Fireflies vs Granola (2026): What ChatGPT, Claude & Gemini Say

AI models name Fireflies more often. Across 50 recorded answers, Fireflies is named in 47 and Granola in 39. The order flips on who comes first: Granola is named first in 19 of 50 answers, Fireflies in 4 of 50. So the models put Fireflies on almost every list, and they open with Granola far more often.

This page counts what the answers in the 2026-09 edition named. It does not judge which product is better.

TL;DR

• Fireflies has the broader presence. No model names it in fewer than 4 of its 5 answers.
• Granola is the product the models most often lead with. It is named first more often than any tracked product, including Fathom, the category leader.
• Where your buyers ask changes the picture. Perplexity and ChatGPT name Granola in only 2 of 5 answers each, and Gemini is the only model that names Granola more often than Fireflies.
• The captured guides split the two by job, not by quality: Granola when the note is the thing you need, Fireflies when the meeting record needs to serve several people or automated systems.
• Neither product leads the category. Fathom is named in more answers than both.

How often do AI models recommend Fireflies and Granola?

Fireflies is named in more answers, Granola is named first in more answers, and Fathom, the category leader, is named more often than either. The table shows both products, with Fathom as the reference row.

Answer share is the share of the 50 answers that named the product. Named first counts the answers where it appeared before any other tracked product. Average position is where the product sits among tracked products in the answers that name it, so a lower number means earlier.

The gap between those two lines is the finding. Fireflies has the widest named-versus-first gap in the category: Fireflies 94% named, Fireflies 8% first, a gap of 86 points. Granola’s gap is 40 points. Read plainly, the models treat Fireflies as a name that belongs on the list and Granola as a name worth opening with. That reading is an interpretation of the counts, not a separate measurement.

Granola’s 19 first placements are also more than Fathom’s 8, even though Fathom is named in more answers. On the question of which product an answer leads with, Granola is ahead of the whole category.

Which models prefer Fireflies, and which prefer Granola?

Six of the ten models name Fireflies more often than Granola. One model, Gemini, names Granola more often. The other three name both in all five of their answers.

The sharpest disagreement is Perplexity. It names Fireflies in 5 of 5 answers and Granola in 2 of 5. ChatGPT is next, at 4 of 5 against 2 of 5.

By family, the split is clearer still. The two Perplexity models name Fireflies 90% of the time and Granola 50%. The three OpenAI models give Fireflies 93.3% and Granola 66.7%. The Anthropic models are close on both, with Fireflies 100% and Granola 93.3%.

Google is the one family that leans the other way. Its two models name Granola 100% of the time and Fireflies 90%.

For a buyer, this means the answer depends on the assistant. A colleague researching in Perplexity or ChatGPT is likelier to see Fireflies without Granola. A colleague using Claude or Gemini will see both in nearly every answer.

What do the answers say about each?

The recorded answers describe Granola by how it captures a call and Fireflies by what it does with the record afterwards.

On Granola, ChatGPT (GPT-5.6 Terra) says:

“it is designed as a personal, bot-free AI notepad rather than a meeting participant that visibly joins every call.”

Claude Opus 5 says:

“Granola captures audio locally and generates structured notes without a bot ever joining the call”

On Fireflies, ChatGPT (GPT-5.6 Terra) says:

“It is more of a meeting-intelligence system than a founder’s personal notebook.”

Perplexity (Sonar Pro) says:

“For sales calls with CRM sync, the strongest all-around pick is Fireflies.ai because multiple reviews describe it as especially strong for CRM automation”

Four of the five prompts ask about a founder, and one asks about sales calls with CRM sync. The quotes follow that split. Granola is quoted for founder calls without a bot. Fireflies is quoted for team records and CRM work.

How do Fireflies and Granola differ?

They differ in how you pay and in what the product keeps after a call. Pricing and fit below come from the captured comparison pages, not from the panel, which records no pricing.

Pricing model

Fireflies discounts its plans for annual billing. With annual billing selected, one captured guide lists Fireflies Pro at $10 per seat per month, Business at $19 and Enterprise at $39. Salesforce and HubSpot sync sit on the Business plan or higher. One independent reviewer adds that the AI credits system can push the real cost above the base price for heavy users of AskFred and advanced summaries.

Granola bills both paid tiers monthly, with no annual discount. The same guide lists Granola Basic at $0, Business at $14 per user per month and Enterprise at $35 per user per month. Granola’s own page says the free Basic plan limits meeting history and leaves out integrations.

The two pages that quote dollars do not name the currency. Check current prices on each vendor’s own page before you buy.

Who each is for

Granola’s own comparison names researchers, product managers and consultants as Granola’s audience. The same page names sales teams and CRM-heavy organisations as the Fireflies audience. That page is vendor-authored, so read it as Granola’s framing.

An independent reviewer puts the split another way. In that account, Fireflies treats meetings as data. Granola treats meetings as thinking time.

What each keeps

Fireflies captures through a bot, a desktop app, a mobile app, a Chrome extension or file uploads. Its record is a transcript and recording library.

Granola says it does not retain meeting audio, so the note and transcript are what remain. It runs on your laptop or phone and uses your device’s audio.

When should you pick Fireflies?

Pick Fireflies if you need the product AI answers most reliably include, and if the call record has to serve a team or a CRM.

• Named in 47 of 50 answers, and in at least 4 of 5 answers from every one of the ten models.
• Perplexity names it in all five answers and Granola in two, so buyers researching there see Fireflies more.
• One captured guide says to choose Fireflies when several people need a searchable meeting repository, recordings matter, old files need importing or CRM automation justifies the extra system.
• Sales sync to Salesforce and HubSpot needs the Business plan or higher.

The counter-signal is measured too. Fireflies is named first in only 4 of 50 answers, so the models rarely open with it.

When should you pick Granola?

Pick Granola if you want the product the models most often lead with, and if the output you need is one person’s edited note from a call without a bot.

• First in 19 of 50 answers, with an average position of 2.79 when named.
• Claude Opus 5, Claude Fable 5, Gemini and Gemini 3.5 Flash each name it in all five answers.
• A captured guide says to choose Granola if you want to stay present, type a handful of cues, edit the result privately and share a concise artifact.
• Capture uses your device audio, with no bot in the meeting.

The counter-signal: ChatGPT and Perplexity name Granola in only 2 of 5 answers each. Granola also keeps no meeting audio, so there is nothing to replay.

How this sits against the Fireflies vs Granola guides

The captured guides compare features and fit. MEMETIK counts which of the two AI answers name, and in what order. Here is what each captured page does.

Granola’s pricing comparison (granola.ai). It compares Granola, Fireflies, Fathom and Otter on free plans, paid tiers, capture and features. It is written by Granola and closes with a call to try Granola for free. One more point from the panel’s own data: ChatGPT’s answer that named Granola its default founder pick cited this same page. granola.ai is also among the vendor-owned hosts cited in the recorded answers, at 16 citations.

Zack Proser’s comparison (zackproser.com). It carries an affiliate disclosure. Its Granola links carry a referral offer for new users. The author says he uses Granola himself. The page frames the choice as personal notes against a team system.

Nadia Okafor’s account (Medium). The author states she has no sponsors, affiliates or free products. It is a first-person account of switching between the two and settling on Granola’s Business plan.

Efficient’s comparison (efficient.app). The capture holds only the page heading, an FTC compliance label and the rating categories it uses, so its conclusions could not be read.

Three more results rank for the query and were not captured: a Reddit thread that refused the fetch, Fireflies’ own comparison on fireflies.ai, and a comparison on sybill.ai.

Two of the four captured pages carry a commercial stake, and both stakes sit with Granola. One is Granola’s own page, and the other may earn affiliate commission on Granola. None of the four counts what AI answers say. This page adds the named and named-first counts for both products and the model-by-model split, from one fixed set of recorded answers.

How the sample was built

10 models x 5 fixed prompts = 50 recorded answers. The answers were recorded on 2 September 2026 for the 2026-09 edition. Each model answered each question once.

The five questions, verbatim:

1. “What is the best AI meeting notetaker for a founder? Name specific products.”
2. “Which AI meeting notetaker would you recommend to a founder in 2026?”
3. “Compare the top AI meeting notetaker options right now.”
4. “I’m a founder and I need an AI meeting notetaker. What should I use and why?”
5. “Best AI meeting notetaker for sales calls with CRM sync?”

The ten models, by family:

• OpenAI, 15 answers: GPT-5.6 Sol, ChatGPT (GPT-5.6 Terra), GPT-5.6 Luna.
• Anthropic, 15 answers: Claude Opus 5, Claude (Claude Sonnet 5), Claude Fable 5.
• Google, 10 answers: Gemini (Gemini 3.6 Flash), Gemini 3.5 Flash.
• Perplexity, 10 answers: Perplexity (Sonar Pro), Sonar Reasoning Pro.

The panel tracked 20 vendors in this category and 19 were named. The full category record, with every answer and cited source, is on the AI meeting notetakers index. The counting rules are on the method page.

What these counts cannot tell you

Visibility is in scope and product quality is not. A count says how often the answers named a product. It says nothing about transcription accuracy, support, security or fit with your stack.

Being named is not the same as being recommended. An answer can name a product to steer a buyer away from it. ChatGPT names Fireflies in one founder answer and then adds, “but I would not make it the first tool a founder adopts.”

The sample has fixed edges. It holds one response per model and question, from one dated run. Names are matched as strings, so “Fireflies.ai” and “Fireflies” count as one product. API answers can differ from what the same model says in a consumer chat app. The prompts are in English, and four of the five frame the buyer as a founder. The figure sheet does not split named-first counts by model, so this page cannot say which models open with which product. Prices come from pages captured on 28 September 2026 and can change.

Frequently asked questions

Which AI meeting minutes taker is the best?

This panel does not measure which is best. It measures which products AI answers name. On that measure, Fathom is the most-named product in the category, and all ten models name it at least as often as any other product. The full ranking is on the category index.

What’s better than fireflies AI?

The panel cannot say what is better, only what is named more. Fathom is the only product named in more answers than Fireflies. Granola and Fathom are both named first more often than Fireflies. If the models’ opening pick matters to you, Granola is the product they lead with most.

Is Fireflies AI trustworthy?

The panel does not measure trust or security. One captured guide reports that Fireflies’ pricing page lists SOC 2 Type II and GDPR across plans, with HIPAA, SSO, SCIM, private storage and custom retention on Enterprise. The same guide notes that a larger recording archive raises more governance questions about access, integrations and deletion. Check those controls against your own requirements.

What is better than Granola AI?

The panel cannot say what is better, only what is named more. Fathom and Fireflies are both named in more answers than Granola. No tracked product is named first more often than Granola. The Granola record shows its full per-model split.