Otter.ai just made its biggest strategic pivot since launching in 2016. The AI transcription company is rolling out a comprehensive enterprise suite designed to transform meeting recordings into searchable corporate knowledge bases, marking CEO Sam Liang's aggressive push to compete beyond the crowded meeting notes market that now includes dozens of AI-powered competitors.
Otter.ai CEO Sam Liang isn't mincing words about his company's evolution. "We are evolving from a meeting notetaker to a corporate meeting knowledge base," Liang told TechCrunch in an exclusive interview. "This is a system record for conversations that can help corporations scale their growth and drive measurable business value."
The Silicon Valley startup's Tuesday product launch represents its most ambitious pivot since founding in 2016. The new enterprise suite includes three core components: a comprehensive API for building custom integrations with platforms like Jira and HubSpot, an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that connects users' Otter data to external AI models, and a new AI agent capable of searching across a company's entire meeting archive and presentations.
This strategic repositioning comes as the meeting transcription space has exploded from a handful of players in 2016 to a crowded field of AI-powered competitors. The 2022 AI boom fueled a surge in well-funded startups like Granola, which raised $4.3 million at a $250 million valuation, and Y Combinator-backed Circleback. Even established players like Fireflies have seen their valuations surge past $1 billion.
Liang's response? Don't compete in the same category. "This transition puts Otter into a separate division than its former peers," he argues, positioning the company as an enterprise knowledge management platform rather than just another meeting recorder.
The timing reflects a deeper understanding of where corporate inefficiency actually lies. "Meetings are where the majority of company knowledge is stored," Liang explains, "whether that's notes from a customer sales call or discussions around a marketing strategy. But without a centralized place for these meeting notes, that information can only help a company so much."
Liang points to a familiar corporate pain point: information silos. "A lot of times, inefficiency happens because of information silos," he said. "One team doesn't know what the other team is doing, and it thinks that was planned like a month ago. Oftentimes the plan changes, but not everybody is informed."
