Otter’s new features allow users to search all of their business tools

AI conferencing software has realized that documenting meetings and providing summaries alone is not enough to justify their business and valuation. Now they want to act as a hub where users bring data from different sources, search through it, and make decisions about their business. Following authors like Read AI, Fireflies.ai, and Fathom, Otter is now introducing enterprise search by acting as a Model Context Protocol (MCP) client. This means it can connect to and pull data from external apps and services using a common standard that AI tools are quickly following.

Otter has been around for almost a decade now, but it’s been evolving into a business development tool in the last few months. Last August, the company launched an action plan agencies to create standard MCPs to access Otter data outside of the program. The company’s latest move is to bring more external information into the app.

With this setup, users can connect their Gmail, Google Drive, Notion, Jira, and Salesforce accounts and query the data along with existing data. The company said it will soon allow integration with Microsoft Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, and Slack. Users can not only search for information on these devices but can also push meeting summaries to Notion or write a Gmail message.

The company said it has also redesigned its AI assistant to be always available on all screens, so users can ask questions at any time. The agent can understand what is happening on the screen, such as a particular meeting or channel, and answer questions accordingly.

By now, many note takers are following suit The Granola Leader and tolerance filming of the Beauty conference – record meetings using the device’s audio system instead of having a bot join the call. Otter said it brought this feature to a Mac app late last year, and is now launching a Windows app with a similar feature.

There has been a debate over writing conferences with bots (where a bot joins the conference) or without bots. Otter CEO Sam Liang said the company’s business customers love when a conference recorder joins them on the phone.

“When we talk to business customers, many of them like the pen that goes into the Zoom meeting because it provides transparency. They also like the meeting notes to be shared with all the meeting attendees, so that the note is not limited to one person,” he told TechCrunch by phone.

Otter said it has a removal feature that prevents a group of bots from joining a meeting at the same time to avoid situations where there are more bots than people on the phone.

Last year, the company said 25 million users and $100 million a year. Although the company did not provide new revenue, it said that the platform has 35 million users.