Free, open-source, and on device meeting notetaker
Oats is an AI meeting note-taking tool that is completely open, local, and free. Designed to not get in the way of your meetings, no bots, no subscription needed when running locally with on-device LLM. Available on both macOS and Windows. Enhanced transcription, multi-language support, speaker recognition, assessment, coaching, auto-tracking follow ups and more features via ariso.ai cloud backend.
Oats is an open-source AI tool for on-device meeting note-taking, available for macOS and Windows. It offers features such as enhanced transcription, multi-language support, and speaker recognition, with additional capabilities accessible through the ariso.ai cloud backend.
A source that found nothing is a measurement. A source that has not run is a gap. Neither means the launch lacks the thing.
Overall, commenters appreciate Oats for its privacy and open-source nature, though some express skepticism about the need for another notetaker.
We think AI meeting notes have become useful enough to be a basic utility. And basic utilities should be free, open source, and private by default. That’s why we built Oats 🥣 -- a free, open-source AI meeting note taker for Mac & Windows. Why Oats? Most AI meeting tools require a bot to join your calls, send your conversations to the cloud, lock useful features behind a subscription, or use your data in ways that aren’t always obvious. We wanted a different option. Oats runs locally on your computer. It can record your meetings without a bot joining the call, then transcribe and summarize the conversation on-device, using local AI models. Your recordings stay local. And because Oats is open source, you can use it, audit it, modify it, or build on top of it. No meeting bot. No model training on your data. No data lock-in. What you can do with Oats: Record meetings without inviting a bot Transcribe and summarize locally Keep recordings on your own computer Run with on-device LLMs Inspect and modify the source code Use it completely free For those who want more, Oats can also connect to the Ariso cloud backend for enhanced transcription, multi-language support, speaker recognition, assessments, coaching, automatic follow-up tracking, and more. Even when you use our cloud features, we will never use your meeting data to train our models, including on the free plan. Oats is also our first step toward open-sourcing more of what we build at Ariso. Tell us what’s missing. Break something. Open an issue. Build something weird on top of it. Or contribute directly. 🥣 We’ll be here all day answering questions. — The Ariso Team
congrats on the launch, its a great product. quick question what is the most unique feature of Oats which make it different from other products
Do we really need another AI meeting notetaker? 😅 I honestly thought the answer was no. Then I found out that a tool I had been using for months was using my data to train its models. That left a pretty bad taste in my mouth, especially because it wasn’t something I realized when I started using it. At first, I went looking for alternatives. I tried a bunch of the "free" ones that weren’t really free. And I couldn't find a great option that runs as a locally contained app without having to sign up to anything AND didn't require a bot joining every meeting. So… here we are... with Oats! I've now been using it for pretty much every meeting I have. Turns out I did need another notetaker, just not another one built the same way.
welldone Oats team, i am impressed by your product, my qustion is does it record all the screen of just the notes?