Granola AI: Where human thinking meets AI memory

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Granola AI: Where human thinking meets AI memory

Granola is one of the most thoughtful AI applications we’ve seen recently—not because it uses cutting-edge models, but because it deeply understands how humans actually take notes in meetings.

At a glance, Granola feels familiar. It looks and behaves a lot like Apple Notes.

But under the hood, it quietly does something far more ambitious: it listens to your meeting, then enhances the notes you wrote, instead of replacing them.

That distinction is what makes Granola special.

What Is Granola AI?

Granola is an AI-powered meeting notes tool available as a native app on macOS and iPhone.

But unlike most AI meeting assistants, Granola does not try to automate note-taking end to end. Instead, it’s built around a clear division of labor:

You write what you’re thinking
AI captures what everyone is saying
After the meeting, AI combines both into a clean, structured note

Think of it as:

Apple Notes + meeting transcription + post-meeting AI enrichment

The Granola Experience

We’ve tested Granola on MacBook Air M2, and here’s our hands-on experience.

Note: On macOS, Granola runs as an app that records system audio (with your permission) and doesn’t join the call as a visible bot, so it works across Zoom, Meet, Teams, and more without extra integrations.

During the meeting: A blank notebook that respects your brain

When you’re in a meeting with Granola open, the interface feels almost deceptively simple.

On the left: a blank notebook

Your job: write down whatever is in your head

Questions
Half-formed ideas
TODOs
Reactions
Messy, incomplete thoughts

Meanwhile, Granola’s AI quietly listens and captures what everyone is saying in the background.

There’s no pressure to structure your notes. No formatting rules. No “smart templates” fighting your thinking.

You just think. And type.

This alone already feels liberating.

After the meeting: notes, enhanced

When the meeting ends, Granola doesn’t just dump a summary or transcript on you.

Instead, it enhances the notes you actually wrote, using the full meeting context.

Your rough notes are transformed into:

Clear, readable meeting summaries
Action items with proper background
Decisions tied to the discussions that led to them
Ideas that suddenly make sense again days later

Crucially, the output still feels like your notes—just sharper, cleaner, and more complete.

This is human–AI collaboration done right.

A clear philosophy: humans think, AI remembers

Granola doesn’t build its own foundation models. That’s not the point.

What impressed us most—especially after listening to the founder’s interview—is how clear their product philosophy is.

Granola is built on a strict division of responsibility:

Humans: capture intent, judgment, intuition, and ideas
AI: capture memory, accuracy, and completeness

Instead of fighting large language models or trying to outsmart them, Granola works with them—and, crucially, avoids building features that models will inevitably do better over time.

This mindset is surprisingly rare in AI apps.

The Granola Features

Beyond its core interaction model, Granola includes a few practical features that make it usable for real teams—not just thoughtful individuals.

A new interface

Granola’s recent visual refresh reinforces its core philosophy: fewer distractions, more thinking.

The interface stays intentionally notebook-like, with AI kept mostly invisible during meetings. Rather than showcasing AI features, Granola prioritizes focus, writing flow, and clarity—an increasingly rare choice in modern productivity tools.

This design restraint reinforces Granola’s belief that AI should support thinking—not compete for attention.

Customizable templates

Granola supports customizable templates, which makes it practical for real teams—not just solo users.
You can structure notes differently depending on the meeting type, such as:

Customer discovery calls
User interviews
1-on-1s
Internal syncs

Instead of forcing one “AI summary format”, Granola adapts to how your team already works.
That’s a subtle but important product decision.

Granola Chat

Granola also includes a built-in chat interface that lets you ask questions about your meeting notes after the fact.

Instead of chatting with a general-purpose AI, you’re chatting with your own thinking—grounded in what you wrote and what was said in the meeting.

You can use Granola Chat to:

Clarify decisions or unresolved questions
Extract action items or next steps
Turn notes into follow-up emails or summaries
Revisit meetings days or weeks later with full context

Importantly, chat is positioned as a post-meeting thinking tool—not a live distraction. This fits Granola’s philosophy of letting humans think first and AI assist later.

One-Click sharing

Granola makes it easy to share notes with one click on the platforms your team already uses.

This reinforces Granola’s role as a workflow tool, not just a personal AI assistant. It doesn’t try to become another closed collaboration platform—it plugs into existing ones.

Again, a very application-layer mindset.

The Product Philosophy (From the Founder)

After using Granola, we listened to the founder’s recent interview—and it explains a lot about why the product feels so well thought out.

High-frequency use is the key

The team believes:

Low-frequency tasks → users go straight to ChatGPT
High-frequency tasks (like meetings) → apps still matter

Since many people attend multiple meetings every day, even small UX improvements compound quickly.

Granola is built specifically for that repetition.

Don’t build what models will inevitably do

Early versions of Granola only supported 30-minute meetings, which some users complained about.

The team deliberately chose not to work around this, believing that LLM context windows would expand anyway—and that this was a model problem, not an app problem.

That restraint is rare, and it paid off.

Deep user co-creation beats metrics alone

Before launch, the Granola team worked with 100+ users over nearly a year, iterating on interaction design.

The founder also made a point we strongly agree with:

Data alone isn’t enough
User feedback alone isn’t enough
Good product intuition comes from lots of user conversations

Granola’s interaction design feels like the result of that process—not an accident.

Why Granola Matters for the AI Application Layer

We believe Granola doesn’t try to compete with foundation models.
It doesn’t chase every new AI capability.
And it doesn’t overload the UI with “AI features”.

Instead, it focuses on:

Clear human–AI role separation
Thoughtful interaction design
Enhancing existing workflows instead of replacing them

This is what real AI application-layer innovation looks like.

Who Granola Is For

Granola is especially well-suited for:

People who spend a lot of time in meetings
Teams that care about thinking, not just transcripts
Users who love Apple Notes–style simplicity
Anyone tired of AI tools that feel clever but unhelpful

It doesn’t try to think for you. It helps you think better.

The Pricing

Granola offers a tiered pricing model that makes it easy to get started while scaling with heavier usage.

The free plan suitable for trying out Granola’s core experience
For individuals or small teams who spend a lot of time in meetings, the paid plan ($14 per user per month) is best viewed as a productivity upgrade rather than a simple note-taking app.
Enterprise plan ($35 per user per month) is also available for shared workflows and collaboration.

Pricing and plan details are subject to change as Granola continues to evolve.