The rise of AI meeting agents in accounting: what tools are firms actually using?

The Firm · 29 November 2025

Scroll through any accounting Facebook group or LinkedIn thread and you’ll see the same question pop up: “Is anyone using AI for meeting notes and transcriptions?” From tax appointments and BAS reviews to client onboarding and advisory catch-ups, firms are looking for ways to save time, reduce admin, and capture every word — without needing a junior staff member typing notes in the background. The market has exploded with options: Fireflies, Fathom, Otter, Chorus, Gong, Teams… even custom GPT setups. But the real issue isn’t what you use — it’s whether the tool actually delivers outcomes accountants care about. This blog looks at the current landscape of AI meeting tools, the feedback from accounting communities and how to actually make meeting transcripts useful in a firm.

The boom of AI notetakers: what’s out there now

We’re in the middle of a wave. AI meeting assistants are showing up in Zoom, Meet and Teams calls across every industry. Some are generic. Some are sales-focused. A few are built for finance professionals. But most of them fall into the same trap: they record everything, spit out a transcript, and then email you a quick summary… that no one reads. Here’s a look at what accountants are currently being recommended in forums:
  • Fireflies.ai – Built as a general-purpose meeting recorder. Popular with sales and marketing teams. Transcribes, summarises and sends auto-emails.
  • Otter.ai – Known for simple transcription. No deep integrations or task generation. Works well in basic call environments.
  • Motion – More of a productivity scheduler. Less about AI notes, more about organising your day.
  • Microsoft Teams – Free built-in transcript tool. Popular by default but widely criticised for poor accuracy.
  • Gong and Chorus – Built for large sales teams. Excellent for enterprise deal review, but not built for compliance or tax language.
  • Custom GPT agents – The DIY solution. If you know your way around prompts, you can get decent insights. But no integration or automation layer.
  • Vinyl - an AI notetaker purpose built for the accounting industry, developed by a team who were ex Ignition, Pixie and Intuit QuickBooks.
So yes, there’s lots of choice. But the feedback in the accounting community is telling a different story. Quick heads up: The editors of The Firm also work with alot accounting tech companies, and we’re also the team actively working behind Vinyl and bringing it into the market — It's an AI meeting notetaker built specifically for the accounting industry. We’ve got a vested interest. We’re also building it because we saw the gap firsthand — generic tools just weren’t cutting it for firms. We want to make this clear to ensure you have a balanced view when reading the rest of this article.

“We tried Teams and it was trash”: what the community is saying

You don’t have to look far to see what bookkeepers and accountants are actually experiencing. In one Facebook thread inside Small Business Accountants & Advisers Brain Trust, one member asked:
“Is any accountant using AI transcripts for tax appointments — that can provide a summary at the end of the meeting to send to clients?”
Within minutes, several comments rolled in. Fireflies. Motion. Teams. But one top contributor and accountant, replied:
“We are currently using Vinyl. Also tried Microsoft Teams transcription and in our experience, it’s trash. What was being said and what was transcribing was hilarious. I've also tested Otter AI and Zoom’s version — the Microsoft one is by far the worst.”
That says everything. It’s not just about having a transcript. It’s about having a useful one. A record that’s actually accurate. A summary that actually reflects what happened. A tool that gets the terminology right. And right now, most AI tools on the market are not delivering that.

What accountants actually need from an AI meeting agent

Let’s be clear — accountants don’t need AI to sound clever. They need it to:
  • Accurately capture what was said
  • Summarise key points in plain English
  • Auto-generate action items and responsibilities
  • Allow them to forward notes to a client without rewriting everything
  • Link meeting outcomes back to their practice management system (Karbon, FYI, XPM)
They also need:
  • Secure data handling
  • Australian compliance sensitivity
  • Support for multi-entity, multi-principal firms
No one’s asking for sentiment analysis or sales intelligence dashboards. Accountants just want a reliable way to:
  • Capture what was said
  • Action what needs to be done
  • Avoid forgetting or re-asking questions next meeting
Most tools fail on that because they were never built for accounting.

Enter Vinyl: built for accountants and bookkeepers

Vinyl is a new AI meeting notetaker that was built for a single reason: To help accountants and bookkeepers get more done after every meeting. Unlike horizontal tools, Vinyl focuses on the accounting-specific use case:
  • Client meetings that touch on compliance, strategy and advisory
  • Conversations that feed into workflows, tasks, and billing
  • Internal catch-ups that need to be shared across admin, ops and offshore teams
Here’s what it does:
  • Joins your Zoom, Meet or Teams call automatically
  • Records the meeting and produces a transcript
  • Summarises it, extracts key points, actions and discussion highlights
  • (Coming soon) Syncs those notes back to your practice management system (XPM, FYI & Karbon).
  • (Coming soon) Triggers tasks, workflows and even asset creation based on your meeting conversation.
We’re not here to replace your CRM or project management tool. We’re here to give you one thing: leverage.

The deeper opportunity: your transcripts are a goldmine

Tam Nguyen wrote a brilliant LinkedIn post recently that hits the heart of this issue. She counted six AI notetakers in a single client call. Otter. Gong. Chorus. Fathom. Fireflies. A custom agent. Everyone was recording. No one was listening. She said:
“Those transcripts will join thousands of others collecting digital dust after generating the same generic summary no one reads.”
And she’s right. We’re drowning in meeting data, but starving for insight. What if, instead of filing those transcripts away, you actually used them? Used them to:
  • Understand why clients churn
  • Uncover pricing objections
  • Spot future service needs
  • Identify repeat internal problems
  • Align your team around what really matters

You don’t need another bot. You need a better brain.

Here’s the real takeaway. You don’t need more AI bots attending your meetings. You don’t need another generic summary in your inbox. You need tools that are smart enough to listen like an accountant. Not just hear the words. You need tools that:
  • Know the difference between a BAS and a BDM
  • Understand the nuance of quarterly reporting cycles
  • Can highlight when a client is stressed about an ATO notice
  • Can flag when someone mentions they’re “thinking of moving firms”
Generic AI tools can’t do that - yet.

Final word

AI meeting tools aren’t going away. In fact, they’re about to become part of every accounting firm’s workflow. But if you’re using something that wasn’t built for you, you’re wasting time, missing context and working harder than you need to. Vinyl is in free beta right now for accountants and bookkeepers in Australia. You can try it at usevinyl.com No fluff. No extra admin. Just better notes, better actions and better outcomes.
  Disclosure: This article includes our own product, Vinyl, which we built for accountants and bookkeepers because we genuinely believe there was no better tool available. We’re not trying to present an unbiased product review — we’re sharing our perspective as builders who work with firms every day. Always do your own testing, and choose what works best for your workflow. There's 100's of AI notetakers in the market, none of them are purpose built for the accounting industry, except Vinyl.

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