AI Notetakers in Interviews, and Why Consent Belongs in the Invite

The candidate joins the final round two minutes early. There is already a tile on the screen labeled Notetaker. The hiring manager arrives, apologizes for running late, and says, "Hope you don't mind if I record this, it just helps me take notes."

The candidate has about a second to answer. They are on camera, talking to the person who decides whether they get the job, at the start of the conversation they have been preparing for all week. They say of course.

That yes might hold up. It might not. Either way, it is not much of a choice, and it was asked at the one moment the candidate was least free to say anything else.

AI notetakers are now a normal part of interviews, and that is mostly a good thing. Interviewers listen better when they are not typing, and feedback is better when it rests on what the candidate actually said. But two lawsuits now working through federal court in California put a sharp question to every team that uses them. Did the people being recorded actually agree?

This post covers what those cases allege, why a visible bot and a verbal check at the top of the call are weak substitutes for consent, what a recording notice in the interview invite should say, and how candidate.fyi handles it. It is not legal advice. Recording rules vary by state and country, so confirm the details with your own counsel.

What the Otter.ai and Granola lawsuits allege

The first Otter.ai suit was filed in August 2025, and several similar cases were later consolidated in the Northern District of California. The plaintiffs allege that Otter's notetaker joined meetings and recorded participants who were not Otter users and never agreed to it, and that Otter used those conversations to train its own models.

On August 13, 2026, Judge Eumi K. Lee let the federal wiretap claim and the California Invasion of Privacy Act claims go forward, and dismissed several other claims with leave to amend. That ruling means the case continues. It is not a finding that Otter did anything wrong.

The Granola case, Chamberlain v. Granola, was filed in the same court on July 30, 2026. It goes after a different design. Granola captures audio from the user's own device, so no bot ever joins the call. The complaint alleges that the optional notifications to other participants are off by default, and it quotes Granola's own marketing line back at it, "Other people in the room won't know it's there." As of October, no court had ruled on those claims.

Neither case involves a job candidate. Both are about the person on the other side of the call, the one who did not choose the tool and may not have known it was running. In an interview, that person is always the candidate.

Why a visible bot is not the same as consent

A common assumption is that a bot in the meeting is notice enough. Everyone can see it, so everyone has agreed.

Otter made a version of that argument about one of the plaintiffs, who alleged he never consented and never knew his conversation was being intercepted. Otter said he should have known, since the notetaker was a participant. At this early stage, the court would not draw that inference. The question of what a visible bot actually communicates is still open, and nobody should build a hiring process on the assumption that it has been settled in their favor.

The practical case is just as weak. Candidates join from phones where the participant list is hidden. A tile named after the interviewer does not say it is recording. And a notetaker that runs on the interviewer's laptop shows nothing at all, which is exactly the pattern the Granola complaint describes.

Then there is the law itself. Roughly a dozen US states, including California, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Washington, generally require every party to agree before a private conversation is recorded. Your interviewer's consent does not cover your candidate, and in a remote interview your team may not even know which state the candidate is sitting in.

Why the start of the call is the wrong moment to ask

The verbal check at the top of the call is better than nothing. It still has three problems.

The power runs one way. A candidate who declines in front of the interviewer worries, reasonably, that the no will count against them. A consent that is hard to refuse is a weak consent, ethically and possibly legally.

It depends on every interviewer remembering. A single loop can involve five or six interviewers, several of whom interview a few times a quarter. The recruiter who runs the screen will ask every time. The engineer who joins for round four, with a notetaker that auto-joins from their calendar, may not ask at all.

It leaves no record. If a candidate later says they were never told, a spoken question at minute one is your word against theirs. A notice in the invite has a timestamp, the exact wording, and a link the candidate either used or did not.

The invite fixes all three. The candidate reads the notice alone, days before the call, with time to think and a way to opt out that does not involve saying no to a person. The notice goes out the same way for every interview, whoever is running it. And it leaves a trail.

What a notetaker notice in the interview invite should say

Put the notice in the calendar invite and repeat it in the interview confirmation email. Those are the two places candidates go back to before the call. A good notice covers six things.

* That a notetaker will join. Name it as AI, not as a person.

* What it captures. A full recording with audio and video, or a transcript only.

* What it is for. Notes and feedback for the hiring team, and nothing else. If recordings are used for anything beyond evaluating the application, say so plainly.

* Who can see it, and for how long. The hiring team, and your retention period.

* How to opt out. A link that works before the call, so the candidate never has to raise it live.

* What opting out changes. Ideally nothing about how the application is considered. Only say that if it is true.

A plain version reads something like this. "This interview will use an AI notetaker to transcribe the conversation and draft notes for the hiring team. Notes are used only to evaluate your application and are kept for 90 days. You can turn recording off at any time, before or during the interview, using this link." Adjust the specifics to your policy, then have counsel review the final wording.

The notice also has to be true in the meeting. If a candidate opts out, the notetaker should not join. If they decline during the call, it should leave and the recording should be discarded. A notice the tooling does not enforce is worse than no notice, because it is a promise you broke in writing.

How candidate.fyi handles notetaker consent

We built consent into scheduling because that is where the invite comes from. When candidate.fyi books an interview with the Interview Companion Agent on it, the consent step travels with the booking.

* Opt in or opt out, set by the admin. In opt-in mode, the candidate acknowledges consent on the booking page before the interview is scheduled, and nothing records until they do. In opt-out mode, recording is on by default and the candidate can turn it off from their interview preferences.

* Notice in the invite. The calendar invite carries the consent language and a link to change it. Whenever the Interview Companion is added to an event, a "This meeting may be recorded" notice is added automatically, so it does not depend on an interviewer remembering. Email and calendar templates can link to the same consent flow.

* A second notice in the meeting. When the Interview Companion joins a recorded interview, it posts one chat message with a link to the candidate's recording preferences, the same way on Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams. It posts nothing if the interview is not being recorded or the candidate has already declined.

* A decline actually ends it. If the candidate declines during the call, the Interview Companion leaves, the recording is discarded, and no notes or recordings are produced.

* Transcript only, if you prefer. Admins can capture a transcript without keeping audio or video, and set how long recordings and notes are kept.

Teams that use Metaview or BrightHire can have candidate.fyi add those recorders to the interviews it schedules too, with an optional candidate notice in the invite and, for BrightHire, an opt-out link. For more on what happens to the notes once they exist, see why interview notes have to follow the candidate.

Which consent setup fits your team?

* Remote hiring across states or countries. Default to opt-in. You often will not know where the candidate is sitting, and opt-in is the setup that holds up under the strictest rules you might be subject to.

* High-volume hiring in one jurisdiction. Opt-out with notice in the invite and a working opt-out link may be enough. Confirm that with counsel rather than assuming it.

* Senior, confidential or regulated roles. Opt-in, and consider transcript only. These candidates are the most likely to discuss things they would rather not have on a recording.

* Interviewers bringing their own notetakers. Set a policy that only the team's approved notetaker joins interviews. A personal tool on a hiring manager's laptop sits outside your consent flow entirely, and a bot-free one gives the candidate no sign it is there.

FAQ

Is it legal to use an AI notetaker in a job interview?

Generally yes, if the right people are told and agree. In the US, many states let one party consent to a recording, but roughly a dozen, including California, Florida and Illinois, generally require every party to agree. The safe practice is to notify every candidate in advance and record only with their consent.

Do candidates have to consent to an AI notetaker?

In all-party consent states, generally yes, and the interviewer's consent does not cover the candidate. Even where one-party consent applies, asking is the better practice, because the candidate is the person most affected by the recording. Put the notice and a way to opt out in the interview invite.

Is a "this meeting is being recorded" banner enough notice?

Treat it as a backup, not the main notice. A banner tells people something may be recording, but not what happens to the recording or how to opt out, and some candidates join from devices where it is easy to miss. The interview invite is the better primary notice.

What should happen if a candidate declines recording?

The notetaker should not record. If the candidate opts out before the call, it should not join. If they decline during the call, it should leave and discard anything captured. The interview then runs normally, and the decline should not affect how the application is considered.

What is the Otter.ai lawsuit about?

In re Otter.AI Privacy Litigation is a consolidated class action in federal court in California. The plaintiffs allege Otter's notetaker recorded meeting participants who never agreed and used the recordings to train its models. In August 2026 the court let the core wiretapping claims proceed. The case has not been decided.

What is the Granola lawsuit about?

Chamberlain v. Granola, filed in July 2026, alleges that Granola's notetaker records meetings from the user's own device without a bot joining and without notifying other participants by default. It brings wiretapping and privacy claims under federal and California law. No court has ruled on the claims.

The bottom line

AI notetakers make interviews better, and the lawsuits are not a reason to switch them off. They are a reason to move the consent question to where the candidate can actually answer it. That is the invite, not the first minute of the call.

candidate.fyi's Interview Companion Agent puts recording consent into the booking flow and the calendar invite, announces itself in the meeting, and leaves when a candidate says no. See how it works on our interview intelligence platform page, or book a demo and we will walk you through the consent settings.