I’m not a big fan of AI in general, but the one use case that makes a difference in what I do is transcribing audio to text. I attend a lot of briefings and meetings, and the ability to just have key notes transcribed automatically is just convenient (I used to waste hours doing this manually). I used Flowtica’s Scribe recorder in the last two months, and I enjoyed the novelty of it — it’s just great to be able to record everything and have it transcribed automatically.
Plaud is another brand that offers a similar product; it’s billed as the number one AI note-taking brand, and I’ve been testing the Plaud Note to see how it holds up. The Note usually retails at $159, but as with all things AI, there’s an associated plan — the Unlimited tier is $239 a year (I know), and the Pro plan has 20 hours of transcribing a month and costs $99 annually. The device comes with a Starter plan included, and that just covers five hours of AI-assisted transcribing, which is just insultingly low. On the bright side, the Note is currently on sale, bringing the cost down to $127.
I really like the design of the Plaud Note; the note-taking product is the size of a credit card, and the metal chassis gives it much-needed durability. The industrial design is much better than other AI-enabled products I used, and it has pogo pins to charge the internal battery.
It attaches to the back of a phone via the bundled magnetic ring or the leather case. I went with the included leather case as it’s just easier. Using the Plaud Note is about as straightforward as it gets; just download the Plaud app (it’s available on the App Store and Play Store), connect the device with the app by pressing down the button, and you can get started.
There’s a single button on the device, and a long press starts recording. There’s an LED light on the Plaud logo that glows red when it’s recording, and it serves as a good visual indicator. You’ll just need to press the button again to end a recording, and the recorded data is transferred to the connected phone automatically — although it might take a while if it’s a long recording.
If you’re using the Note in a meeting, you can short press anytime in between to highlight that section, and this is honestly a decent addition. There’s also a toggle on the device that lets you record phone calls; this is a pretty decent use case of the product if you need the feature.
Once you get the data into the Plaud app, it automatically starts transcribing the audio. It uses the GPT-5 model to transcribe, and it did a standout job in this regard — it didn’t make any notable errors. Also, you can choose your AI model, with Gemini 3 Pro and Claude 4 also available.
What I like the most about the Plaud app is that it has the ability to pull key quotes, provide detailed summaries, and so much more. If anything, this is the key differentiator for the product, and it did a much better job than I thought.
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At this point, you may be asking, “Wait, I have a recorder on my phone, and that basically does the same thing. So why do I need to buy this thing?” That’s a good question! Honestly, with how much phone recorders have changed in the last 12 months, you don’t need a dedicated device like the Plaud Note. Google’s Recorder on devices like the Pixel 10 Pro XL in particular is terrific, and it does a great job recording and summarizing.
Heck, this isn’t even limited to Pixels. My Find X9 Pro has a built-in recorder that leverages AI, and not only does it automatically transcribe audio, but it also generates summaries on its own. The best part is that you don’t need to pay anything to use these utilities.
Ultimately, the Plaud Note is a nice tool in its own right, and it does a great job transcribing meetings and providing actionable context. As a dedicated product, it is plenty useful in its own right, and the design is gorgeous. It has decent standby battery life as well, and the small size means you can take it anywhere, or just have it attached to your phone. If you’re a student or an exec who attends a lot of meetings, I can see this coming in handy, but the monthly cost is ultimately a huge limitation.
Whether you actually need it comes down to whether you’re willing to pay the monthly fee on top of what the hardware costs just to get the most out of the product. If so, then yes, you should get the Plaud Note — it does a better job than any other AI note-taking device I used. If you just need basic transcribing and summarization, your Android phone does that without any issues. And at $127, you can pay a little less to get the device itself, but you need to act now.
