Sistava

Fireflies: How to Use AskFred to Search Meetings

How-to — — by Mahmoud Zalt

Where AskFred lives, how to ask questions across every past meeting, how to narrow answers with mentions, and what it costs in AI credits.

Transcripts pile up faster than anyone reads them. After a few months you have a searchable archive that nobody searches, because keyword search only helps when you remember the exact words someone used. AskFred is Fireflies' answer to that, and it is the feature most likely to change whether the whole tool earns its place.

The mental shift is to stop searching and start asking. Instead of hunting for the call where pricing came up, you ask what the client said about budget, and you get an answer with links to where it was said.

Where do you find AskFred?

Fireflies documents four entry points, which is generous for one feature. Pick whichever suits how you work and ignore the rest.

AskFred is also available inside an individual meeting's notepad, which scopes the conversation to that one meeting. Use that when you know which call you need and want to interrogate it rather than skim nine thousand words of transcript.

What can you actually ask it?

Natural language questions across your meeting history. Fireflies' own examples run along the lines of asking for the key highlights from last week, or for a list of action items from recent meetings, and the documented use cases cover summaries, action item extraction, and spotting trends or patterns across calls.

It also accepts input beyond typing. Their documentation describes voice-dictated queries and the ability to attach files or photos to a question, plus a web search toggle for questions that go beyond your meetings entirely.

The best questions are the ones you would put to a colleague who sat in every call. Not what did we discuss, but what has this client asked for twice that we have not delivered. The first is a search. The second is the thing the archive was always supposed to be for.

Get a useful answer out of AskFred

  1. Open it with the keyboard shortcut — Ctrl+J on Windows or Cmd+J on a Mac, from anywhere in the app. Building this habit is what makes the feature part of your day rather than something you remember exists.
  2. Ask one question, specifically — Compound questions get compound answers where half the parts are shallow. Ask about one client, one decision, or one theme, then follow up. Fireflies suggests follow-up questions after each answer, so following the thread is cheap.
  3. Narrow it with @ mentions — Their documentation describes adding context by mentioning specific meetings, people, or user groups with an @ symbol. This is the difference between an answer drawn from everything and an answer drawn from the four calls that matter.
  4. Turn web search on only when you need it — There is a toggle for general questions that reach outside your meetings. Leave it off when you want answers grounded strictly in what was said on your calls.
  5. Pick a model if the default is not working — Fireflies documents a model selector offering options from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. Most people never need to touch it, but it is there if a particular kind of question consistently disappoints.
  6. Check the citations before you act — Answers come with source citations back to the meetings they came from. Open one. An answer that sounds right and cites a meeting where nobody said that is exactly the failure worth catching early.
  7. Watch the credit counter — Their documentation notes each answer shows the AI credits consumed. Glance at it on your first few queries so you learn which kinds of question are expensive before you find out from your balance.

How does it work during a live meeting?

Fireflies documents AskFred inside a Live Assist pane that appears during an active meeting, in a right side panel. The notetaker has to be in the meeting and you have to be logged into Fireflies. Their documentation states no browser extension is required, though one exists.

You reach Live Assist from a link posted in the meeting chat, or from the live notes control on the Fireflies dashboard. Once open, you can ask about what is being discussed right now, and their documentation says it can also reference discussions from the last thirty days of meetings.

That thirty day window is the genuinely useful bit. Being able to check what a client said last month while they are still on the call is a real advantage, and it is hard to do any other way without interrupting the conversation to go digging.

What does it cost in AI credits?

Fireflies uses what they describe as dynamic credit pricing, where the number of credits a query consumes depends on its complexity and the effort involved. There is no flat per-question price to plan around, which is honest but means the counter is worth watching.

Free accounts start with 20 AI credits, shared across AskFred and the other AI features. Their documentation on automating AskFred also states that for paid users on Pro and above, AskFred within the meeting notepad does not consume credits at all, which makes single-meeting questions effectively unlimited on a paid plan.

On the pricing page, checked on 17 August 2026, the plans listed 20 credits on Free and Pro, 30 on Business, and 50 on Enterprise. Treat those as a snapshot, since the whole point of a credit system is that the allocations get tuned.

How do you turn a good question into a repeating one?

Fireflies calls these AskFred Apps, and they appear in the interface as AI Skills. They are reusable prompts, so a question you find yourself asking after every sales call becomes something that runs on its own instead.

The creation flow starts from an answer you already liked. You ask your question, get a response, then choose Automate. You give the skill a name and description, then configure its schedule, output type, visibility, and which meetings it applies to, and create it. Their documentation describes reaching your saved skills afterwards from a four-square icon inside AskFred, with an active skills tab where each one can be toggled, customised, or deleted.

This is the point where a notetaker gets closest to doing work rather than storing it, and it is a well-designed feature. It is also where the ceiling shows: a skill produces a better answer, on schedule, in Fireflies. Someone still opens it, decides what to do, and does it. That last step is what we built Sistava around, where you hire an AI Employee, tell it in plain English what should happen after your calls, and it carries the follow-through instead of preparing you to.

What is worth setting up first?

Learn the shortcut, then spend ten minutes asking real questions about last month. You will find out quickly whether your transcripts contain what you thought they contained, which is worth knowing regardless.

After that, pick the one question you ask after every call of a particular type and turn it into a skill. One good skill used weekly beats six that you built in an enthusiastic afternoon and never opened again.

FAQ

How do I open AskFred quickly?

Press Ctrl+J, or Cmd+J on a Mac, from anywhere in the Fireflies app. Fireflies also documents three other entry points: an AskFred item in the left navigation that opens the full workspace, a chat bar at the bottom of the home page, and an option to try AskFred from the top search bar after you click into it.

Can AskFred answer across all my past meetings at once?

Yes. That is the main use case for the full AskFred workspace, as opposed to the version scoped to a single meeting's notepad. You can ask about themes, recurring requests, or action items across your history, and narrow the scope using @ mentions to point it at specific meetings, people, or user groups.

Does AskFred cost credits every time I use it?

It depends where you use it and what plan you are on. Fireflies documents dynamic credit pricing where consumption varies with the complexity of the query, and their documentation on automating AskFred states that for paid users on Pro and above, AskFred within the meeting notepad is free and consumes no credits. Free accounts start with 20 AI credits shared across all AI features.

Can I use AskFred while a meeting is happening?

Yes, through the Live Assist pane, which shows AskFred in a side panel during an active meeting. The notetaker needs to be in the meeting and you need to be logged in. Fireflies documents that it can answer about the current conversation and reference the last thirty days of meetings, and that no browser extension is required.

Can I make AskFred run a question automatically after every meeting?

Yes, using AskFred Apps, shown in the interface as AI Skills. Ask your question, then select Automate on the answer, give the skill a name and description, and configure its schedule, output, visibility, and which meetings it applies to. Saved skills are reachable from the four-square icon in AskFred and can be toggled on or off individually.

Can I choose which AI model AskFred uses?

Fireflies documents a model selector within AskFred offering options from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. Most questions do not need you to change it. It becomes worth trying when a particular type of question consistently produces answers that feel thin, since different models handle long-context reasoning differently.

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