Granola vs Teams Copilot for Meeting Notes

In Granola vs Teams Copilot, Copilot covers internal Teams meetings if your company pays for it, and Granola covers what Copilot cannot reach: Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams meetings hosted by other companies. At Layer3Labs, we build the workflows that carry meeting notes into client CRMs and project tools, so we look first at which calls each tool can capture. Copilot costs $30 per user per month on an annual plan as of October 2026, and it needs a qualifying Microsoft 365 license underneath.

Granola approaches note-taking from the user's desktop rather than the meeting server. The Granola app transcribes system audio and your microphone on macOS and Windows without sending a bot into the call. That architecture lets Granola capture conversations across Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, and internet phone calls while keeping your notes private until you choose to share them.

Microsoft Copilot runs inside Teams for licensed users and writes recaps and suggested action items from the Teams transcript. Microsoft lists the $30 price on its Copilot enterprise pricing page.

Granola vs. Microsoft Copilot in Teams: Side-by-Side

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Granola vs Teams Copilot: Which to Choose

Copilot in Teams is the better pick when nearly all your meetings are Teams calls inside your own organization and your company pays for Microsoft Copilot at $30 per user per month. Granola is the better pick when you also meet on Zoom or Google Meet, join Teams calls that clients host, or want notes you write yourself. Copilot does not work in meetings hosted outside your organization, so that boundary decides most cases.

Microsoft Copilot is not suitable for consultants, agencies, or sales representatives who spend their days on client-hosted calls, because Copilot does not work when an outside organization hosts the Teams meeting. Granola is not suitable for teams that want notes from meetings nobody on the team attends, because Granola only transcribes on a device running the app. Those teams should compare bot-based recorders in our best AI note-takers roundup.

Our recommendation would change if Microsoft permitted Copilot to transcribe and summarize meetings hosted by external tenants, or if Granola introduced a meeting bot that records calls without a desktop app running.

• Choose Granola if your team joins meetings across multiple video conferencing platforms like Zoom and Google Meet, frequently attends calls hosted by external organizations, or prefers personal note-taking augmented by artificial intelligence (AI).
• Choose Microsoft Copilot in Teams if your company holds nearly all meetings internally on Microsoft Teams and pays for Copilot licenses on top of a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan.

What Copilot Does in a Teams Meeting

Microsoft Copilot operates natively inside Microsoft Teams to generate real-time discussion summaries, action items, and conversational answers during and after your calls. During a live meeting, you can ask Copilot what has been said so far, including who said what, instead of scrolling the transcript.

For Copilot to function, Teams must generate a transcript. Administrators can configure meetings to retain full transcripts or use temporary speech-to-text data that deletes permanently when the meeting ends. Post-meeting recaps require either a Teams Premium license or a Microsoft Copilot license, though audio recap requires Copilot according to Teams intelligent recap documentation. Recaps include AI meeting notes, recommended tasks, speaker timeline markers, and topic chapters.

Copilot also introduces the Facilitator agent, detailed in Facilitator in Teams. Facilitator posts collaborative, real-time notes directly to the meeting Notes tab and answers questions in the meeting chat for all attendees to view. Facilitator does not function in 1:1 chats, group chats, or external meetings, and supports single-language calls only. Facilitator stored its notes as a Loop file in the OneDrive of the person who started it, and Microsoft set July 31, 2026 as the end of Loop file generation. Microsoft has updated its brand naming: Microsoft 365 Copilot is now named Microsoft Copilot, and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is named Microsoft Copilot Chat per Microsoft Copilot privacy documentation.

Where Each Note-Taker Works Across Calls

Granola works in any desktop meeting app. Copilot works only in Teams meetings hosted inside your own organization.

According to Teams support documentation, Copilot will not work in meetings that are hosted outside the participant's organization. If a client invites your team to a Teams link generated from their company tenant, Copilot cannot transcribe or summarize that discussion. Copilot also lacks official desktop audio capture for Zoom or Google Meet calls, though it does cover Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) calls through Teams Phone, OneNote Copilot Notebooks on iPhone for in-person audio, and Teams Rooms hardware.

Granola's desktop app is not tied to any meeting platform, because it transcribes whatever audio plays on your computer. Per Granola transcription documentation, Granola runs locally on macOS (requiring macOS 14 or later) and Windows, transcribing computer audio and microphone input without sending a bot into the call. This architecture allows Granola to transcribe Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and voice-over-IP calls identically. Granola also captures screen snapshots of shared decks on macOS, and provides companion apps on iOS, Android, and Apple Watch for in-person conversations, with outbound phone call transcription on iOS.

Licensing and Cost in Granola vs Teams Copilot

Copilot costs more per seat and needs a Microsoft 365 plan underneath. Granola Business costs $14 per user per month on its own. All pricing figures reflect published rates as of October 2026. Confirm current pricing on the Granola pricing page and the Microsoft Copilot pricing page.

Microsoft 365 Copilot enterprise costs $30.00 per user per month paid yearly through an auto-renewing annual contract. For small and mid-sized businesses (SMB), Copilot Business carries a promotional rate starting at $18.00 per user per month (discounted from $21.00) running through December 31, 2026. Bundles include Business Standard with Copilot at $23.50 per user per month and Business Premium with Copilot at $32.00 per user per month on annual billing. Purchasing Copilot requires an underlying qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription. A Teams Premium license also includes intelligent recap. Microsoft's Teams add-on licensing page describes Teams Premium without a price, and since April 1, 2026 some former Teams Premium features come with Teams Enterprise.

Granola operates on per-workspace seat pricing with no required base office suite, as documented in Granola billing documentation. Basic is $0 per user per month with unlimited transcription and 30 days of visible meeting history. Business is $14 per user per month billed monthly, offering unlimited history, advanced AI models, and workflow integrations. Enterprise is listed at $35 per user per month (billing documentation states from $35 per user per month) with monthly or annual options, adding Single Sign-On (SSO) for teams with 50 or more users, an Audit API, and HIPAA compliance. Basic and Business plans are billed monthly only, with no annual billing options published.

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Human-Authored Notes Compared to Automated Summaries

Granola builds its summary around the notes you type during the call, while Copilot writes its recap from the Teams transcript with no typing needed.

Granola centers on human-guided AI notes. During a meeting, you type raw observations, shorthand, or key numbers directly into the editor. Granola uses your personal notes as guidance for the AI, combining what you considered important with verbatim transcript evidence. Notes remain private to the author until intentionally shared, and users can customize outputs using note templates, prompt templates called Recipes, and direct markdown copying.

Copilot creates standardized summaries, action items, and topic chapters without requiring participant typing. Through Facilitator, Copilot maintains public meeting notes in the shared Notes tab where all participants can edit them collaboratively. Prompts sent to Facilitator display publicly in the meeting thread, creating an open shared log rather than a private notepad.

Data Storage and Model Training Defaults

Microsoft Copilot keeps EU customer traffic inside the EU Data Boundary, while Granola stores all data on Amazon Web Services servers in the United States with no EU residency option.

Microsoft Copilot also falls under Microsoft's GDPR commitments for commercial customers, per Microsoft Copilot privacy documentation. Customer prompts, responses, and data accessed via Microsoft Graph are never used to train foundation large language models (LLMs). Microsoft names OpenAI and Anthropic as subprocessors inside Copilot, so a vendor review for Copilot should cover both.

Granola maintains System and Organization Controls (SOC) 2 Type II certification, as detailed in Granola security documentation. Audio is temporarily cached during meetings and deleted immediately after transcription completes. On Basic and Business plans, anonymized user data may be used for internal model training unless the user opts out in settings; Enterprise workspaces have model training disabled by default. HIPAA compliance and a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) are available exclusively on Enterprise plans and cover desktop applications only, per Granola HIPAA documentation.

Running Granola vs Teams Copilot in the Same Meeting

You can run both in the same Teams meeting. Granola transcribes your computer's audio and needs no bot and no Teams admin access, so it runs on your laptop while Copilot works inside the call.

Running both tools lets a professional maintain private, candid notes in Granola while Copilot generates the official, public recap for internal attendees.

For teams evaluating Microsoft deployments, our guides on Microsoft Copilot for small business and Microsoft Copilot HIPAA compliance detail tenant configurations. For Granola users, downstream notes can sync to tools like Slack or Notion, or reach AI assistants such as Claude and ChatGPT through Granola's Model Context Protocol (MCP) server.

The Verdict

The decision between Granola and Microsoft Copilot in Teams comes down to meeting boundaries and note ownership. Choose Microsoft Copilot if your organization is already anchored in Microsoft 365, conducts nearly all calls inside Teams with internal colleagues, and needs automated recaps visible across your calendar. Copilot needs no separate app and works inside Word, Outlook, and Microsoft Graph.

Choose Granola if your daily schedule crosses platforms into Zoom, Google Meet, and external Teams meetings where Microsoft Copilot is disabled. Granola is also the superior choice for professionals who want personal control over their notes, allowing them to jot shorthand that guides AI formatting without broadcasting raw transcripts or bot attendees to the entire call.

If your budget allows only one paid tool and your team frequently collaborates with outside partners, start with Granola Business at $14 per month to preserve cross-platform flexibility without an annual lock-in. To test Granola vs Teams Copilot on your own calendar, run Granola on your next client call hosted outside your company and Copilot on your next internal Teams meeting.