Does Fireflies show a summary during the meeting?
No — Fireflies generates its summary, notes, and action items after the meeting ends, not during it. While the call is happening, the Fireflies bot sits in the participant list recording, and depending on your plan and setup you may be able to open a live transcript view — but a transcript is the full word-for-word text, not a condensed summary you can glance at. If what you want is a summary that updates while the meeting is still going, you need a real-time tool: Canary shows a live, multi-resolution rolling summary during the call, with no bot in the meeting.
Last updated August 30, 2026
No. Fireflies is a post-meeting tool: its summary — the overview, bullet notes, action items, and conversation analytics it’s known for — is generated after the call ends. During the meeting itself, the Fireflies bot is in the participant list recording, and the most you can see live (depending on plan and setup) is a transcript of what’s being said, not a summary.
What Fireflies does during vs. after the call
During the call, Fireflies’ notetaker bot joins as a visible participant and captures the audio. Some setups let you open a live transcript view while it records. Then, once the meeting ends, Fireflies processes the recording and delivers its actual output: the summary, notes, action items, and (on team plans) conversation intelligence like talk-time analytics and CRM sync. That after-the-call design is deliberate — Fireflies is built for the record and the follow-up, not for helping you mid-call. It’s the same shape as most meeting-bot tools, and it’s covered in depth in post-meeting vs in-meeting AI notes.
Why a live transcript isn’t a live summary
The moment this question actually comes from is mid-meeting: you drifted to Slack, someone says your name, and you need to know what the last ten minutes were about right now. A live transcript doesn’t solve that — it’s the full word-for-word text, so catching up means scroll-reading pages of dialogue while the conversation keeps moving. A live rolling summary does solve it, because it continuously condenses the conversation into something you can absorb in a glance. The difference between a live transcript and a live summary is exactly the gap Fireflies leaves open during the call.
What shows a summary during the meeting
Canary is a real-time, bot-free meeting summarizer. It captures your computer’s system audio (no bot in the call, no plugin) and shows a live, multi-resolution rolling summary — from what’s being said right now to the whole call — so you can catch up the instant your name is called. No bot appears in the participant list, and the summary exists while the meeting is still happening, not twenty minutes after it would have helped.
Fireflies is genuinely strong at what it’s built for: the searchable archive, action-item follow-up, and sales-team analytics after the call. If that’s what you need, keep it — the two tools cover opposite moments and can run side by side. For the full head-to-head, see Canary vs Fireflies.
Frequently asked questions
What does Fireflies show while the meeting is happening?
During the call, the Fireflies bot joins as a participant and records. Depending on plan and setup you may be able to follow a live transcript of what's being said. The condensed summary — overview, notes, action items, analytics — is produced after the meeting ends and delivered to your inbox and the Fireflies dashboard.
Isn't a live transcript good enough for catching up mid-meeting?
It helps, but a transcript is the full text — if you zoned out for ten minutes, that's pages of scrolling dialogue to read while the meeting keeps moving. A live summary continuously condenses the conversation so you can grasp what you missed in a glance, which is what matters in the moment your name is called.
Which tool shows an actual live summary during the meeting?
Canary shows a live, multi-resolution summary — what's being said right now, the last 2 minutes, the last 5 minutes, and the full call — updating continuously during the meeting. It captures your computer's system audio, so no bot joins the call.