Google Launches Granola-Like Offline AI Notes and Transcription App

Google has introduced AI Edge Foresight, a new Mac application aimed at capturing, organizing and summarizing meeting notes using local AI models. This app positions itself as a competitor to AI note-taking tools like Granola, but with a key distinction: it operates entirely offline. Powered by the EmbeddingGemma 2 model with 740 million parameters, AI Edge Foresight processes information locally, making it useful during travel or in locations with limited connectivity.

The tool is optimized for Apple Silicon and functions without an internet connection, capturing meeting notes across various platforms and during in-person meetings. Similar to Granola, the app utilizes a split-screen interface, allowing users to type manual notes on one side while viewing AI-generated notes on the other. It can also transcribe meetings while users continue taking their own notes, providing a full transcript when needed or enabling users to chat with an assistant powered by Gemma 4 about the meeting.

In addition to capturing meeting notes, AI Edge Foresight can ingest external documents and transform them into a searchable knowledge base, supporting PDFs, Google Docs, Microsoft Office files, plain-text files, Markdown, and web bookmarks. The app can integrate this information with meeting notes, answering questions in real-time when relevant topics arise during a discussion.

For instance, if someone mentions a figure or topic that exists in the uploaded knowledge base, Foresight can retrieve the relevant information during the meeting. This release follows an earlier experimental AI dictation app by Google, which also relied on local models. While the earlier project remained relatively experimental, AI Edge Foresight may serve as a demonstration of what Google's Gemma models can do directly on consumer hardware.

Moreover, the technology could potentially be integrated into broader Google products, possibly through Gemini and video-calling apps using cloud-based models. The AI meeting note-taking market has become highly competitive, with companies like Wispr, Calendly, and Superhuman recently introducing their own tools. Superhuman, formerly Grammarly, acquired Fathom, another AI meeting assistant, last month.

Google's approach stands out due to Foresight's focus on offline, on-device AI, reducing reliance on cloud processing for transcription, retrieval, and meeting analysis.