Avoma AI Note Taker: Recording Setup, Bot Rules and Notes

Avoma's note taker works from your calendar. You connect Google or Outlook, connect the conferencing app, pick which meetings to record, and Avoma captures them either with its meeting bot, the Avoma Assistant, or without a bot where the platform's own cloud recording allows it. After a bot-recorded meeting, AI notes organized by Smart Topics are ready within about 2 minutes. One rule changed in October 2026: Avoma now records Zoom only once Zoom itself is connected. Capture needs a recorder seat, which starts at $19 per recorder seat per month billed annually on Startup ($29 per recorder seat per month billed monthly). There is no free recording plan, only a 14-day trial, as our guide to Avoma's free options explains. Plan on the bot for most outside meetings.

First setup: calendar, conferencing, and what records by default

Everything starts with the calendar. Avoma's help center says a Google or Outlook calendar connection is required before it records or processes calls, and it syncs events with more than one participant that carry a meeting link. The Quick Start then asks one blunt question: record all meetings, only external ones, or none by default. You also decide whether recording applies when you host, when you attend as a participant, or both, even for invites you never accepted. A short voiceprint script follows, so transcripts can name you correctly.

Next comes the conferencing choice. If Zoom or Webex is connected, Avoma records without a bot where the platform allows it, under the conditions in the next section; otherwise its bot joins. Admins can override personal choices. Organization-wide rules set separate behavior for internal and external meetings (host only, participant only, or either) and can be locked so members cannot change them. When several licensed teammates attend, the meeting belongs to the highest licensed participant, and that person's settings decide whether it is recorded. Two side doors exist. Inviting assistant@avoma.com to any calendar event makes Avoma record it, overriding internal, external and domain rules. For a call nobody scheduled, paste its link into Record Impromptu Meeting and the bot joins.

Which platforms record without the bot

The bot stays the default. Avoma offers bot-less capture on specific platforms, each with a condition, and falls back to the Avoma Assistant everywhere else. Recording methods are picked in the Recording and Conferencing settings, one Zoom method at a time.

The Zoom change deserves its own paragraph. Since October 2026, Avoma records Zoom meetings only when Zoom is connected to Avoma, either by an admin for the whole workspace or by each member; a calendar connection alone no longer counts ^[1]. When another company hosts, the Avoma Assistant joins as a participant, and only if someone from your organization with Zoom connected is in the room. Zoom Cloud recording is not affected. If Zoom disconnects later, recording stops until it is reconnected. Breakout rooms capture the main room only. Zoom webinars are not recorded at all.

On Microsoft Teams, admins choose per workspace between cloud recording and the bot. Cloud recording gives no live transcript. The bot, meanwhile, may wait in the lobby until someone admits it, and Teams can tag it Unverified. Google Meet lists the bot among guests with potential risks, so a host must let it in; native Meet recording sidesteps that. For GoToMeeting, BlueJeans, Lifesize and UberConference, the Avoma Assistant joins as a participant to record ^[2]. Live features such as the real-time transcript and Live Bookmarks work with the bot; on Zoom Cloud they need Zoom Custom Live Streaming, which means two Zoom prompts for participants.

The bot's name can be customized on every plan. On Zoom it defaults to your company name followed by Notetaker, and an admin can change it. Local Recording in the desktop app is bot-free, but Avoma does not verify consent: the person who starts it carries that responsibility.

Dialer calls, uploads and in-person conversations

Phone calls arrive through dialer integrations rather than the bot. The help center lists HubSpot Sales Dialer, Outreach, Zoom Phone, Salesloft, Aircall, RingCentral, Copper and Kixie, and separate pages cover Dialpad, GoTo Connect and Vonage. Setup sits under Settings, then Dialer, and needs someone who is an admin in both Avoma and the dialer. Calls are analyzed only for members who hold a paid recorder seat. Expect quirks per provider: RingCentral processes only the first call leg, Outreach receives nothing back from Avoma, and Dialpad calls show up roughly 30 minutes after they end.

Recordings made elsewhere can be uploaded one file at a time, in .mp4, .avi or .mkv video or .mp3 or .wav audio. The allowance depends on the plan: 5 uploads per user per month on Startup, 10 on Organization and 20 on Enterprise ^[3]. Uploads run through the same transcription and notes pipeline and can sync to the CRM. Larger bulk uploads are arranged with Avoma Support or a CSM; Avoma's pricing matrix says a one-time fee may apply based on volume, without publishing the amount. For a meeting in a conference room or a coffee shop, the iOS and Android apps record the conversation directly.

Consent notices and who can see each recording

Recording law is the customer's job, and Avoma gives admins four consent levels to manage it: Disabled, Notified only, Acknowledgment required and Permission required. The last two are Enterprise features. Under Permission required, one participant declining stops the recording for that session, so no transcript or notes exist either ^[4]. Reminder emails carrying a recording disclaimer go out 15 minutes before internal meetings and 24 hours before external ones. The Bot Settings page adds an audio announcement and a chat disclaimer. Both apply only when the bot records, not to cloud recordings. Zoom skips the audio announcement because Zoom notifies participants itself.

Visibility follows privacy levels: Private, Organization and Public (anyone holding the link) on every plan, plus a team level (Primary Team) from Organization. Internal meetings default to Private and external meetings to Organization; nothing is Public by default. A meeting counts as external when any invitee sits outside your company domain, which includes a personal gmail.com or outlook.com address. Admins set and can lock separate defaults for each type, and they cannot open other people's private meetings unless those are shared. Private meetings also skip the automatic CRM sync. Avoma staff have no access to customer data unless an admin switches on a support toggle.

Inside the notes: Smart Topics, templates and follow-ups

The AI notes are a one-page bulleted summary sorted into Smart Topics, saved automatically to Account, Opportunity or Contact records in your CRM on every paid plan. External calls also get Key Takeaways, an executive overview with next steps. Every plan includes 10+ default templates, such as Demo, MEDDIC, SPICED and SPIN, and 40+ default Smart Topics. Avoma picks the template by reading the meeting title, and you can change the purpose by hand. Custom templates and custom Smart Topics start on Organization, and only admins create them. For CRM mapping details, see our Avoma CRM integration guide.

Not happy with a summary? Regenerate it. Startup allows 2 regenerations per meeting with standard templates; Organization and Enterprise allow 4, with custom templates. Template choice can be automated with manual rules on Startup or AI-powered rules from Organization. Translation of transcripts and notes into the 70+ supported languages also starts on Organization, and Avoma's 2025 product recap says admins pick a default plus up to five languages. After the call, Generate Follow-up Email drafts a recap that is sent through Gmail or Outlook. The email connection works only with the provider that matches how you log in, so a Google sign-in pairs with Gmail. During the meeting, Live Bookmarks flag moments for the notes.

Pausing, stopping and deleting a recording

Control during a call is simple. Stop Recording Now makes the bot leave within 10 seconds and ends the recording, while Start Recording Now asks it to join early, which can take a couple of minutes. The Chrome extension adds pause, resume and stop for Meet calls; pausing keeps a sensitive stretch off the record. Our Chrome extension walkthrough covers that flow. The bot also leaves on its own after 10-15 minutes of silence.

Deletion is final. Meeting owners or admins can delete a meeting at any time, which removes the recording, transcript, notes, analysis and snippets, and Avoma cannot restore any of it. Before deleting, the host, a participant, an admin or the host's manager can download the video or audio and the transcript as .vtt or .txt. Deleting the whole account removes all recordings from Avoma's systems and backups.

The bottom line

Avoma's note taker rewards a careful first hour. Connect the calendar and Zoom, choose bot or cloud recording per platform, and set consent and privacy defaults before the first external call. Bot-less capture is real but conditional: hosting on Zoom with Zoom connected to Avoma, hosting on Webex with a paid Webex license, a Teams tenant with a Microsoft cloud-recording license and admin approval, or native Meet recording; meetings that other companies host on Zoom still bring the bot. The notes themselves are solid on every plan, while custom templates, translation and the extra regenerations wait on Organization.