If you’re tired of “AI note-takers” that dump a transcript in your lap and call it a day, Proactor AI is worth your attention. It bills itself as a proactive AI that listens as you speak, pulls out what matters in real time, and then shows up after the call with a structured recap, tasks, and context you can query later. The big promise: less cognitive load during conversations and less cleanup afterward.
Below is a hands-on style review grounded in Proactor’s own product pages and help center (linked throughout), plus comparisons to well-known alternatives like Otter, Fireflies, Read, Notta, and Jamie. No fluff, no hallucinations—just what’s actually documented.
Verdict in 30 seconds
What it is: A browser-based meeting agent that gives you live summaries (“Insights”), proactive AI Advice, automatic task extraction, and a structured Meeting Wiki at the end of every session. You can also query a memory layer later via Potor (Proactor’s built-in chat), see: proactor.ai
What’s different: Proactor tries to act during the conversation, not only after. It surfaces suggestions, flags next steps, and pulls patterns across meetings—then lets you ask questions like “What did we decide about pricing last week?”
Who it’s for: Sales teams, founders, PMs, recruiters, and students who want the benefits of an attentive chief-of-staff without babysitting another bot or extension. It runs in your browser and requires no plugin. Mobile apps are “coming soon.”
Pricing: Free (60 min/month + 200 AI credits), Pro ($19.99/mo or $15.99/mo billed annually), and Business ($49.99/mo or $39.99/mo billed annually). The site also notes that full AI Advice access requires Pro or Business.
Setup & onboarding: as simple as “Start Insight”
Getting going is refreshingly lightweight:
- Sign up & log in on the web. No extension required.
- Click Start Insight to begin a live session; the app will ask for mic access. (Onboarding docs sometimes say “Start Recording,” but the homepage’s FAQ calls the button Start Insight.)
- Visit Settings → Meeting Settings to tune language, how often summaries/to-dos are generated, and how chatty the advice should be. You can adjust output/transcription languages separately, set auto-save on topic changes, and modify the frequency (by word count) for Summaries, Key Takeaways, and To-Dos (e.g., 200/300/600/900 words or custom).
There’s also a free-form chat experience (“Start Chat”) when you want Potor answers untethered from a live meeting.
Mobile? Proactor notes it runs in any modern browser and says iOS/Android apps are in the works.
Feature deep-dive
1) Real-time transcription (the table stakes, done cleanly)
You get live, timestamped transcription that’s searchable across sessions. The docs highlight accuracy and real-time capture; in various comparison posts, Proactor also claims speaker separation. (Otter and others support this, too.) If speaker diarization is mission-critical for you, verify in your own calls; Proactor’s public materials emphasize timestamps and accuracy primarily.
Importing recordings: Proactor’s terms explicitly allow uploading user content (including voice/audio recordings), which implies you can drop in pre-recorded files for processing. That matches the broader “hours of recordings” language on the site and business pages.
2) Insight Stream (live summaries, key takeaways, and more)
While you talk, Proactor produces a continuous Insight Stream: short, evolving snippets that summarize, extract key points, and suggest follow-ups—as the meeting unfolds. If the topic shifts, the stream adapts. You can later review all Insights in the Wiki or History.
What’s nice is control: under Meeting Settings → AI Analysis Settings, you can dial how often summaries/to-dos/key takeaways are generated (e.g., every 300 words vs. 900 if you want fewer interruptions).
3) AI Advice (the “copilot” moments)
Separate from the generic summary, AI Advice tries to give context-aware nudges: “Consider following up on X,” “Address this pricing objection now,” “Here’s relevant background.” The help center even exposes toggles like Automated AI Advice, Multi-Round Detection (refines suggestions up to three times as context accumulates), and Collapse Advice (keep the UI tidy). Note: the pricing page labels AI Advice as a “preview” on the free tier—with full access on Pro or Business.
4) Task & To-Do extraction (turn talk into action)
This is where Proactor separates itself from pure notetakers: it tries to detect implicit action items (“send follow-up,” “schedule onboarding,” “confirm budget owners”) and bucket them into a To-Do list without you tagging them mid-call. Those items also land in the Meeting Wiki so your recap is immediately actionable. Frequency is adjustable (as above), and you can tune how verbose the list should be.
5) Meeting Wiki (structured recap you’ll actually read)
After each session, the Meeting Wiki is auto-generated with a consistent scaffold: Overview, Conclusion, Key Takeaways, and To-Dos. It’s meant to be skim-friendly and shareable—so nobody has to spelunk a 60-minute transcript. Proactor’s own use-case posts repeatedly lean on the Wiki as the source of truth you can resurface months later.
6) Potor (chat with your entire meeting history)
Potor is Proactor’s built-in chat assistant that answers questions grounded in your transcripts, tasks, and summaries across sessions: “What objections did the client raise last month?”, “What’s still open from Q4?” You can launch it from a meeting page, from the sidebar, or from your History. Potor can also perform live web searches, though the help center clarifies it can’t fetch specific URLs—think topical lookups and background context rather than scraping a link you paste.
7) Global memory & search
Beyond keywords, Proactor advertises a memory and semantic search layer that spans transcripts, advice, tasks, and summaries. Pair that with Potor and you get a practical “second brain” vibe—particularly useful for teams that live in weekly cadences and forget what was promised last sprint.
Pricing, plans, and what you actually get
- Free — 60 minutes/month of transcription and 200 AI credits. AI Advice is labeled as a preview here.
- Pro — $19.99/month (or $15.99/month billed annually). Full AI Advice access included.
- Business — $49.99/month (or $39.99/month billed annually). Full AI Advice plus team-oriented features.
The pricing page also highlights unique bits like Session Wiki Pages and AI Advice to distinguish tiers. If you plan to lean hard on Advice and Potor, the free plan is a taste—Pro is the practical floor.
Privacy & data handling
Two essentials:
Recording consent: Proactor’s Terms of Service explicitly discuss user content and voice recordings; you’re responsible for following applicable consent laws when recording. (That’s standard across notetakers.)
Processing & storage: The Privacy Policy says real-time recordings are used to deliver features like AI Advice, Key Takeaways, and To-Dos; Proactor notes data is hosted on AWS in the U.S. and claims GDPR/CCPA compliance on its homepage. If your org requires formal attestations (e.g., SOC 2), you’ll need to ask their team.
Where Proactor shines
Sales & CS
During a discovery call, Proactor can flag objections, capture next steps, and draft follow-ups as you talk, then hand you a digestible Wiki afterward. Its blog examples repeatedly emphasize this flow with to-dos tied to owners and priorities.
Product & leadership meetings
Decision meetings produce decisions—but those decisions evaporate shockingly fast. Proactor’s Meeting Wiki becomes the paper trail: rationale, conclusions, and actions you can re-load in Potor later (“What did we finally decide about phasing the rollout?”).
Hiring & interviews
Interview panels can query Potor for specific answers (“Summarize how the candidate handled failure”) rather than rewatching the whole call, speeding up debriefs.
Education & research
For lectures or recorded talks, Proactor’s transcript + Wiki + Q&A combo is a clean way to study or produce reading notes quickly—without the “Where was that quote again?” hunt. (As always, respect institution policies and consent rules.)
What Proactor doesn’t do (or doesn’t emphasize publicly)
Hard enterprise certifications: The site claims GDPR/CCPA alignment and AWS hosting, but it doesn’t publicly tout SOC 2/HIPAA on its own pages. If that’s a blocker, note that Read AI explicitly advertises SOC 2 Type 2 and HIPAA.
Link scraping in Potor: Potor’s web search is topic-level (no specific URL fetching). That keeps the feature bounded and predictable, but you won’t paste a link and have Potor “open” it.
Mobile apps today: It runs great in a browser; native iOS/Android are “coming soon.” If on-the-go capture is your priority right now, Read’s iOS app (and others) are already shipping.
Alternatives worth a look
Otter.ai — The familiar baseline: real-time transcription, speaker ID, summaries, imports. Strong cross-platform support and mature feature set; still more reactive by default. Features overview and diarization docs: otter.ai/features and speaker ID guidance.
Fireflies.ai — Bot-based auto-join plus Chrome extension options; classic transcripts and “smart summaries.” If you like the assistant that joins every call automatically, this model may suit you better.
Read AI — A fast-moving player with SOC 2 Type 2, HIPAA, iOS app, and “Search Copilot” that unifies meetings, emails, chats. Great for orgs prioritizing compliance + discovery.
Notta — Popular free tier, fast imports, and a Chrome extension; succinct post-meeting summaries (decisions, action items) in one click.
Jamie — A privacy-forward notetaker emphasizing no-bot joining, hosted in Europe, and multilingual support.
Where Proactor stands out is the live Insight Stream + AI Advice and the default assumption that your agent should help while the conversation is happening, not just after. If that resonates, you’ll feel the difference on day one.
How I’d deploy Proactor in a team
Set intentional defaults. In Meeting Settings, pick a summary cadence that won’t feel spammy (e.g., 300 words for fast-moving sales calls; 600–900 for strategy sessions). Turn on Multi-Round Detection for Advice so early suggestions get refined as context grows.
Use the Wiki as your source of truth. After each call, drop the Meeting Wiki link in Slack/Notion and assign To-Dos right away. Make a habit of asking Potor the next morning, “What’s still open from yesterday’s meetings?” to catch dangling threads.
Lean on Potor for prep. Before follow-ups, ask “What were the client’s top objections?” or “Summarize decisions about timeline last week.” You’ll enter calls primed, not guessing.
Record responsibly. Train your team on consent etiquette and note that recordings power Advice/Tasks/Summaries—i.e., the very features you’re buying this for.
The small but meaningful touches
No extensions or plugins. Because it’s browser-native, onboarding is quick—especially for guests or cross-functional collaborators.
Language controls. Separate transcription vs. output languages for better accuracy and tailored summaries. (Proactor’s materials also reference support for multiple languages; its comparison page calls out eight. If you need 20+, check Read or Jamie.)
Topic-aware autosave. Auto-saves sub-sessions when topics change without interrupting the recording—handy for long working sessions.
Friction points & caveats
Advice quality varies by audio and context. That’s true for every AI agent. Keep your mic clean, avoid crosstalk when possible, and pick a sensible cadence so Advice cards don’t crowd the UI. (Proactor gives you knobs for this.)
Web search limits. Potor’s search is topical, not URL-specific. You won’t paste a link and have it read the page; think “give me background on X” rather than “scrape this.”
Compliance needs due diligence. If you require SOC 2/HIPAA, Proactor doesn’t publicly claim them; other vendors do. Ask for a security packet before rolling out to regulated teams.
Final take
If your biggest pain with Artificial Intelligence notetakers is cognitive overhead—you still feel like the project manager after every call—Proactor AI is a compelling alternative. It’s designed to reduce the after-meeting slog by catching the signal in real time, structuring it into a Meeting Wiki, and giving you a memory you can actually interrogate later with Potor. That shift—from passive transcription to proactive assistance—changes how meetings feel, not just how they’re documented.
For solo operators and small teams, the Pro tier looks like the sweet spot given the full AI Advice access; larger teams should evaluate Business for governance and scale. The browser-based design, adjustable analysis cadence, and end-of-call Wiki make it both approachable and powerful out of the box.
Bottom line: If you want an AI teammate in the meeting—not a stenographer—Proactor delivers on that ambition more convincingly than most of the field right now. Try the free plan long enough to feel the Insight Stream kick in; if it clicks, upgrade and wire it into your team’s rituals.
