Granola vs Google Calendar: Do You Need AI Meeting Notes in 2026?

Granola launched in late 2023 with a specific pitch: your calendar should do more than just show you when meetings are. It connects to Google Calendar (or Outlook) and sits in the background during meetings, transcribing everything and generating notes automatically. The AI picks up on action items, decisions, and key points without you having to frantically type while someone's talking.

I've been testing it for about 3 months now, and honestly? For anyone who takes 4+ meetings a day, it's a legitimate time-saver. You still use Google Calendar for scheduling - Granola just makes those meetings actually useful afterwards.

Google Calendar has been the default for so long that most people don't even think about it. Shows your schedule, sends reminders, lets people book time with you. It does one thing reliably: keeps you from double-booking yourself. The mobile apps work, the web interface is fast, and since everyone has a Google account anyway, sharing calendars is painless.

What it doesn't do is help with the actual meetings themselves. You show up, the meeting happens, and if you want notes you're either typing furiously or hoping someone volunteers to take them. For basic calendar needs, it's unbeatable. For meeting productivity, it doesn't even try.

This is where Granola actually earns its price tag. Join a meeting and it starts transcribing automatically - works with Google Meet, Zoom, Teams, doesn't matter. The AI isn't just dumping a transcript on you either. It structures notes with sections for decisions made, action items assigned, and key discussion points.

After a 45-minute strategy call, you get a readable summary instead of a wall of text. The search is stupidly good too - type 'budget approval' and it surfaces every meeting where that came up. I tested this against manual note-taking for a month and saved maybe 5-6 hours a week. If you're someone who reviews meeting notes regularly, that adds up fast.

Google Calendar doesn't touch this. You can add a description or agenda before the meeting, maybe paste a Google Doc link in the event details, but that's it. During the meeting, you're on your own. Some people keep a running doc, others just wing it and hope they remember the important stuff.

There's no recording, no transcription, nothing intelligent about it. Which is fine if your meetings are quick or informal, but for anything important you'll need a separate tool. Meet has a recording feature if you have the right Workspace plan, but it just dumps a video file - doesn't extract any useful info from it.

Granola doesn't really do scheduling - it hooks into your existing calendar and enhances the meetings already there. You're still using Google Calendar (or Outlook) to book time, manage availability, send invites. Granola shows up as a thin layer on top. Actually, that's kind of smart design honestly.

Instead of trying to rebuild the whole calendar experience, they focus on the one thing calendars suck at: capturing what happens during the time you blocked off. You won't find scheduling links or timezone converters in Granola. For that stuff, you keep using whatever calendar you already have.

Google Calendar handles scheduling better than most paid alternatives, which is impressive considering it's free. Creating events is fast, recurring events actually work the way you'd expect, and the 'find a time' feature makes group scheduling way less painful. You get multiple calendar views (day, week, month, year), color coding, reminders via email or push notifications.

The 'working hours' and 'out of office' features help people know when you're actually available. Honestly, for pure scheduling, Google Calendar set the standard that everyone else copies.

Granola is basically an add-on to your existing setup. It reads your calendar, joins meetings as a silent participant, and saves notes back to the calendar event. Works with Slack too - post meeting summaries to specific channels automatically. The notes export to Notion, Google Docs, wherever you keep project documentation.

For teams that live in Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, it slots in without disrupting anything. The learning curve is minimal: connect your calendar, set your preferences, let it do its thing. I barely think about it now - just check the notes after calls end.

Google Calendar integrates with basically everything because it's been around forever and has APIs that developers actually like using. Gmail, Meet, Chat, Drive, all the Google stuff obviously. But also Slack, Zoom, Salesforce, thousands of third-party apps.

If a productivity tool doesn't connect to Google Calendar, that's a red flag honestly. The calendar is the source of truth for most people's schedules, and Google owns that space. Want to sync tasks from your project manager? Want Zoom to auto-add meeting links? Google Calendar handles it.

Granola runs about $15-20/month depending on which plan tier you grab. There's a 14-day free trial that actually gives you full features, which is nice - you can test it on real meetings before committing. Is it worth $200+/year? Honestly, if you're in 15+ hours of meetings weekly, yeah probably. Time saved on note-taking alone pays for itself.

But if your job isn't meeting-heavy, this is an expensive luxury. They don't have a free tier beyond the trial, which makes sense given the AI transcription costs aren't cheap to run. I've seen some companies expense it as a productivity tool, might be worth asking if yours will cover it.

Zero dollars. Google Calendar is completely free and doesn't even nag you to upgrade. Google makes their money from Workspace subscriptions and enterprise users, so the basic calendar stays free forever for personal use.

Even if you're on a free Gmail account, you get the full calendar with unlimited events. That's tough to compete with. The only time you'd pay is if you want the advanced Workspace features for your business (which includes stuff like room booking and admin controls), but for individual use, there's no reason to pay.

Granola's mobile app is pretty new (dropped in fall 2024 from what I remember). Works fine for reviewing meeting notes on your phone, but you're not doing transcription from mobile - that's desktop only. Makes sense given the technical requirements.

The app is mainly for searching past notes, checking action items, that kind of reference work. It's functional but nothing fancy. Most of the time you'll interact with Granola on desktop during actual meetings, then maybe check notes on mobile later when someone asks 'hey what did we decide about X?'

Google Calendar's mobile apps are rock-solid. Fast, reliable, offline mode works when you're on a plane or in a tunnel. Creating events on mobile is actually easier than desktop sometimes - the quick add is slick. Widgets show your upcoming events right on your home screen.

Notifications are consistent and don't randomly fail. If you use multiple calendars (work, personal, shared), they all sync perfectly. It's the mobile calendar experience that set the bar for everyone else. I've tried fancier calendar apps and keep coming back to Google's because it just works.