Granola
Mac/iOS app (no hardware). Captures meeting audio via system-audio tap (no bot joining); generates notes from your shorthand + audio. Local audio processing claim; cloud for summaries. Enterprise tier opts out of model training.
At a glance
- Type
- Mac/iOS meeting notepad — system-audio tap
- Tier
- T1
- Section
- Voice-first / wearable AI memory
- Created
- 2023-05
- Latest release
- not applicable — not OSS
- License
- not applicable — not OSS
- GitHub
- not applicable — no GitHub repo
- Pricing
- Free + paid
- Funding
- $192M total $1.5B val Series C · 2026-03
Taxonomy
- storage
- file
- retrieval
- extraction-pull
- persistence
- long-term
- update
- append-only
- unit
- episode
- governance
- user-controllable
- conflict
- append
When to use
Optimised for: always-on capture + lifelog timeline + voice UX
Anti-fit: not for enterprise compliance-regulated environments without explicit consent flows
Pros & cons
Pros
Captures system audio without joining as a meeting bot — works for any meeting tool without admin rules; enterprise tier opts out of model training.
Cons
Mac/iOS only — no Windows/Linux story; cloud processing despite local-audio claim.
Claims & capabilities
$43M raised at $250M valuation (May 2025). "AI notepad for back-to-back meetings." Free (25 lifetime), Individual $18/mo, Business $14/user/mo, Enterprise $35+/user/mo.
Technical surface
- API surface
- searched not found
- Backend storage
- custom
- Deployment
- Managed-only
- Embedding model
- locked
- Multi-tenancy
- hard-isolation
- MCP
- searched not found
- A2A
- searched not found
- OpenTelemetry
- no — consumer product
Compare Granola with…
Similar systems
Other voice-first / wearable ai memory in the catalog, ranked by inbound references.
- Bee T1
Small wearable (pendant / clip / bracelet). Continuous capture; converts speech to text immediately; never stores raw audio . Daily summaries, personal fact sheet, to-do suggestions. Cloud processing on derived text only.
- Era Computer T5
Software platform / OS layer for AI wearables (glasses, rings, pendants, speakers) that abstracts hardware from AI orchestration. Memory and model providers are pluggable and user-controlled rather than cloud-locked; supports 130+ LLMs from 14+ providers. Founded 2025 by ex-Humane team.
- Friend T1
Pendant necklace (~2 inches). Always-on listening feeds a persistent AI companion persona. Companionship-framed rather than productivity / recall. Cloud LLM backend; no detailed encryption claims.
- Limitless T1
Continuously captures screen + audio + wearable input; AI search across the timeline. Privacy-first (local-first storage). Originated as Rewind macOS app; pivoted to wearable + lifelog product.
- Memories.ai LVMM 2.0 / Project LUCI T2
Developer-first reference platform for AI wearables. LVMM 2.0 captures visual data through video, encodes it into frames on-device, and stores moments as searchable memories; companion app surfaces past conversations/decisions/experiences. Hardware-level security via Qualcomm partnership; cloud sync for enterprise tiers.
- Omi T1
Wearable orb (necklace or clip) with open-source hardware + firmware. Continuous audio capture; real-time GPT-4o transcription; searchable memory graph. Supports app screen capture too. Hybrid privacy: cloud by default (SOC 2/HIPAA/AES-256), full local/self-hosted available under MIT.