Otter.ai: How to Use AI Chat to Search Your Meetings

Six months of recorded calls is an archive, not an answer. AI Chat is Otter's attempt to close that gap: you ask a question in plain language and it reads across your conversations rather than making you scroll one.

Most people use it as a slightly better search box and never touch the two features that make it worth the effort, which are context selection and source checking. Both take about ten seconds to learn.

Where do you find Otter AI Chat?

In two places that show the same thing. Otter documents a panel view on the right hand side, which you open with the Chat icon when the panel is collapsed, and an expanded view you reach by clicking AI Chat in the left navigation menu or choosing Expand from the panel.

You can use it from the homepage, from inside a single conversation, or from a channel, and Otter's documentation says the experience is the same in all three. Collapse takes you back to whatever you were reading, although that option only appears if you opened chat from the panel in the first place.

Otter also notes that all accounts are opted into AI Chat by default. If you cannot see it at all, that points at a workspace level setting rather than something you can fix from your own account.

How do you tell AI Chat which meetings to read?

Use the @ symbol. Otter documents that you can mention a conversation, a channel or a folder to add it as context, and that a search box helps you filter down to the right one. Whatever you select appears next to the @ in your message.

Ask a question with the right context

1. Open AI Chat — Click AI Chat in the left navigation, or open the right hand panel with the Chat icon.
2. Add your context — Type @ and pick the conversation, channel or folder you want it to read. Use the search to narrow the list.
3. Write a specific prompt — Otter's guidance is to be detailed and specific. Say what you want, in what shape, and for which period.
4. Check the sources — Each answer shows the conversations used as links you can click to open the original.
5. Refine in the same session — Ask it to rephrase or add detail. Otter documents that it builds on your earlier questions within the session, and you can add or remove context as you go.

The source checking deserves attention, because it is the difference between a summary you can act on and one you have to verify by hand. Otter shows the conversations that produced each answer as links with the conversation title, and there is a Show thinking control that reveals how the answer was assembled.

Otter attaches a plain disclaimer to all of this: responses come from AI language models and may not always be up to date or factually correct, and you should apply your own judgement. That is honest, and it is the right reason to click through to the source before forwarding a summary to a client.

What are good prompts to use?

Specific ones with a shape attached. Otter's own documentation publishes example prompts, and the pattern behind them is worth copying: name the scope, name the output format, name the level of detail.

• Pull structure out of a range of meetings. Otter's example asks it to summarise the last five meetings into key topics, add a timestamp for each topic, and give three to five bullet points per topic.
• Find the friction. Another asks what key concerns were raised, by whom, and what the resolution was for each if one was discussed.
• Attribute decisions to people. One example asks for the speakers in a named meeting, with a short paragraph on each person's decisions and action items as separate bullets.
• Draft something you were going to write anyway. Otter's example drafts an email summary of the last two meetings on a topic, listing action items and who they are assigned to.
• Compare across a set. One asks it to review the last three interview meetings and summarise each interviewee's strengths and weaknesses.

Otter also surfaces starter prompts if you are not sure what to ask. Those are fine for a first try, but the examples above are the ones that produce something you can actually paste into a document.

What are Express and Advanced mode, and what are connectors?

Otter documents two response modes, Express and Advanced, described as offering different levels of reasoning, integration and speed. You switch between them as needed. The reason to care is that connectors only work in Advanced mode.

Connectors let AI Chat reach outside Otter into other tools. Otter's documentation lists Google Drive, Gmail, Jira and Notion, with Salesforce named for Enterprise users. You add one from the AI Chat menu or the Integrations page by clicking Add, signing in and clicking Allow, then toggle connectors on or off to control what is in scope for a given question.

Otter states that connector availability may vary by plan and points readers at the pricing page. On that page, read on 17 August 2026, AI Chat with Gmail, Google Drive, Notion and Jira appears in the Enterprise column. Otter also documents a known Jira issue where Atlassian organisation policies block the connection, which the Atlassian admin has to resolve on their side.

How many AI Chat questions do you get?

Fewer than you would guess, and this is the limit that ends most experiments. These numbers come from Otter's own pricing comparison table, read on 17 August 2026.

Twenty questions a month is roughly one per working day, and the three per conversation limit means you cannot iterate much on a single meeting. Plan your prompts rather than chatting your way toward the answer, and lean on the specific example shapes above.

What arrives automatically without you asking?

A meeting summary email. Otter documents that when you record a meeting for a calendar event synced to Otter, you and the calendar guests receive a summary email within two hours of the meeting ending, though it notes that longer conversations can take an hour or more to process.

• The event must be synced. It needs to appear on your Otter home page calendar.
• Auto-share to guests must be on. Otter points to the default audience for shared notes setting under Account Settings and Meetings, or per event on the homepage.
• Record it through Otter. Web, mobile or the notetaker, with the notetaker recommended in their documentation.
• Short meetings may not qualify. Otter states guests will not receive the email if there are no action items and the conversation is 500 words or fewer, in which case only the owner gets it.

The email itself can carry the meeting details, the automated summary, any action items created during the call, and slides captured by automated slide capture. Notification control lives under Account Settings and Notifications, in the meeting summary section.

Asking versus doing

Notice the shape of everything above. You ask, it answers, you read the answer, and then you go and do the thing. Even the connectors mostly move information toward you rather than moving work away from you. The chat is a very good librarian for a very large archive.

The step after the answer is what we built Sistava around. Rather than querying a transcript archive and then acting on what you find, you hire an AI Employee and tell it in plain English what should happen: send the recap to the two people who missed it, update the deal record with what was agreed, chase the thing you promised by Thursday. It has the tools connected already, it asks you when it is unsure, and there is no query budget to ration.

None of that takes anything away from what Otter has built here. Showing the source conversations behind every answer, and exposing the reasoning through Show thinking, is more transparency than a lot of AI features offer. If searching across your own recorded history is the job, AI Chat does it well.

Sources

• Otter.ai Help Center, Otter AI Chat Overview
• Otter.ai Help Center, Asking Otter AI Chat questions
• Otter.ai Help Center, Meeting Summary Overview
• Otter.ai Help Center, Otter Quick Start Guide
• Otter.ai, Pricing, plan comparison table read on 17 August 2026