GILD verdict
If your meetings run in Teams and people already need Copilot for mail and documents, use Copilot in Teams.
Skip a second notetaker there. Buy Fireflies for the teams whose calls span Zoom, Meet, and customer-hosted meetings, or who need recordings in the CRM. Billed annually, Fireflies Pro at US$10 a seat a month costs US$11 less than Microsoft 365 Copilot Business at US$21, and Fireflies Business at US$19 costs US$2 less. Copilot Business is US$18 in its first year on orders placed from July 1 to December 31, 2026. Either way, decide who sees the output, because Fireflies emails recaps to every invitee by default.
Case Western Reserve and Virginia Tech block Fireflies and other third-party notetakers, and Virginia Tech points staff to the assistants built into Zoom and Teams. Copilot's meeting help stops at Teams, for participants with a Copilot license. Licensed users can ask Copilot about a Teams meeting during and after it, and the Facilitator agent keeps shared notes. Fireflies is a dedicated notetaker that records Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams alike and sends recaps to attendees.
Choosing between Fireflies and Microsoft Copilot
Choose Fireflies if
- Meetings run on Zoom and Google Meet as well as Teams, or with customers who host on their own platform.
- The people who need meeting notes, such as a sales team, would otherwise need a Copilot license for nothing but meetings.
- You want recordings filed in HubSpot or Salesforce and recaps sent to participants after each call.
Choose Microsoft Copilot if
- Nearly every meeting runs in Teams, and the people in them already need Copilot for Outlook, Word, and Excel.
- Meeting data should stay inside Microsoft 365, under the tenant's existing retention and compliance policies.
- Some meetings should get AI help with no transcript kept, which the Only during the meeting option allows.
Side by side
| Dimension | Fireflies | Microsoft Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Primary job | A meeting assistant that records, transcribes, and summarizes calls on any major platform | AI across Microsoft 365 apps, including Copilot in Teams meetings and the Facilitator agent |
| Where it works | Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and other platforms through a bot. Desktop, Chrome, and mobile capture without one | Teams meetings and events of up to 1,000 attendees, for participants with a Copilot license |
| PriceList prices in US dollars. Copilot is an add-on to a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan. | Pro US$10, Business US$19, Enterprise US$39 per seat a month, billed annually | Microsoft 365 Copilot US$30 per user a month paid yearly, or US$31.50 paid monthly on an annual commitment. Microsoft 365 Copilot Business US$21 paid yearly, US$18 in the first year on orders from July 1 to December 31, 2026, for eligible Business plans of up to 300 users |
| What is kept | Audio, transcript, and summary by default, with video from Pro. Enterprise can keep transcript and summary only, or the summary only | During and after the meeting needs a saved transcript. Only during the meeting uses speech-to-text data that isn't saved after the meeting ends |
| Who controls it | Each user's auto-join and recap settings, unless an admin locks them for the team | An admin policy, by default On with saved transcript required. Where the policy allows, organizers choose per meeting |
| Who sees the AI's output | Recap emails go to everyone on the invite by default, and the meeting opens to anyone with the link | A user's Copilot prompts and responses are private to that user. Facilitator's answers appear to everyone in the meeting |
| Model training | Meeting content never trains Fireflies' or its vendors' models | Prompts, responses, and data accessed through Microsoft Graph aren't used to train foundation LLMs |
| After the meeting | CRM sync, Slack, Notion, Zapier, webhooks, a GraphQL API, and an MCP server | Copilot in Word, Outlook, and Teams, and Facilitator's shared notes and Word documents |
| 50 people, 20 meeting hours each a monthList prices; Copilot's seat also covers mail, documents and search. | US$950 a month on Business at US$19 a seat billed annually. GILD's calculation from published rates, read Oct 28, 20261 | US$1,050 a month on Copilot Business at US$21 a seat paid yearly, over an existing qualifying Microsoft 365 plan. GILD's calculation from published rates, read Oct 28, 20268 |
| What universities did | Case Western Reserve and Virginia Tech block Fireflies and other third-party notetakers in university systems1415 | Virginia Tech points staff to the assistants built into Zoom and Microsoft Teams instead15 |
What practitioners report, side by side
Each product's figures come from its own practitioners, for the group you pick.
Overall signal
Fireflies reads +6 and Microsoft Copilot −3, each from its own practitioners. Fireflies: 18 positive, 16 negative of 36. Microsoft Copilot: 12 positive, 13 negative of 40.
The score counts the authors from leaders and teams that take a side, one vote each with their latest view, and is how far positive votes lead negative ones, per 100 votes, so Microsoft Copilot's −3 rests on votes split 12 positive, 13 mixed and 13 negative. Each of Fireflies's authors wrote one source here, so each source is one vote.
A lead of a fifth of the votes reads positive and a lead of half strong positive, with the same lines below zero. The dots show each source, positive, mixed, negative. Run a pilot on a month of real meetings to measure how much each summary needs editing before it is shared.
Footprint on the AI Knowledge Work stack
They differ on four of 7 layers. Fireflies owns one that Microsoft Copilot does not, and Microsoft Copilot owns two that Fireflies does not. Coverage is each product's placement on this stack, as its product page shows it. Core is a job the product owns; Supports and Touches are jobs it helps with. Coverage says nothing about how well a product does them.
| Layer | Fireflies | Microsoft Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Assist | ||
| AI assistant | Touches | Core |
| Find | ||
| Web research | Touches | Supports |
| Enterprise search | Supports | Core |
| Create | ||
| Meeting notes | Core | Supports |
The 3 layers where they match
| Layer | Fireflies | Microsoft Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Create | ||
| Documents | Supports | Supports |
| Analyze | ||
| Data analysis | Supports | Supports |
| Automate | ||
| Automation | Supports | Supports |
What practitioners praise
Among leaders and teams, Fireflies alone has three praise themes that reach 5 sources from 3 authors. Notes & Action Items and Searchable Record lead, at 8 of 8 each. Microsoft Copilot alone has three praise themes that reach 5 sources from 3 authors. Meeting Recaps and Enterprise Data Terms lead, at 5 of 5 and 5 of 7.
| Praised for | Fireflies | Microsoft Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Notes & Action Items | 8 of 8 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Searchable Record | 8 of 8 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Integrations & API | 6 of 6 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Meeting Recaps | Not a theme in its sources | 5 of 5 |
| Enterprise Data Terms | Not a theme in its sources | 5 of 7 |
| Agents & Cowork | Not a theme in its sources | 4 of 10 |
Each count is the sources that praise a theme, or raise it as a concern, out of those that discuss it. A row pairs the two products when both carry a theme under the same or an equivalent name.
A count ending in "so far" has under 5 sources from 3 authors among leaders and teams. "Not a theme in its sources" means GILD found no theme of that name in that product's sources.
What practitioners raise as concerns
Among leaders and teams, Microsoft Copilot alone has four concern themes that reach 5 sources from 3 authors. Admin Controls and Oversharing lead, at 6 of 6 and 5 of 5. Bot Control & Privacy reaches 5 sources from 3 authors only for Fireflies, at 17 of 22. Microsoft Copilot needs a pilot on the same meetings before you choose on it.
| Raised as a concern | Fireflies | Microsoft Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Bot Control & Privacy | 17 of 22 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Admin Controls | Not a theme in its sources | 6 of 6 |
| Oversharing | Not a theme in its sources | 5 of 5 |
| License Cost & Confusion | Not a theme in its sources | 5 of 6 |
| Low Adoption | Not a theme in its sources | 4 of 5 |
15 sources
- Fireflies pricing & plans
- Fireflies Knowledge Base: How Fireflies joins and records your meetings (FAQs)
- Fireflies Knowledge Base: Auto-join and email recap settings
- Fireflies Knowledge Base: How to configure privacy settings for your meeting recaps
- Fireflies Knowledge Base: Recording modes for compliance
- Fireflies Knowledge Base: How Fireflies.ai keeps your information safe
- Fireflies Knowledge Base: Autofill CRM for HubSpot
- Microsoft: Microsoft Copilot for business, plans and pricing
- Microsoft: Microsoft Copilot for enterprise, plans and pricing
- Microsoft Learn: Manage Microsoft Copilot in Teams meetings and events
- Microsoft Learn: Set up Facilitator in Microsoft Teams
- Microsoft Learn: Data, privacy, and security for Microsoft Copilot
- Microsoft Learn: Enterprise data protection in Microsoft Copilot and Copilot Chat
- Case Western Reserve University: upcoming third-party AI note-taker application block (Aug 27, 2025)
- Virginia Tech News: IT notice on AI meeting assistants (Mar 11, 2026)