Circleback
Circleback is an AI meeting assistant that writes structured notes, captures and assigns action items, answers questions drawn from every past conversation, and pushes the results into Slack, Notion, Linear, HubSpot and Salesforce automatically.
What is Circleback?
Circleback is an AI meeting assistant built by Circleback AI, Inc., a Y Combinator company. It rests on the four pillars advertised on its homepage: notes, action items, automations and search.
Capture is deliberately broad. Circleback works with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, WebEx, Slack huddles and GoTo, records in-person conversations through the mobile app, and ingests audio or video recorded elsewhere. Connecting Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook Calendar lets it detect upcoming meetings and join them on its own. A desktop app for macOS and Windows captures the conversation without any bot appearing in the call, which changes how the tool feels in client-facing settings.
What comes out is the point. Transcription identifies each speaker by name and claims accuracy on technical terms and accents across more than 100 languages. Notes are written automatically and arrive structured. Action items are extracted, assigned to the right person and organised, and this is the feature customers single out most often — Y Combinator president Garry Tan calls its action and to-do tracking best in class.
Search then treats every past conversation as a single body of knowledge: you ask a question in plain language and get an answer drawn from any meeting you have access to, with sources attached so the claim can be checked.
Automations close the loop. Circleback lists twenty connections on its homepage, among them Notion, Linear, HubSpot, Salesforce, Attio, Asana, PostHog, Ashby, Intercom, Zoho, Monday, Zapier and Make. It can update records after a meeting or, increasingly, act inside those tools on request. Recent releases added email drafting and sending, rolling summaries for every person and company, and a richer Slack presence. For technical teams, a webhook exposes all meeting data, a command-line interface feeds conversation context to AI agents, and MCP connects assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude and Cursor.
The company claims over 500 testimonials and more than 300 Y Combinator companies as customers. It raised a USD 2.5 million seed round in November 2024.
What it does
- Write structured meeting notes automatically after every conversation
- Capture, assign and organise action items without manual follow-up
- Transcribe in over 100 languages and identify each speaker by name
- Answer questions drawn from every past meeting, with sources attached
- Run automations that update connected applications once a meeting ends
- Draft and send emails using context from meetings, threads and calendars
- Record in-person conversations and import existing audio or video recordings
When to use Circleback / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Circleback is the right fit.
When to use Circleback
- Startup founders and early teams — Circleback reports more than 300 Y Combinator companies as customers and a place among the top five YC deals
- Sales and account teams who want HubSpot, Salesforce, Attio or Zoho records updated straight from the call
- Product managers and UX researchers building a searchable library of customer interviews and discovery calls
- Project managers, scrum masters and delivery leads who need action items assigned and mirrored into Linear, Asana or Monday
- Independent professionals and consultants — the Individual plan is sold explicitly for solo creators and independent professionals
When not to use Circleback
- Organisations bound to EU or regional data residency: processing and hosting take place in the United States only
- Teams that need a self-hosted or on-premise deployment, which Circleback does not offer
- Anyone expecting a fully featured free tier — the Free Version in the terms is a reduced, view-oriented plan that can be withdrawn without notice
- Developers looking for a documented public API: an API clause exists in the terms, but no public documentation page is published
- Large headcounts on a tight budget, since billing is per seat and the Enterprise tier is quote-only
How to use Circleback
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Create an account from the sign-up page
- Connect Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook so Circleback detects upcoming meetings
- Choose how meetings are captured: a bot that joins the call, the desktop app that records without one, or the mobile app for in-person conversations
- Connect Gmail or Outlook if you want Circleback to draw on email context
- Link your work tools from Settings, then Connected accounts
- Hold the meeting and let it run — notes and action items are produced afterwards
- Review the notes, the assigned action items and the transcript, replaying the audio or video where needed
- Build automations so the right details land in Notion, Linear, HubSpot or Salesforce
- Search across every conversation, or ask Circleback directly in Slack by mentioning it
- On a Team plan, set sharing rules, access controls and workspace retention periods
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Covers every setting: all major meeting platforms, in-person conversations and imported recordings
- The desktop app records without a bot joining the call, which matters in client meetings
- Action item tracking is the feature customers praise most, including Y Combinator's Garry Tan
- Twenty native integrations, plus webhook, command-line and MCP access
- Circleback states plainly that it does not train AI models on customer data
- A public DPA, a published subprocessor list and workspace-level retention settings
- 30% non-profit and 50% student discounts, with one-click cancellation and prorated plan changes
Cons
- No postal address is published anywhere on the site
- Processing and hosting are United States only, with no EU data residency option
- Only annual-commitment prices appear in the published page source; monthly rates are rendered client-side
- The Enterprise tier carries no public price
- The Free Version is limited to viewing existing data and can be withdrawn at any time without notice
- No public API documentation, despite an API clause in the terms
- The trust centre at security.circleback.ai is JavaScript-rendered, so its certificates cannot be inspected easily
Pricing & Plans
A permanent free tier exists: the terms define a Free Version with reduced features that allows existing data to be viewed. A free trial is also offered before subscribing. The lowest paid entry point is USD 20.83 per user per month for the Individual plan on an annual commitment, rising to USD 25 per user per month for Team. Enterprise pricing is available on request only, and monthly rates are not exposed in the published page source.
- AI notes for unlimited meetings
- auto-assigned action items
- transcription with speaker recognition
- automations
- meeting video and audio playback
- search across all conversations
- in-person recording
- import of past recordings
- everything in Individual
- plus meeting sharing across the team
- AI search over shared meetings
- custom data retention settings
- Slack huddles support
- inline comments
- default and enforced team settings
- shared team automations
- everything in Team
- plus priority support
- onboarding and automation support
- and advanced security controls
- Free Version — the reduced
- no-cost tier defined in section 5.1 of the terms
- offering limited functionality to view existing data
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Circleback handles your data.
GDPR overview
Circleback publishes a data processing agreement at circleback.ai/dpa that references the GDPR, the UK GDPR, the Swiss FADP and the CCPA. The company is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension with the U.S. Department of Commerce, is subject to FTC enforcement, and commits to cooperate with the EU data protection authorities and the UK ICO on unresolved complaints. Transfers to the United States rely on that certification, with standard contractual clauses as a fallback. The privacy policy, effective 15 July 2024, sets out rights of access, rectification, erasure, withdrawal of consent, portability, objection and restriction, all routed to support@circleback.ai. The homepage compliance strip cites SOC 2, GDPR, EU-US DPF and HIPAA. No Article 27 EU representative and no data protection officer are named anywhere on the site.
Who owns the data?
Under section 9.2 of the terms, the customer keeps all right, title and interest in User Submissions — recordings, transcripts and the notes drawn from them. Circleback and its subcontractors receive a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free and transferable licence to use, process and display that material for the sole purpose of delivering the service. User Information such as names, email addresses and IP addresses may be accessed only to run the service, address security or support issues, comply with the law, or where the customer agrees in writing. Aggregated and anonymised Service Data belongs to Circleback, which may use it freely provided no customer is identifiable. The DPA makes the customer controller and Circleback processor.
Reuse rights
Because the customer owns its User Submissions, that material can be reused without asking Circleback for permission, and the product is built for it: notes are shared automatically, individual meetings can be shared with colleagues, and a webhook exposes all meeting data for custom integrations. A command-line interface retrieves Circleback data and feeds conversation context to AI agents, while MCP connects assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude and Cursor. The limits sit elsewhere: section 2.2 of the terms forbids reselling, sublicensing or commercially exploiting the service itself, and forbids using it to build or support a competing product. Data can be erased from the account, or deleted on request by emailing support.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
Circleback states in its privacy policy that the services are hosted and operated in the United States and that data is stored on U.S. servers. The DPA confirms that primary processing takes place there. Transfers from the EEA, Switzerland and the United Kingdom rely on Circleback's Data Privacy Framework certification, falling back to adequacy decisions or appropriate safeguards where the framework does not apply. Subprocessors are listed at security.circleback.ai, with fourteen days' notice before that list changes and seven days for the customer to object; security measures are documented at the same address. The categories of providers named include AI model vendors, transcription vendors, hosting and communication providers, analytics vendors and Stripe for payments. DNS resolution points to 216.150.16.1 on Amazon's AS16509, but that address is an anycast edge node and indicates a content delivery point rather than a storage location. No regional or EU hosting option is offered.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Circleback.
- The DPA places the burden of lawful basis and consent on the customer, including for meeting participants who never signed up to Circleback
- Recording conversations is regulated differently across jurisdictions, and compliance rests with the user rather than the vendor
- Bot-free desktop capture removes the visible cue that tells participants a meeting is being recorded
- Meetings, emails, CRM records and support tickets end up concentrated in a single repository, raising the stakes of any breach
- Data contributed by European participants is processed and stored in the United States
- Relying on automatic notes can erode active listening and the habit of taking notes during meetings
- Automations write into third-party systems, so a transcription or summary error can propagate without human review
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Setup is straightforward and requires no technical skill. You sign up, grant calendar access through OAuth, and Circleback starts detecting meetings. Installing the desktop or mobile app is optional and needed only for bot-free capture or in-person recording. Third-party tools are connected from Settings, under Connected accounts, without code, and automations are configured through the interface. Only the webhook, the command-line interface and MCP assume a technical profile. Nothing requires system administration.
Deployment
Apps stores
Integrations
Supported languages
Behind Circleback
Fundraising
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
Does Circleback work for in-person meetings?
Can I use Circleback without a bot joining the call?
Is my data used to train AI models?
Which meeting platforms are supported?
How many languages does Circleback handle?
What does it cost, and is there a free option?
Do I have to pay for colleagues who do not attend meetings?
Where is my data stored, and how long is it kept?
Is a data processing agreement available?
Are there any discounts?
Should you pick Circleback?
Circleback is a mature, fast-moving product rather than a demo: its release notes are dated within days of this review, and recent additions — email drafting, rolling person and company summaries, actions taken inside connected apps — show a tool expanding from note-taking into meeting-driven workflow.
Three things set it apart in a crowded category. The desktop app captures without a bot joining the call. Action item tracking is consistently what customers praise, and it flows into Linear, Asana, HubSpot or Salesforce rather than sitting in a document. And search treats the whole meeting history as one searchable body, returning answers with their sources.
Its data posture is better than most: Circleback states flatly that it does not train AI models on customer data, publishes a DPA, discloses its subprocessors, offers workspace-level retention settings and holds an EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework certification.
The reservations are real. Everything is processed and hosted in the United States with no regional option, which will disqualify it for organisations bound to EU data residency. No postal address appears anywhere on the site. Only annual-commitment prices are published, so the monthly cost stays unknown until sign-up, and Enterprise is quote-only. The API is referenced in the terms but carries no public documentation.
The natural fit is a team that lives in back-to-back meetings and wants the follow-up to land in the tools it already uses: founders and startup teams, sales and customer success, product and research, project and delivery leads. Independent consultants are explicitly catered for by the Individual plan. Anyone with strict European data residency requirements, or who needs a genuinely full free tier, should look elsewhere.
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