Otter Answered the Lawsuit. Where the Notetaker Cases Stand in October 2026

Three lawsuits now set the legal frame for AI meeting assistants, and all three moved in the past two months. None has produced a finding of liability. Here is where each one stands as of 14 October 2026, plus two changes outside the courtroom that matter just as much: Microsoft’s new bot blocking in Teams and California’s CIPA reform.

This is a status update. For the background, start with our pieces on the August Otter ruling and the Granola complaint.

Otter.ai: an answer, denials, and a 2027 timetable

In re Otter.AI Privacy Litigation, No. 5:25-cv-06911-EKL (N.D. Cal.), is the most advanced case in the category. On 13 August Judge Eumi K. Lee let claims under the federal wiretap act, California’s Invasion of Privacy Act (section 631 for all plaintiffs, and section 632 for one of them), Illinois’s biometric privacy law (BIPA), unjust enrichment, and California’s unfair competition law proceed, along with a declaratory-judgment claim.

Since then:

• 20 August: the magistrate judge asked the parties to clarify their proposed protective order, which is what parties need before exchanging confidential documents. The case is in discovery.
• 16 September: Judge Lee extended the schedule. The class-certification motion is due 13 May 2027, the last day to hear it is 15 September 2027, and a trial-setting conference follows on 1 December 2027. She wrote that she is “not inclined to further extend these deadlines.”
• 17 September: Otter filed a 91-page answer. It denies the complaint’s allegations that it creates and stores voiceprints, that it fails to obtain consent, and that it fails to disclose its training practices. It raises nine affirmative defenses, including the statute of limitations and an argument that any recording was the intentional act of others.

Two things follow. First, there will be no class-certification ruling before late 2027, so anyone hoping the case would quietly go away should plan around it for at least another year. Second, Otter is fighting on the facts, especially the voiceprint question that drives the BIPA claim. Those are denials, not findings, and they will be tested in discovery.

One sentence did not change. Otter’s privacy policy still says: “We train our proprietary artificial intelligence on de-identified audio recordings.” The complaint quotes it. Otter’s answer says the document speaks for itself. That default is why Otter.ai scores 2 on our training-transparency criterion.

Granola: no response on the merits yet

Chamberlain v. Granola, Inc., No. 3:26-cv-07926-EMC (N.D. Cal.), alleges that Granola’s silent, bot-free capture recorded a non-user without notice and that Granola trains on meeting content by default.

The docket has been busy with procedure: stipulations, a corporate disclosure, an administrative motion, an opposition to a motion, and on 13 October an order that set or reset a hearing. None of those filings is freely available, and no answer or motion to dismiss appears on the docket yet. The fair summary is that Granola has not yet responded to the complaint on the merits.

Fireflies: waiting on a motion to dismiss

The consolidated Illinois voiceprint case, Fricker v. Fireflies.AI, No. 1:26-cv-02675 (N.D. Ill.), is fully briefed. Fireflies moved to dismiss on 15 July, the plaintiffs opposed on 12 August, and Fireflies replied on 26 August. Discovery is stayed until the court rules.

Fireflies makes three arguments: the plaintiffs lack standing for the BIPA retention-policy claim, the Illinois court has no personal jurisdiction over the company, and the claims fail anyway because Illinois law cannot reach conduct outside the state and the disclosure claim is speculative. Its brief also stresses that the complaint pleads key facts only “on information and belief.” A ruling could come at any time. A separate California case against Fireflies has been stayed since April.

Teams starts blocking bots this month

Outside the courts, the most practical change is Microsoft’s. Message Center notice MC1459141 adds a “Manage bots” setting to Teams that automatically blocks identified external meeting bots. It reached Targeted Release in September and is rolling out worldwide through October 2026.

Three details matter:

• It is off by default. An admin has to turn it on, for everyone or for specific users and groups.
• It blocks only bots Teams can detect.
• It affects bot-based notetakers (the ones that join as a participant), not tools that capture audio on your own device.

Combined with Google Meet’s 2026 default of flagging and holding unverified bots, this means bot-based notetakers increasingly depend on each host’s settings. Our Microsoft Teams guide ranks the tools that work without a bot.

Microsoft is also testing its own bot-free option. Copilot Notebooks “Capture,” currently limited to Office Insiders on Windows, transcribes non-Teams meetings such as Zoom and Meet without a bot. Microsoft’s support page says the audio is handled transiently and not kept after transcription, and that “you’re responsible for obtaining consent from all participants.”

California’s CIPA reform does not help notetakers

On 30 September Governor Newsom signed SB 690, which removes private lawsuits under CIPA for pen-register and trap-and-trace claims about website and app tracking. Those claims had produced a wave of litigation over analytics pixels.

Earlier drafts also touched CIPA’s wiretap section (631) and its confidential-recording section (632). Those parts were dropped before the bill passed. Sections 631 and 632 are the CIPA claims in the Otter and Granola cases, so California’s reform changes nothing for AI notetakers. Recording a confidential conversation in California still requires everyone’s consent.

What this means if you are choosing a tool

The cases differ, but they ask the same question: does the vendor keep its own copy of the meeting and use it for its own purposes? Otter’s training default, Granola’s training default, and Fireflies’s alleged voiceprints are all versions of that question.

So the three checks we recommend have not changed. They have only become easier to justify to a legal team:

1. Where does the audio go? A tool that processes on-device, such as Hedy on supported hardware or MacWhisper, does not create a vendor copy at all. Our fact sheet lists where each tool processes.
2. Does the vendor train on it by default? If yes, turn the opt-out on for every user, not just the ones who find the setting.
3. Who tells the other participants? No tool removes this duty. A bot announces itself badly. A bot-free tool does not announce itself at all. Say it out loud at the start of the call.

We will update this page when the Fireflies motion is decided or Granola responds.