Best Cluely Alternatives in 2026: 6 AI Meeting Tools That Don’t Need a $7M Retraction
If you searched for “Cluely alternatives” today, you almost certainly know why. In March, Cluely’s CEO Roy Lee posted on X that the $7 million ARR he had told TechCrunch in June 2025 was, in his own words, “the only blatantly dishonest thing i’ve said publicly online.” The actual number was around $5.2 million. He framed it as a random cold-call interview he didn’t expect to be published; TechCrunch then produced the email thread showing his PR team had set up the call. Six months later, we are still finding out what else was inflated.
That on its own would be enough reason to look elsewhere. But it isn’t the only reason. Cluely also had a 2025 data breach exposing 83,000+ user accounts — including interview transcripts and screenshots of users’ workflows. For a tool whose entire pitch was “use this on calls without anyone knowing,” having every one of those calls indexed in a hacker’s spreadsheet is not a small footnote.
So what do you use instead? We tested six AI meeting assistants that compete with Cluely’s “real-time on-screen support during calls” use case, ranging from European-built and GDPR-compliant to open-source and free. Here is the short list.
The 6 alternatives, ranked
1. Convo — the closest direct replacement
What it is: A native desktop AI overlay that gives you real-time hints during calls. If Cluely is the thing you actually want — discreet on-screen support during meetings — Convo is the cleanest replacement.
Pricing: Plans start at $14.99/month. Free trial available.
Where it wins: European-built, GDPR-compliant by default, no shady marketing about “cheating.” Real-time transcription, pre-meeting briefings, post-meeting follow-up emails. Convo also doesn’t lean on the “undetectable” meme — it just works on your screen.
Where it loses: $15/month is more than Cluely’s entry tier was. The interface is less viral-flashy than Cluely’s marketing materials.
Our take: If you want what Cluely was supposed to be — a real-time meeting copilot — without the lying CEO and the breach exposure, this is the boring correct answer.
Rating: Shut up and try it.
2. Natively — the open-source paranoid pick
What it is: A free, open-source AI meeting copilot that runs entirely on your machine. Bring your own API key (BYOK), or run a local LLM with no API key at all.
Pricing: $0. MIT-licensed.
Where it wins: Has never had a data breach because there is no centralized server to breach. Real-time transcription, “stealth mode” overlay, local RAG over your own files. If your interview transcripts being on someone else’s S3 bucket is what made you leave Cluely, this is the answer.
Where it loses: You install and configure it yourself. There’s no customer support, just a GitHub issues tab. If you don’t have an OpenAI/Anthropic key already, you’re paying for the underlying API anyway.
Our take: This is the rational person’s reaction to the Cluely breach. It costs nothing, it can’t be hacked centrally, and the trade-off is a Saturday afternoon of setup.
Rating: Shut up and download it.
3. Otter.ai — the boring incumbent that actually works
What it is: The granddaddy of AI meeting tools, around since 2018, integrated into half the corporate meeting stack on Earth.
Pricing: Free tier at 300 min/month with a 30-min cap per call. Pro $8.33/mo (annual) for 1,200 min/month. Business $20/user/mo annual for 6,000 min/month. Enterprise is custom and lands around $17K/year for typical teams.
Where it wins: Real-time transcription that genuinely works. Multi-language (English, French, Spanish). Solid Zoom/Meet/Teams integrations. Compliance documentation that actually exists. SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, HIPAA on Enterprise.
Where it loses: Otter is a meeting transcriber first and a copilot second. If you specifically wanted Cluely’s “AI overlay whispering answers in real time during the call,” Otter is more “post-meeting summary.” The Pro tier’s 30-min cap-per-conversation is annoying.
Our take: If your use case was “I want to remember what was said in this meeting,” Otter has been the right answer for seven years and still is. It is not Cluely. It is also not in legal trouble or maintaining a list of leaked transcripts.
Rating: Solid, no drama.
4. Granola — the popular default with one caveat
What it is: A bot-free meeting note-taker that’s gone viral with consultants and PMs over the last year. Hybrid human-AI workflow: you take rough notes during the call, Granola turns them into structured output.
Pricing: Free plan limited to 25 meetings lifetime (not monthly). Individual $18/mo. Business $14/user/mo. Enterprise starts at $35/user/mo.
Where it wins: No “recording bot has joined the meeting” notification — Granola listens through the system audio, so the call doesn’t feel surveilled. Transcription accuracy 90-92% in our tests. Good Notion / Attio / Slack export.
Where it loses: By default, Granola uses your meeting data to train its AI models, and the organization-wide opt-out is only available on the $35/user Enterprise plan. Every note you create has a public shareable link by default. If “my interview transcripts ending up training a model I don’t control” is the same Cluely-shaped problem you’re trying to avoid, you specifically have to flip those settings.
Our take: Excellent product, real privacy caveats. Use it if you understand what you’re opting into. If you don’t read settings pages, pick something else from this list.
Rating: Solid, no drama (after you turn off the training opt-in).
5. Fellow — the enterprise pick
What it is: Mid-sized and enterprise meeting management — agendas, action items, transcription, retros, the full “make our meetings less bad” stack. NYT Wirecutter picked it as their best meeting transcription tool in 2025.
Pricing: Free for small teams, paid plans from ~$11/user/mo, enterprise custom.
Where it wins: Treats meetings as a workflow rather than a transcript. Action items get assigned, follow-ups get tracked, recurring meetings build institutional memory. Compliance docs that pass enterprise security review. This is not a Cluely-shaped tool, it’s a Cluely-replacement at the team level — you stop trying to “win” individual calls and start running the meeting machine itself better.
Where it loses: If you’re a single individual contributor looking for a real-time copilot, Fellow is overkill and overpriced.
Our take: Cluely is a single-player tool. Fellow is a team tool. If you got into Cluely thinking “I’ll get an edge on my calls” and then realized “what we actually have is a meeting culture problem,” Fellow is the bigger answer.
Rating: Solid, no drama.
6. Krisp — the audio-first hybrid
What it is: Best known for noise cancellation, Krisp added meeting AI in 2024. Now it’s a single tool that cleans your audio and takes notes.
Pricing: Free tier with limits, Pro ~$12/mo, Business custom.
Where it wins: The noise-cancellation alone is worth the price for anyone in a noisy environment. The meeting AI is a bonus. Lower price point than Granola or Otter Business.
Where it loses: AI features are less polished than Otter or Granola — Krisp is still primarily an audio-engineering company.
Our take: If you would have paid for noise cancellation anyway, the included meeting AI is the cheapest path to replace Cluely. If you wanted only the meeting copilot, the dedicated tools above are better.
Rating: Solid, no drama.
At-a-glance comparison
| Tool | Entry price | Real-time overlay | On-device option | License | Privacy posture |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Convo | $14.99/mo | Yes | No | Commercial | GDPR-default |
| Natively | $0 | Yes | Yes (local LLM) | MIT | All-local, no server |
| Otter.ai | $0 / $8.33/mo | Yes | No | Commercial | SOC2, GDPR, HIPAA (Ent) |
| Granola | $18/mo | Partial | No | Commercial | Trains on your data by default |
| Fellow | ~$11/user/mo | Partial | No | Commercial | Enterprise compliance |
| Krisp | ~$12/mo | Audio + notes | Audio is local | Commercial | Audio processed on-device |
How to pick
The decision tree is short:
- You want exactly what Cluely promised (real-time overlay, native desktop, “discreet”): Convo.
- You don’t trust anyone with your transcripts ever again: Natively.
- You want it to just work and you’ve used Otter before: Otter.ai.
- You’re already a Granola fan and you read settings pages: Granola (with training opt-out flipped).
- The real problem is your team’s meeting culture, not your individual calls: Fellow.
- You also need noise cancellation: Krisp.
The Blunt takeaway
We have nothing personally against Roy Lee. He’s a 21-year-old who got famous for cheating on coding interviews, raised $15M from a16z, then admitted he made up his revenue numbers because — in his telling — he didn’t think a TechCrunch reporter would actually publish what he said. That is its own kind of fascinating.
But you do not have to use that company’s product to think the founder is interesting. The bar to clear here is not lying about your revenue and not leaking 83,000 customer transcripts, and every product on this list clears it. Five of the six are cheaper than Cluely’s paid tier on annual billing. One of them is free and open-source. The closest direct competitor (Convo) is European, GDPR-compliant, and won’t issue a formal retraction in March 2027.
If you are still on Cluely after the lie and the breach and this exists, the question stops being about meeting tools and starts being about you.
My overall pick for most people: Convo. Replace and move on.
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