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Fathom vs Zoom AI Companion
A plain-English comparison to help you choose between them.
The free specialist against the included generalist, and the rare comparison where both sides cost nothing extra. Fathom gives individuals unlimited recording, transcription and instant summaries free, with advanced summaries, action items and its cross-meeting assistant on paid tiers, at a quality that made it many people's default notetaker. AI Companion arrives with paid Zoom Workplace plans: summaries, catch-up and in-meeting questions with nothing to install. Pick Fathom when an individual wants excellent notes wherever meetings happen and a free tier with real substance; pick AI Companion when a Zoom-standardised team wants meeting intelligence from the platform itself, with no third party in the room.
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Side by side
- Summary
Fathom is the meeting notetaker whose free tier stays genuinely useful: unlimited recording, transcription and storage for individuals at no cost, with output quality that made it many people's default recorder. The free tier is feature-gated rather than metered: instant AI summaries come with it, while advanced summaries, action items and the conversational assistant across past meetings sit on the paid tiers.
Summaries arrive fast after each call and highlights clip for sharing. The generosity remains the strategy: individuals adopt it freely, and the paid tiers add advanced summaries, action items, a conversational assistant across past meetings, team features and CRM sync when organisations follow.
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For team-wide revenue intelligence, the dedicated platforms go deeper; for an individual who wants excellent notes at minimal cost, this remains the shortest answer.
- Best for
- Free unlimited recording, transcription and storage for individuals
- Fast, high-quality meeting notes with action items
- Clipping and sharing meeting highlights
- Individuals wanting excellent notes at minimal cost
- Teams graduating gradually into paid features
- Cost
- Freemium (Free tier + paid plans)
- Ease
- Openness
- Hosted service
- Data
- Call recordings sit in Fathom's cloud under its terms; recording-consent rules still apply to you, not the tool.
- Summary
Zoom AI Companion is the assistant built into Zoom Workplace: meeting summaries, in-meeting questions and drafting help that arrive with the platform rather than as another tool to adopt. Its defining commercial fact is the bundling: AI Companion is included at no additional cost with paid Zoom Workplace plans, while free Basic accounts get select capabilities to try and a paid standalone add-on exists for those who want the assistant without upgrading their plan.
The centre of gravity is the meeting: summaries generated after each call, catch-up for late joiners, and answers to questions about what was said, extending into drafting assistance across Zoom's chat, whiteboard and email surfaces. A separate Custom AI Companion add-on carries the enterprise customisation tier.
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For a team already on paid Zoom, the honest comparison is not whether AI Companion beats the dedicated notetakers on features but whether the included assistant is good enough to make a second subscription unnecessary.
- Best for
- Meeting summaries included with a paid Zoom Workplace plan
- Catching up mid-meeting and asking what was discussed
- Teams that want notes without buying a second tool
- Drafting help across Zoom chat and connected surfaces
- Organisations standardised on Zoom end to end
- Cost
- Paid only
- Ease
- Openness
- Hosted service
- Data
- Meeting content flows through Zoom's cloud under the account's settings; recording-consent obligations sit with the host, and admin controls decide which AI features are on for a workspace.
Pricing
- Fathom
Free$16/user·$15/user·$25/user·Custom
Prices as of August 2026.
- Free
- Free
- Premium
- $16per user, per monthbilled annually; $20 per user per month if billed monthly
- Team
- $15per user, per monthbilled annually; $19 per user per month if billed monthly; 2+ users minimum
- Business
- $25per user, per monthbilled annually; $34 per user per month if billed monthly; 2+ users minimum
- Enterprise
- Price on applicationno list price published
- Zoom AI Companion
$10
Prices as of August 2026.
- AI Companion add-on
- $10per monthstandalone add-on; AI Companion is included at no additional cost with paid Zoom Workplace plans
By area
Where each one pulls ahead, area by area.
| Area | Fathom | Zoom AI Companion |
|---|---|---|
| By job | ||
| Productivity & personal assistant | Fathom gates by feature rather than by count, so an individual records and transcribes without limit and pays only when advanced summaries become a daily habit | AI Companion answers questions about the discussion while it is still happening, so someone joining late can catch up without waiting for a summary |
| By task | ||
| Meeting notes & productivity | Fathom's free tier is an on-ramp rather than a destination: the gate sits on advanced summaries, action items and the assistant, so serious users end up paying, and what they get is a searchable archive of everything said | Zoom AI Companion answers what did I miss without anyone replaying the recording, and keeps the notes inside the platform the meeting actually ran on |
Common questions
Both are free to try, so what actually separates them?
Scope and ownership. Fathom is individual-first and cross-platform: its free tier follows you across Zoom, Meet and Teams, with paid tiers adding the deeper features. AI Companion is team-wide by default on paid Zoom but never leaves Zoom, and its controls sit with workspace admins rather than the individual.
Which produces better meeting notes today?
Fathom built its reputation on note quality and speed, and its free instant summaries remain generous. AI Companion's summaries carry the advantage of being on by default for a whole team. For a single user the honest answer is to run both on the same week of meetings; the trial costs nothing.
Is there any reason to run both?
More than you might expect. A Zoom-standardised organisation can leave AI Companion on for team recaps while individuals who live in meetings keep Fathom for its archive and cross-platform reach. The overlap is real but the two default settings, team-wide and personal, solve different problems.
Related comparisons
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Tool facts last checked August 2026