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Skip Out on Boring Zoom Meetings with Otter Assistant Chrome Extension

By Laura Tucker
Otter Assistant Featured

Is there anyone who really loves Zoom meetings? The problem is your boss or meeting leader requires you to attend. The Otter assistant Chrome extension allows you to skip the meeting, as it sits in for you and even takes notes on what you’re missing. Sounds like something you need to download before your next Zoom meeting, doesn’t it?

Otter Assistant Chrome Extension Allows You to Attend Two Meetings

Truthfully, the Otter Assistant co-founder and CEO Sam Ling isn’t pushing that you use the Chrome extension to skip your Zoom meetings. It’s being promoted as an aid for when you have two Zoom meetings scheduled at the same time. The Chrome extension will take notes for you in a meeting whether you attend or not.

“It could be that you have two meetings scheduled at the same time, and you can only enjoy one meeting at a time,” explained Ling. “So you can have your Otter assistant attend the other meeting on your behalf, take notes, then you can review the meeting notes afterwards.”

Otter Assistant Meeting Notes

It’s easy to see how you could have multiple meetings scheduled at the same time, as the Otter assistant Chrome extension isn’t just confined to Zoom meetings. It also works with Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and other major video conferencing services.

Otter can even monitor both of your conflicting meetings. It will transcribe both meetings, allowing you to sit in both meetings and switch back and forth.

“You could actually watch two live transcript streams at the same time,” said Ling. “You may be in one meeting where you don’t have to pay attention all the time. Part of the time, you can watch the live transcript of the other meeting, then maybe you could switch back and forth.”

Otter Assistant’s New Features

Now it’s even easier to use the Otter assistant Chrome extension to handle both conflicting video conference meetings. It now integrates with Google Calendar. When you set up a new meeting in Google Calendar, you can include an option to “Add Otter meeting notes.”

Everyone participating in the virtual meeting will receive a link to the transcript. It will be linked to the calendar entry as well and will make it easier to go back and find the notes.

Otter Assistant Skip Meeting

There’s already a pop-up window when you enter a videoconference meeting. However, the meeting leader needs to press record first. That is unless they are on the premium Business tier where this happens automatically.

“We really want [Otter] to be a collaborative experience,” added Ling, “so it’s important for everyone in the invitation list to be able to access the notes.”

And that’s where the rub is. You can’t use Otter to take notes unless your meeting leader is in on it. But it sounds like you could still use it to skip the meeting and make it look like you were there.

Sure, that doesn’t seem to be the purpose of the Otter assistant, but certainly, there are people trying to use it that way.

This all could get enhanced even more, as late last year, Zoom was developing Email and Calendar options for its service. Not only could that enhance your Zoom meeting, but it could also enhance the way Otter assistant is used.

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Laura Tucker Avatar
Laura Tucker
Laura has spent more than 20 years writing news, reviews, and op-eds, with the majority of those years as an editor as well. She has exclusively used Apple products for the past 35 years. In addition to writing and editing at MTE, she also runs the site’s sponsored review program.

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