Google has released an offline meeting note-taking app called Google AI Edge Foresight, putting it in competition with AI note-takers such as Granola. The Mac app can work completely offline, using the on-device EmbeddingGemma 2 model, which has 740 million parameters, to capture meeting notes across apps, including notes from in-person meetings. It comes from the same team that released an AI dictation tool in April that worked with local models, and the company says the app is optimised for Apple Silicon, so it is aimed at people using recent Mac hardware.
The layout is similar to Granola’s. A split-screen view lets users write shorthand notes on one side while AI-generated notes appear on the other, and users can still take manual notes while the meeting is being transcribed. Afterwards, they can read the full transcript or chat with an assistant powered by Gemma 4 to get answers about what was discussed. Because everything runs on the device, the notes remain usable when travelling or in places without an internet connection, which sets the app apart from note-takers that rely on cloud processing and a steady connection to work.
Foresight also lets users build a knowledge base by uploading documents, including PDFs, Google Docs, Microsoft Office formats, plain text, Markdown files and web bookmarks. Using those documents together with meeting notes, the app can answer questions in real time when a point comes up that relates to material in the knowledge base. That gives it a role beyond transcription, since the assistant can draw on earlier files while a conversation is still going on. For people who attend many meetings, the ability to pull up related material during a discussion could save time otherwise spent searching through folders afterwards.
TechCrunch notes that Google’s earlier dictation app was experimental and did not reach mainstream use, so Foresight may mainly serve to show what the company’s Gemma family of offline models can do. Google could still release a consumer version that works across video calling apps through its Gemini apps and relies on cloud models. The meeting note-taker market is already crowded, with Wispr and Calendly launching their own tools in recent months and Superhuman acquiring the note-taker Fathom last month, yet companies keep entering it, and Google’s decision to build around local processing offers a different option for people who prefer their meeting data to stay on their own machine.
Follow the SPIN IDG WhatsApp Channel for updates across the Smart Pakistan Insights Network covering all of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem.
