Grain
Grain is an AI notetaker and conversation intelligence platform that records, transcribes and enriches meetings without a bot, then feeds the results to your CRM, your team or AI agents such as Claude and ChatGPT.
What is Grain?
Grain is an AI notetaker and conversation intelligence platform published by Grain Intelligence, Inc., a San Francisco company founded in 2018 with around 83 employees. It captures meetings, enriches what it captures, and then pushes the result wherever the work actually happens: a CRM, a shared workspace, or an AI agent.
Capture works two ways. Bot-less transcription reads your computer's audio, so no extra participant shows up in the attendee list. Alternatively the Grain bot joins the call and records video when you cannot attend. Capture rules decide automatically which meetings are recorded — every meeting, internal only, or external only. Grain works across Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, Slack huddles and in-person meetings, and transcribes in more than 130 languages.
What comes out is not a raw wall of text. Transcripts carry participant and cross-meeting context and arrive as clean Markdown. Notes, tags and clips taken during the call sync back into the transcript, and every meeting yields AI notes, a recap and action items.
The real differentiator is what happens next. Grain treats meeting data as fuel for AI agents: bulk Markdown export, one-click opening in Claude or ChatGPT, an MCP server, and a GraphQL API with a TypeScript SDK so agents can query transcripts and search across the full meeting history. Inside the product, an Ask anything feature answers questions across the whole library with precise citations.
Collaboration runs through Teams, which auto-share meetings with the right group, and through unlimited free viewer seats — only people who record, upload or import need a paid seat. Notes and properties sync to HubSpot or Salesforce contacts and deals.
On security, Grain holds SOC 2 Type II, hosts everything on AWS in the United States inside a dedicated virtual private cloud, encrypts data at rest and in transit, runs annual third-party penetration testing and publishes its subprocessor list. It states plainly that neither Grain nor its subprocessors train models on customer data. The company claims teams handle over 75% of action items through agents and save more than eight hours per person each week.
What it does
- Record and transcribe any meeting, with or without a bot in the call
- Generate AI meeting notes, recaps and action items automatically
- Deliver enriched Markdown transcripts to Claude, ChatGPT or any AI agent
- Ask questions across your entire meeting library and get answers with citations
- Sync meeting notes and properties to HubSpot or Salesforce records
- Clip and share key moments with teammates or clients
- Coach sales reps from recorded calls and team interaction insights
When to use Grain / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Grain is the right fit.
When to use Grain
- Small and mid-market sales teams that want call recording, coaching and revenue intelligence without an enterprise-tier contract
- Customer success and account management teams who need every client call summarised and synced to HubSpot or Salesforce
- Product managers and user researchers running discovery and customer interviews who want searchable, quotable transcripts
- Teams building AI agent workflows, who need meeting history exposed through Markdown export, an MCP server and a GraphQL API
- Distributed and remote teams that rely on automatic sharing so people who missed a call still get the notes and action items
When not to use Grain
- Organisations that require data residency inside the European Union, since Grain hosts everything on AWS in the United States
- Buyers whose procurement process demands a published Data Processing Agreement, which Grain does not name anywhere on its site
- People who need to capture meetings from a phone, as Grain ships only a web app and a Mac and Windows desktop app
- Teams operating under strict all-party consent rules who cannot take on the compliance burden Grain explicitly leaves to the customer
- Very small budgets that would rely on the free plan alone, which caps meetings at 45 minutes and history at 90 days
How to use Grain
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Create a free account on the Grain signup page — no credit card is required
- Download the desktop app for Mac or Windows, or stay in the web app
- Sign in with Google, Microsoft or SSO (SAML is available for enterprise workspaces)
- Connect your Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 calendar
- Set capture rules to decide which meetings record automatically: all, internal or external
- Choose your capture mode for each meeting: bot-less desktop capture or the Grain bot
- During the call, type notes, flag key moments and clip segments
- After the call, review the AI notes, recap and action items, then share or email them
- Create Teams so meetings are automatically shared with the right group
- Connect your agents: export Markdown, open in Claude or ChatGPT, or use the MCP server and the OAuth2 GraphQL API with webhooks
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Bot-less capture means no phantom participant sitting in your attendee list
- A permanent free plan and unlimited free viewer seats let a whole team read notes while you pay only for the people who record
- An unusually clear position on training: neither Grain nor its subprocessors use customer data to train models
- Genuinely open to AI agents through bulk Markdown export, an MCP server, a GraphQL API and a TypeScript SDK
- Solid security posture: SOC 2 Type II, dedicated AWS VPC, annual third-party pentests and a published subprocessor list
- Low entry price against revenue intelligence platforms, with no multi-year contract, cancellation at will and a 30-day money-back guarantee
- Broad meeting coverage — Zoom, Meet, Teams, Webex and Slack huddles — with 130+ transcription languages
Cons
- The pricing page is JavaScript-rendered and its static markup still contains unclean template text and duplicate plan cards
- Two contradictory entry prices are published: $19 per seat/month on the pricing page and comparison page, $15/month per user in the homepage FAQ
- No mobile application at all — web and a Mac/Windows desktop app only
- All data is hosted in the United States, with no EU residency option
- No Data Processing Agreement is named or published, and the BAA is reserved for Enterprise plans
- The trust centre is entirely JavaScript-rendered, so compliance documents cannot be reviewed without requesting access
- The free plan is tightly capped at 45 minutes per meeting and 90 days of history
Pricing & Plans
Grain offers a permanent free plan at $0 per seat/month, not merely a time-limited trial. The cheapest paid entry point is the Starter plan at $19 USD per seat/month according to the structured data on the pricing page and the Gong comparison page; the homepage FAQ separately quotes $15/month per user, an unexplained discrepancy that most likely reflects annual billing. Billing can be monthly or annual, and only seats that record, upload or import are charged — viewer seats are free and unlimited. A 14-day free trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee are offered, with no multi-year contract required.
- view your team's meetings and try AI notes
- unlimited recordings
- transcripts
- basic AI notes
- collaborative workspace and desktop capture
- capped at 45 minutes per meeting and 90 days of history
- everything in Free plus unlimited recordings
- custom AI prompts and custom note templates
- adds AI coaching
- custom AI follow-up emails and team interaction insights
- adds enforced SSO
- SAML and a BAA on request
- unlimited
- available on every plan
- can view and collaborate but cannot record
- upload or import
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Grain handles your data.
GDPR overview
Grain displays a "GDPR compliant" badge on its homepage and states that it "complies with GDPR and SOC 2 where applicable" — a qualifier worth noting. Concrete measures do exist: the privacy policy, last reviewed on 21 August 2025, sets out lawful bases (legitimate interests, contract performance, legal obligation and withdrawable consent), grants access, correction, portability and deletion rights, and commits to answering within 30 days. Data subject requests go to the published privacy address. Beyond that, the documentation is thin: no Article 27 EU representative is designated, no data protection officer is named, no standard contractual clauses or transfer mechanism is described, and no Data Processing Agreement is named or published. All hosting is in the United States, with no EU residency option offered.
Who owns the data?
Grain positions customer meeting data as belonging to the customer: its privacy stance page is titled "It's your data. You're in control." In practice, the subscribing organisation is treated as the data controller and Grain as the processor acting on its behalf. The privacy policy is explicit that an individual wanting to access, correct or delete personal information held for a subscriber must address the subscriber, not Grain. Recordings, transcripts, notes and clips can be deleted by the customer at meeting, batch or workspace level. Grain states it never sells personal information or calls. One practical limit: everything shared inside a meeting is visible to every participant in that meeting.
Reuse rights
Customers can reuse their own meeting content freely inside and outside the workspace: recordings, clips, transcripts and AI notes can be shared with teammates, with clients or with anyone holding a link, downloaded in bulk as Markdown, opened directly in Claude or ChatGPT, pushed into HubSpot or Salesforce, or pulled programmatically through the GraphQL API and MCP server. No permission request to Grain is involved. Editing, however, stays restricted to members of the workspace. On Grain's own side, the position is unambiguous: neither Grain nor its subprocessors use customer data to train AI models. Summaries are produced by sending transcripts over TLS to third-party model providers including Anthropic and OpenAI. Grain does reserve the right to share anonymised, aggregated "Usage Data" with third parties, including for marketing, in a form that cannot identify a person.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
Grain hosts all of its software on Amazon Web Services facilities in the United States. One hundred percent of its primary application servers sit inside Grain's own virtual private cloud, protected by restricted security groups that allow only the minimum communication required between servers. Storage relies on AWS-managed PostgreSQL RDS and Elasticsearch. All customer data, including call recordings and transcripts, is encrypted at rest and in transit, with cryptographic keys maintained on AWS infrastructure. All connections use SSL, HTTP requests are redirected to HTTPS, and Grain maintains an A+ Qualys/SSL Labs grade. The subprocessors with access to audio and video streams — Anthropic, AWS, Recall.ai and AssemblyAI — are all located in the United States. No European hosting region and no data residency choice are advertised anywhere on the site, so the jurisdiction is US throughout.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Grain.
- Recording law is on you: Grain signals when recording happens, but complying with one-party, two-party or all-party consent rules remains the customer's responsibility
- Everything shared inside a meeting is visible to every participant of that meeting — a sensitive aside can travel further than the speaker intended
- All data sits on US infrastructure with no EU residency option, no named DPA and no Article 27 EU representative, which can block a European compliance review
- The published entry price contradicts itself between pages ($19 versus $15), so budget on a figure confirmed by the vendor rather than the website
- Deletion is not instant erasure: a 30-day restore window applies before data is gone for good, and paid plans publish no default retention limit for recordings
- Recording everything can quietly erode the habit of listening and note-taking; teams that outsource attention to the transcript often engage less in the room
- The trust centre only renders with JavaScript, so compliance documents cannot be reviewed independently before a purchase conversation
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Low for everyday use. Sign up free without a card, install the Mac or Windows desktop app, sign in with Google, Microsoft or SSO, and connect a Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 calendar. Grain claims you can start recording in minutes. Setting capture rules, Teams, CRM sync and Zapier is admin configuration with no code involved. Only the agent and developer layer requires real technical skill: OAuth2, the GraphQL API, the TypeScript SDK, webhooks and the MCP server.
Deployment
Integrations
Supported languages
Behind Grain
Fundraising
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Alternatives
Tools that compete with or complement Grain.
Frequently asked questions
What is Grain?
Does Grain need a bot to join my meetings?
How much does Grain cost?
Is my meeting data used to train AI models?
Where is my data hosted?
Which meeting platforms and languages does Grain support?
Does Grain have an API?
Is there a mobile app?
Can I delete my recordings, and how long does Grain keep them?
Do I need participants' consent to record?
Should you pick Grain?
Grain is a mature product from a 2018 company with around 83 employees and three press-covered funding rounds behind it, and it has found a genuinely distinctive angle. Two things set it apart from the crowded AI notetaker field. The first is bot-less capture: it transcribes your computer's audio without parking an uninvited participant in the call. The second is how deliberately it opens up afterwards — bulk Markdown export, one-click handoff to Claude or ChatGPT, an MCP server and a GraphQL API turn a meeting archive into something AI agents can actually work with, rather than a walled library.
Its data posture is strong where it matters most to buyers: an unambiguous statement that neither Grain nor its subprocessors train on customer data, a published subprocessor list with purposes and locations, SOC 2 Type II, and annual third-party penetration testing. Commercially, the free plan with unlimited free viewer seats is unusually generous, and the paid entry point undercuts revenue intelligence platforms substantially.
The reservations are real but mostly bounded. Everything is hosted in the United States with no EU residency option, no Data Processing Agreement is named publicly, and there is no Article 27 EU representative — enough to stall a European procurement review. There is no mobile app. And the pricing story is genuinely untidy: the pricing page does not render without JavaScript, still carries unclean template text, and the site publishes two different entry prices, $19 and $15, without explaining the difference.
For a sales, customer success or product team that works in English, is comfortable with US hosting and wants meeting data flowing into its AI stack, Grain is a strong and well-priced choice. Confirm the current price directly with the vendor before committing.
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