Fathom adds bot-free capture and live summaries

Fathom released a new desktop app in April 2026 with bot-free capture, live summaries and a scratchpad. Users can choose, meeting by meeting, whether a bot joins. The page says the features were live on Mac, with Windows "coming soon". This affects teams that care about how recording shows up to other attendees.

What changed

Fathom's release notes list, under April 2026, "New app & botless experience", described as one of its biggest launches to date, including bot-free capture, live summaries and an app redesign. The release notes give the month only, not a day.

Fathom's What's New page lists these capture choices:

• Bot with full video and audio
• Bot-free video, labeled "limited beta for Zoom"
• Bot-free audio + transcript
• Bot-free transcript only

The same page describes live summaries that build during the call, a scratchpad for your own notes, a unified post-meeting view with transcript, summary and action items, ChatGPT and Claude integrations for asking about meeting history, and bot-free recording for Slack Huddles.

Follow-up admin controls

Later release notes list team-level controls, marked as Teams-plan features: in August 2026, a setting that lets organization admins block bot-free capture, and in September 2026, a setting that lets admins enforce an automated consent chat message for bot-free meetings.

Who this affects

• Individuals who want a call recorded without a visible bot.
• Team admins who need a rule on whether bot-free capture is allowed.

What this does not say

• The What's New page does not address consent or notification requirements for bot-free capture. Check the admin setting above and your own consent rules.
• The sources do not give a Windows date.
• They do not say which plans include each capture mode.
• They do not describe how bot-free audio or transcripts are stored differently from bot recordings.

See the Fathom profile. For consent rules around recording, read recording consent for AI note takers.

Nothing here was tested. Pages read on 2026-10-03.