This is really a sad state of affairs…
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Meetings, Chats, Dates: All Are Being Recorded
BY KATHERINE BINDLEY
The Wall Street Journal
Jul 20, 2026
To record or not to record? That is no longer a question for people in tech. The answer is a resounding yes.
A Zoom call isn’t complete without an artificial-intelligence note taker. Phones are out at meetings, capturing every word. During impromptu conversations with co-workers, someone might turn on the Granola transcription app, which can turn the interactions into one-page summaries or a list of action items. Even at bars and on dates, people are using AI-infused listening apps to analyze conversations later on.
Gone are the days of any interaction being private by default. Asking for permission is out, even though in some situations, that could mean violating the law. It isn’t creepy if it’s in the name of productivity, the people doing the recording say.
“It happens on a daily basis,” said Eric Bahn, a venture capitalist in San Francisco who started noticing it about a year ago. During his meetings with founders, they put phones out on the conference table and then inch them toward him, like he is an athlete at a postgame interview.
Bahn used to ask if he was being recorded. The answer was always “Yes,” followed by, “Is that OK?” Nowadays, he just assumes they are, and chooses his words more carefully.
“I just see this as normal
protocol,” he says. “Our society is moving to a state of East Germany.”
With the rise of cameraequipped smartglasses, AI-recording bracelets and other covert devices, a societal shift is under way. It isn’t clear how much say we will have in the matter—or how much our conversations will change if we all know they are all being entered into the permanent record.
Emmie Chang, founder of a startup that Bahn’s firm invests in that provides salesdata intelligence, uses AI to transcribe every conversation she can. At a work conference in Albuquerque, N.M., in May, Chang wore a small pin with a red light indicating it was recording. Someone who worked at the conference eventually approached Chang and told her the device was making people uncomfortable. She found the request to stop recording triggering.
“It’s my thing,” she says. “I’m not attributing who said what. It’s for my general knowledge.”
Chang has also taken to recording most of her first dates, usually with Granola. She puts her phone out on the table or her chair and then once the date is through, she has the feed automatically sent to Anthropic’s Claude to report back on how she did.
“Can I be more engaging and empathetic?” she says she might ask Claude. “What are the percentages of me talking versus them talking?”
Michelle Lim, chief executive of a small AI startup, says she was initially shocked when, about a year ago, very specific words she had used during a phone call were recited back at her in a followup conversation. She was convinced she had been recorded and was upset about it.
California is an all-party consent state, meaning it requires all people in a private conversation to agree to be recorded.
But Lim’s own feelings on acceptable recording practices have since evolved. Now she just assumes she is being recorded, and even encourages the practice within her own company. Granola is enabled for all formally scheduled internal meetings, and when employees are casually catching up at one another’s desks, they often turn it on then, too.
“In the office, we actually get really bummed when we realize we’re having a conversation and we forgot to turn on Granola,” she says. “I wish there was a Granola in every room.”
And Lim typically doesn’t ask if she’s being recorded, even outside the office. “It almost kills the mood,” she says.
AI note takers started appearing in meetings several years ago, but there’s usually an indication of their presence. Apps that record or transcribe without any type of alert have taken off more recently.
Granola, founded in 2023, doesn’t actually record or save an audio file but it does transcribe conversations word-forword. It can then provide summaries and action items. Its mobile app has been downloaded 758,000 times since its launch, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.
There is no icon that automatically shows up on a Zoom call and no audio notification when Granola is being used on a phone call. Users can enable a watermark feature for video meetings or choose to have the app send a message in the meeting chat that it’s taking notes. In general, laws don’t distinguish between recordings and transcriptions.
Alex Alben, who teaches privacy-law and cybersecurity courses at UCLA School of Law, says people tend to give up privacy to companies they work for. Employees likely have to accept their employer recording or transcribing their chats. But it is different when people are commingling with clients and taking meetings with outside firms.
“Companies need to be careful about technologies that are automatically recording, especially when it involves third parties,” he says. As to whether recording people runs afoul of states’ consent laws, he says context matters and there are some gray areas.
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