Is Otter AI Safe for Client Data in 2026?

What Otter AI Does

Otter AI records meeting audio through its Notetaker, which joins online calls, or through its desktop app. It turns the audio into a transcript and produces meeting summaries, so a spoken fact-find becomes stored text as well as a recording.

Is Otter AI Safe for Client Calls?

Otter AI’s suitability for client calls depends on separate decisions about storage, model training and sharing. Consent to record doesn’t itself restrict those later uses.

Storage

Otter keeps audio and transcripts in its service. Its privacy policy also covers speaker-identification information and meeting screenshots, with service providers that include US-based cloud storage.

A conversation disappearing from your accessible history doesn’t mean it has been deleted. Otter’s conversation-history guidance says Basic users can access their 25 most recent conversations. Older conversations are archived in the account, and cancelling or downgrading doesn’t delete them.

AI Training

Otter’s general privacy policy permits training its own AI on de-identified audio and on transcripts that can contain personal information. Its security explanation describes automated de-identification, while separately saying its AI service providers don’t train on customer data.

Those are different uses by different organisations. A promise about a service provider’s models doesn’t mean Otter’s own models are excluded. Enterprise workspaces have a documented no-training default, described below.

Access by Other People

Meeting attendance and saved-note access are separate settings. Open Share on the conversation and inspect its users, channels and link access. Otter’s sharing instructions explain how to remove access and restrict links.

Also review auto-share settings before the next client meeting. Removing a named person’s access can leave another route open through an unrestricted link. Restrict the whole conversation to the people who need the client record.

The US Privacy Class Action

The proposed US class action began in 2025 over allegations that Otter recorded non-users in meetings without their consent. The plaintiffs also allege that Otter retained meeting content and used it to train its technology.

In a 2026 partial-dismissal order, the federal court dismisses some claims and allows others to proceed. That order addresses whether claims can continue, without deciding that Otter broke the law. The dispute concerns consent and the vendor’s own use of recordings, beyond who can open a shared transcript.

Tell Clients Before You Record

Ask every participant before you start recording a client call. Australian recording laws differ by state and territory, and a private conversation can require consent from everyone involved.

New South Wales restricts recording a private conversation even when the person recording is a participant. The NSW Government’s explanation of section 7 sets out consent and other statutory exceptions. Use the call recording laws in Australia guide for the jurisdictional rules before recording.

Before asking for consent, explain where Otter stores the material, who receives it and the training terms of your approved workspace. Give the client the option of a call with written notes instead. Then ask:

“May I use Otter AI to record this call and create a transcript and summary under the storage and sharing arrangements I’ve explained?”

Wait for each person’s answer before enabling the recorder. If anyone declines, leave recording off. Get consent from a late arrival before continuing with them on the call.

Turn off automatic joining while you arrange consent. In Otter’s AI Notetaker settings, select Meetings I manually select. Its auto-join instructions also require reviewing previously selected calendar events, because those keep their individual settings.

Otter AI Plans and Pricing

Otter has a free Basic plan, paid plans billed per user and an Enterprise plan sold through its sales team. For client calls, compare recording length and retained content alongside the controls your brokerage needs.

The plan comparison lists these differences:

Plan	Recording limit per conversation	Accessible history and controls
Basic	30 minutes	The 25 most recent conversations. Older conversations remain archived.
Pro	90 minutes	Unlimited conversation history and more file imports than Basic.
Business	Four hours	Unlimited conversation history, with team activity logs and usage analytics.
Enterprise	Four hours	Business features plus organisation controls, including single sign-on and user provisioning.

History capacity describes how much you can access. It doesn’t set a deletion schedule for client records.

Otter’s Enterprise controls add a no-training default for the workspace. Recordings and transcripts then power that workspace’s features without improving Otter’s global models or third-party language models.

Enterprise administrators can also arrange a custom retention policy through their Otter account manager and lock Notetaker auto-join settings. The audio-removal control deletes audio while leaving transcripts, so it doesn’t remove the full client record. A paid subscription alone doesn’t establish those Enterprise protections.

What a Broker Must Not Record

Pause recording before a fact-find reaches information your brokerage excludes from meeting recordings. Keep these details out of the audio and transcript:

• Tax file numbers and identity document numbers.
• Bank account or card numbers, passwords and verification codes.
• Identity checks that require the client to read a passport or driver licence aloud.
• Medical details or family circumstances that aren’t needed for the recorded discussion.
• Another person’s confidential information when they haven’t agreed to the recording.

In the desktop app, use Pause on the recording controls and confirm recording has stopped before the client speaks. For a Notetaker call, have the host remove the Notetaker when you can’t confirm a pause. Muting the bot’s microphone doesn’t establish that it has stopped receiving meeting audio.

For example, a broker can record an agreed discussion of the documents a client still needs to supply. Pause before the client starts reading a tax file number. Keep that information in the approved client system instead.

Delete a Recording

Preserve any required client records in your approved system before permanent deletion. Then use Otter’s conversation deletion procedure:

1. Open a conversation you own and select Delete from its three-dot menu.
2. Confirm the action. Otter moves it to Trash and removes its shared access.
3. Open Trash. Conversations remain there for 30 days unless you delete them sooner.
4. Select the affected conversation and permanently delete it. Check that it’s absent from Trash afterwards.

Permanent deletion can’t be undone. If Delete is unavailable because someone shared the conversation with you, ask its owner to delete it. Removing your own access leaves the owner’s recording in place.

Delete Your Otter Account

Uninstalling Otter or cancelling the subscription leaves a separate account-deletion step. Before closing the account, turn off auto-join and preserve any client records your brokerage must retain.

1. Open Integrations and disconnect your calendar. For Apple Calendar synced through the mobile app, remove that connection in the app.
2. Review and cancel the paid subscription, following the account’s billing route.
3. In Account Settings, open General and select Delete account.
4. Complete the account verification, review the confirmation and select Delete account again.

Otter’s account deletion guidance says workspace members need their administrator’s help when the option is unavailable. Deletion removes conversations and shared access, although Otter retains limited account information for accounting and administration. After closing the account, confirm future calendar events no longer have your Notetaker scheduled to join.