclusions are Gmail, Outlook, Slack, HubSpot, and Notion. More importantly, with Read AI’s mobile apps, you can record in-person meetings; The company has data that shows that more than half of professional interactions occur outside of online spaces.
In any case, no matter where you talk to your colleagues, the operator is there to generate notes and insights. “We don’t just look at meetings,” says Shim. “We look at topics that are interesting to you.” To that end, Read AI has built a series of in-house multimodal models that look for context beyond what you say during any recorded conversation. For example, the company’s systems are designed so that when you enthusiastically answer a question or look away indifferently, that data is used to decide how the software summarizes your meetings.
“That context is what enables us to identify what’s valuable to you, and make it discoverable,” says Shim. One way Reed AI brings those insights to the table is through a feature the company calls Monday Brief. At the beginning of each week, you’ll get a summary of all the calls and conversations you’ve made over the past seven days, along with suggestions for follow-up actions you can take.
Now, you may be wondering like me, how does Read AI expect to compete in a market where a company like Microsoft is aggressively pushing Copilot on its users. If Shim is worried about the big players, he doesn’t show it. “There’s a need for an independent third party,” he says. “There’s always something new coming out. And the ability to be an independent third-party involved in different solutions is really what consumers want and need.” According to him, since the launch of Copilot two years ago, Read AI has seen a 20-fold increase in the daily number of people using its software with Microsoft Teams. “We’ve seen the same thing for Zoom and Google Meet.”
He believes the company’s approach to data privacy is another differentiator. By default, users are opted out of having their data used for training future models of Reed AI. Shim also noted that the company takes recording disclosure seriously. “You have to inform people that you are [recording] One call, and we put that front and center every time.”
If you want to try out Read AI, the company offers a free plan that includes five meeting transcripts per month. Its paid subscription starts at $19.75 per month.