Is It Legal to Transcribe a Call With AI? A Plain Guide

One-party and all-party consent

Most US recording law comes down to whose permission you need:

• One-party consent: you can record a conversation you’re part of, because your own consent counts. Federal law works this way, as long as you aren’t doing it for a criminal or wrongful purpose (18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d)).
• All-party consent: everyone on the call has to agree. These are sometimes called “two-party” consent laws, though they apply to everyone on the call.

States commonly listed as all-party include California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington. Lists disagree at the edges, because the details are complicated. Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, Nevada and Oregon are among the states where the answer depends on the type of call or on how courts have read the statute. The Reporters Committee’s recording guide is a good place to check a particular state.

Does live transcription count as recording?

Don’t rely on the idea that it doesn’t. The federal wiretap law defines interception as acquiring the contents of a communication through a device (18 U.S.C. § 2510(4)), and that wording isn’t limited to saving an audio file. A tool that turns speech into stored text has still captured what was said. Treat a transcript as you would a recording.

Courts are working through this now. A consolidated class action, In re Otter.AI Privacy Litigation, accuses an AI meeting assistant of recording and transcribing people without their consent, and of using the conversations to train its models. The first suit was filed in August 2025. In August 2026, a federal judge reportedly let wiretap and privacy claims go forward while dismissing others. That’s a ruling on the pleadings and not a finding of liability, but it shows these old statutes are being applied to AI tools.

What if people are in different places?

Phone and video calls cross borders, and you may not know where someone is. Courts have not treated this consistently, so the usual practical advice is to follow the strictest rule that could apply. If anyone might be in an all-party state, act as if consent from everyone is required. The simplest way to do that is to ask on every call.

Outside the US: Europe, the UK and elsewhere

In the EU and UK, a voice and a transcript are generally personal data, so data protection law applies on top of any recording rules. If you’re using a tool in a business context, you generally need a lawful basis for processing and must tell people what you’re collecting and why. Plenty of other countries have their own rules on interception and privacy. If you regularly talk to people in a particular country, check its rules specifically.

What to say at the start of a call

Say it early, say it plainly, and give them a real chance to object:

Then wait for an actual yes, and if they say no, turn it off and take notes by hand. It takes ten seconds, and it tends to build trust. If you get written agreement for recurring calls, keep it somewhere you can find it.

This matters even more for tools without a meeting bot. A bot shows up in the participant list. A tool that listens through your own microphone, like psstbee, gives other people no signal at all, so telling them is entirely up to you. psstbee reminds you on the screen before a call starts, but the responsibility stays with you.

Questions to ask about any AI call tool

Consent covers the people on the call. You also need to know what happens to their words afterwards:

• Is audio stored? If so, where and for how long?
• Which outside companies process the audio and text?
• Is your call content used to train AI models?
• Can you delete a call, and does deleting really remove it?
• Is there a contract covering this, such as a data processing agreement, if your business needs one?

Be extra careful with calls that carry confidentiality or sector rules, such as medical, legal and financial conversations. Some may need specific agreements, or may not be suitable for these tools at all.

For reference, here’s how psstbee works: your browser streams audio to a transcription provider, and psstbee saves the resulting transcript, not the audio. See the privacy policy for the details.

Common questions