Proactive work agents, compared: Granola, Otter, Fireflies, Motion, Lindy and Driffle

Most AI tools at work still wait for you. You open a chat, you type, you get an answer. Useful, but you're still the one remembering what needs doing.

A newer group of tools works the other way round. They notice the meeting coming up, the follow-up you promised, the deadline that's about to slip, and they get started before you ask. We've started calling them proactive work agents, and makers keep launching them on Firstlaunch.

So we looked at six that come up again and again, going by what each one does today. None of them is best at everything. Each one is good at a different part of the day.

What "proactive" means here

There are roughly three levels, and most tools sit on one or two of them:

• It captures without being asked. Notes, transcripts and action items appear on their own.
• It prepares before you need it. A brief before the meeting, a warning before the deadline.
• It acts for you. It drafts the follow-up, moves the task, updates the CRM.

Keep those in mind as you read. It's the quickest way to see what each tool is really for.

Granola

For people with back-to-back meetings who still like taking their own notes.

Granola is an AI notepad. It listens through your computer's audio, so nothing joins the call. You jot down what matters, and it writes up the rest when the meeting ends: notes, action items and a draft follow-up. On paid plans it also prepares a brief before external meetings, and you can chat across all your past meetings. It runs on Mac, Windows, iOS and Android.

Why it's good

• No bot in the room, which keeps calls with customers and candidates feeling normal.
• Your own notes stay at the centre. The AI fills in around them instead of replacing them.
• The free plan has no cap on the number of notes.

Where it falls short

• Its proactive side is all about meetings. Work that happens outside a call isn't its job.
• The free plan only shows the last 30 days of history.
• Pre-meeting briefs and follow-up emails are on the Business plan, at $14 per user per month.

Otter

For teams that want every meeting transcribed, searchable and shared.

Otter has been doing transcription longer than most. It writes live transcripts with speakers, summaries and action items, and Otter AI Chat answers questions across your meetings and connected apps. It now has role-specific agents too: a sales agent that sends follow-ups and syncs your CRM, plus agents for recruiting, education, media and SDR work.

Why it's good

• Mature, reliable transcription, with a free Basic plan.
• The role agents go past notes into real follow-through, like CRM updates for sales.
• It's everywhere: Mac, Windows, iOS, Android and a Chrome extension.

Where it falls short

• Its meeting agent joins calls as a bot. You can record without one from the desktop app or the extension, but the bot is the default for many teams.
• The most proactive features are built for sales and recruiting. Outside those roles it's mostly a very good notetaker.
• Business starts at $19.99 per user per month.

Fireflies

For teams that live in their CRM and project tools.

Fireflies sends a notetaker into your calls, or joins every calendar meeting on its own, and transcribes in more than 100 languages. After the call it summarises, answers questions through AskFred, and pushes notes, tasks and call logs into tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, Asana and Greenhouse. Live Assist offers suggestions while the meeting is still going, and there are over 200 AI Skills for things like follow-up emails and candidate scoring.

Why it's good

• The deepest integrations of the meeting tools here. Notes don't stay in Fireflies, they go where your team works.
• Live Assist helps during the call, not just after it.
• Strong on security and compliance for larger teams.

Where it falls short

• It's bot-first. That's convenient for coverage and awkward on sensitive calls.
• Almost everything it does starts from a meeting.
• With this many features, getting the setup right takes some time.

Motion

For people whose real problem is the calendar, not the meeting.

Motion plans your time for you. It puts your tasks into your calendar based on deadlines and priorities, and re-plans the day when something moves. It also warns you days ahead when a task or project is at risk of slipping. Around that sit projects, docs and a meeting notetaker, all in one app.

Why it's good

• Proactive in a way the meeting tools aren't. It changes your plan when your plan stops working.
• The early warnings about missed deadlines are useful for anyone juggling several projects.
• One place for tasks, projects and calendar, if you want that.

Where it falls short

• There's no free plan, only a trial. Pro AI is listed at $19 per seat per month and Business AI at $29.
• It works best when you move all your tasks and projects into it. Half in, half out, and the planning gets worse.

Lindy

For teams that want an AI teammate working across their tools.

Lindy lives in Slack, email, iMessage and the web. You can @mention it in a channel, have it pull a report together from several tools, or set routines like a daily brief or a Friday marketing report. It also takes meeting notes, drafts email replies and nudges stalled deals. It claims more than 1,500 integrations.

Why it's good

• The widest reach here. It does real work across many tools, not just one part of the day.
• Scheduled routines make it proactive on a timetable you choose.
• Skills and memory can be shared across the team.

Where it falls short

• Pricing is credit-based, so cost grows with use. The free plan is $50 of credits for 7 days, and Team starts at $29.99 per user per month for 3,000 pooled credits.
• You decide what it should do. Its proactivity is something you set up rather than something you get out of the box.

Driffle

For people who want something that notices what they owe, across all their work and not just meetings.

Driffle is a Mac app that picks up context from your work in the background, with no bot joining anything. It remembers what happened, so you can ask what you promised or what's still open, and it drafts the update, the follow-up and the notes for you to check and send.

Why it's good

• It's the closest here to "notices first". It works from your whole workday, not just your calls or your calendar.
• No bot, and nothing for you to set up per meeting.
• It's free to download and start.

Where it falls short

• Mac only, and specifically Apple Silicon Macs on macOS 14.4 or later. Other platforms have no date yet.
• Its actions are in beta, so expect rough edges in the part that does things for you.
• It's the newest tool in this list, with the shortest track record.

At a glance

Tool	Best for	Joins calls as a bot	Where it runs	Free to start
Granola	Your own notes, made better	No	Mac, Windows, iOS, Android	Yes, with 30 days of history
Otter	Transcripts for the whole team	Optional	Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, Chrome	Yes
Fireflies	Meetings that feed your CRM	Yes	Web, desktop, mobile, Chrome	Yes
Motion	Planning your time	Not its focus	Desktop and mobile	Trial only
Lindy	An AI teammate across tools	Not its focus	Slack, email, iMessage, web	$50 credits for 7 days
Driffle	Noticing what you owe	No	Mac (Apple Silicon)	Yes

How to pick

• Your day is meetings and you like your own notes: Granola.
• You need shared transcripts across a team: Otter.
• Everything should end up in your CRM: Fireflies.
• Your calendar is the problem: Motion.
• You want an agent your whole team can hand work to: Lindy.
• You want something that keeps track of what you owe without being asked, and you're on a Mac: Driffle.

Prices and plans are as listed on each company's site in October 2026, and they change often. If you're building in this space, launch it on Firstlaunch. We'd like to see what comes next.