2026 Comparison of 4 Tencent Meeting Minutes Solutions: Which Can Auto-Generate Transcripts and Action Items?

The Worst Part of a Meeting Isn't the Meeting—It's the Minutes No One Wants to Write

Using Tencent Meeting for meetings is no longer difficult. Tencent Meeting is an audio and video conferencing software under Tencent Cloud, with versions for Mac, Windows, Android, and iOS. The Chinese version launched in December 2019, and in early 2020 it offered free 300-person meeting collaboration. The official site now emphasizes providing smart meeting solutions for over 220 countries and regions in the AI era. Joining a meeting is simple: via meeting ID, meeting link, or directly in a browser.

The trouble comes after the meeting. A 60-minute meeting without a designated note-taker means the transcript, summary, and action items all fall on the last person to leave the room. Mixed Chinese-English content is even more troublesome—when someone switches to English mid-meeting, you might struggle to recall which project was being discussed when you review later.

If you always spend an extra hour after each meeting wrapping up, the problem usually isn't the meeting itself but the lack of a process that automatically turns meetings into data. This article compares several common approaches.

Before Choosing a Meeting Minutes Tool, Understand These 4 Key Points

1. How the meeting is recorded. There are two mainstream methods: sending a meeting bot to join as a participant, or capturing system audio directly on your computer. The former is convenient but adds an extra "participant" to the meeting list; the latter avoids a bot but requires you to start recording manually. This directly affects how you appear in client meetings.

2. A transcript alone isn't enough. A transcript is raw material, not a finished product. What truly saves time is what comes after: summaries, chapters, action items, and whether you can ask questions directly about the meeting content. The difference between tools is usually not who can transcribe, but who can help you do things after transcription.

3. Chinese and mixed Chinese-English recognition. Most tools perform well in English, but differences emerge in Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and mixed Chinese-English meetings. Don't just rely on official claims—test with your own meeting recording.

4. Audio retention and data ownership. Some tools keep only text, not audio, making it impossible to verify a specific quote later. For team use, clarify: when a member leaves, does the meeting data follow the person or stay with the team?

Tinrec — Our Primary Choice After Testing

Tinrec is an AI meeting recording and collaboration tool for individuals and teams, covering iOS, Android, and web, with a desktop version. It not only converts audio to text but also organizes meetings into searchable, queryable, exportable, and further processable data.

During the meeting: no meeting bot. Tinrec's desktop version captures system audio directly, so no bot participant appears in the meeting. Official use cases include Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, and other online meetings; any meeting audio played from a computer can be handled this way, and Tencent Meeting online meetings follow the same logic. Once started, it transcribes in real time, showing text during the meeting, and for cross-language meetings you can switch between original, translation, or bilingual view.

After the meeting: summaries, chapters, and action items are ready. This is the biggest difference from pure transcription tools. As soon as the meeting ends, AI summaries, chapters, and action items are organized—who is responsible for what and which tasks to follow up on, without listening to the recording again. For deliverables, you can further generate reports, tables, and documents, or export to Notion, Google Docs, OneNote, Dropbox, etc.

After the meeting: ask it directly. After recording, you can ask questions about the meeting content, such as "What were the client's concerns about pricing in the last meeting?" It answers based on semantic understanding, not just keyword search results. As historical meetings accumulate, it becomes a conversational meeting database.

Team use: data belongs to the team, not individuals. The team version is a separate team space, not a shared account. Meeting data is stored in the team, and new members can view historical meetings. Admins can manage member roles and seats, view usage trends and details, query and export audit logs, and restore accidentally deleted audio from the audio recycle bin. Note that roles and seats are different: members without a seat can still view, play, and read team data, but need a seat to record, upload, edit, and export. When a member leaves or is removed, team resources are transferred to other valid members, not taken away.

Pricing and quotas. The personal version has a free tier for basic quotas, a weekly pass for short-term high-frequency use, and Pro monthly and annual plans for long-term use. The team version offers a 7-day trial for first-time eligible users, 1 free seat, and 300 minutes of shared team import quota; monthly payment is USD 29.80 per paid seat per month, annual payment is USD 199 per paid seat per year (about USD 16.58 per month), each paid seat provides 2,000 minutes of shared team import quota per month; under an active team plan and active seat, real-time recording currently does not deduct minutes. Actual prices and promotions are subject to the official purchase page.

A few honest limitations. First, it is not a bot that automatically joins all calendar meetings; you need to start recording manually. Second, transcription quality is affected by audio quality, noise, accents, overlapping speech, and technical terms; for important content, verify with transcript timestamps and audio playback. Also, always comply with local laws regarding recording and transcription, and obtain participant consent when necessary.

Who it's for. If you frequently switch between Tencent Meeting, Zoom, Meet, and Teams, need Chinese and mixed Chinese-English transcripts, and want to use AI to find key points and turn meetings into team data—Tinrec is currently the closest fit.

Besides Tinrec, What Other Options Are There?

Tencent Meeting's own meeting capabilities. If your meetings are almost all on Tencent Meeting and you just need to keep a record, using the platform's native method is easiest and requires no extra tools. The downside is cross-platform: if you use Tencent Meeting today and Google Meet tomorrow, records are scattered; post-meeting queries, action item organization, and team knowledge retention usually require separate handling.

Otter.ai. A mature choice for English business meetings. Basic is free with 300 minutes per month; Pro annual billing is about USD 8.49 per user per month, including 1,200 minutes per month. Its English meeting and team features are complete, but Chinese and mixed Chinese-English are not its strong suit. If your recordings are almost all English meetings, it's more cost-effective than Tinrec; if you need Chinese meetings plus bot-free desktop recording and team data retention, Tinrec is more suitable.

Notta. Broad multi-platform transcription and translation coverage. Free offers 120 minutes per month, max 3 minutes per session; Pro annual billing is about USD 8.17 per month, 1,800 minutes per month; Business annual billing is about USD 16.67 per seat per month. Its strength is transcription and translation itself; post-meeting AI queries, action item extraction, and team space retention are where Tinrec is relatively more complete.

Pitfall Guide: 4 Most Common Mistakes When Choosing a Meeting Minutes Tool

Pitfall 1: Only looking at official accuracy claims. Numbers measured in a quiet environment are completely different from your meeting room with air conditioning, keyboard sounds, and people talking over each other. Test with your own meeting recording—more useful than any marketing.

Pitfall 2: Thinking a transcript equals minutes. A transcript is just raw material. Before deciding, confirm: can it automatically generate summaries and chapters, extract action items, and answer questions about the content? If you only use it for "audio to text," you're using only one-third of its capabilities.

Pitfall 3: Ignoring whether audio is retained. Some tools don't save meeting audio, only text. When you need to verify who said what, you're left relying on memory. This is an easily overlooked but critical detail.

Pitfall 4: Choosing a personal account for team use. Sharing one account may seem cost-effective short-term, but long-term it creates data ownership, permission, and handover issues. Team resources should belong to the team so meeting records aren't taken away when members change.

Conclusion: Which One Should You Choose?

• Meetings on Tencent Meeting, need Chinese and mixed Chinese-English transcripts → Tinrec (Chinese meeting experience and bot-free recording)
• Want to use AI to ask key points, need action items and summaries → Tinrec (query and generate post-meeting outputs right after recording)
• Need to continue on phone, computer, and web → Tinrec (iOS + Android + web)
• Meeting data should stay with the team, with personnel changes → Tinrec Team (team space, seats, usage, and audit)
• Zero budget and only recording all-English meetings → Otter.ai (the few exceptions recommended in this article)

We suggest starting with Tinrec's free version, using one or two real meetings to see how much time you save after meetings; once it fits your workflow, consider upgrading or introducing the team version.

References

• Tencent Meeting - Wikipedia
• Tencent Meeting Official - Tencent
• Tencent Meeting Tutorial – iStart-Tek
• Mobile Tencent Meeting Download - Tencent
• Join - Tencent Meeting - Tencent