Craqly vs Microsoft Copilot for Meetings: What's the Difference?

Same Category, Different Universe

I've been using Microsoft Copilot for six months in Teams and Craqly's Meeting Copilot for about three months alongside it. And every time someone asks me "which is better?" I have to stop them. That's like asking whether a Swiss Army knife is better than a chef's knife. They're both knives. The similarity ends there.

Microsoft Copilot is a general-purpose AI assistant embedded across the entire Microsoft 365 ecosystem. It does meetings, yes — but it also does Word documents, Excel formulas, PowerPoint presentations, email drafting, and chat summaries. Meeting features are one slice of a much broader product.

Craqly is a specialized tool built specifically for live conversations — meetings, interviews, and sales calls. That's all it does. And because it's specialized, it does that one thing differently.

Let me break down where each actually shines and where each falls short.

Platform Lock-In: The Biggest Difference

Here's the single most important thing to understand: Microsoft Copilot's meeting features only work in Microsoft Teams.

If all your meetings happen in Teams, great. But if you're on a Zoom call with a client on Monday, a Google Meet standup on Tuesday, and a phone call with a prospect on Wednesday — Copilot can't help you with any of those. Its meeting intelligence is locked to the Teams platform.

Craqly runs as a desktop overlay. It works on top of any application. Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, WebEx, phone calls, browser-based meeting tools — it doesn't matter. The audio capture is platform-independent, which means you get consistent meeting assistance regardless of what tool the other person chose.

This isn't a minor distinction. In my daily work, roughly 40% of my meetings happen outside Teams. That's 40% of my meetings where Copilot simply isn't available.

What Microsoft Copilot Does in Meetings

Let's give Copilot its due — when you're in a Teams meeting, the AI features are genuinely useful:

• Intelligent recap — if you join late, Copilot summarizes what's been discussed so far
• Meeting notes — automated notes with key points, decisions, and speaker attribution
• Action items — extracts commitments and tasks from the conversation
• Chat summary — summarizes the meeting chat if people were typing while talking
• Follow-up suggestions — recommends next steps based on the discussion

The quality is solid. Microsoft has thrown enormous resources at this, and it shows. The recaps are accurate, the action items are usually right, and the integration with Teams chat and calendar is seamless.

But here's what Copilot doesn't do in meetings: it doesn't give you real-time suggestions, objection handling, or coached responses during the conversation. It's observing and summarizing, not actively helping you perform better in the moment.

What Craqly Does Differently

Craqly's Meeting Copilot takes a more active role. During a live meeting, it's not just recording and summarizing — it's providing:

• Live suggestions — real-time prompts and talking points based on what's being discussed
• Real-time assistance — if someone asks a tough question or raises an objection, Craqly suggests responses
• Auto Notes — structured meeting notes with summaries, action items, and speaker identification
• Cross-platform operation — same experience whether you're on Zoom, Teams, Meet, or a phone call

The real-time suggestion feature is where I noticed the biggest difference. During a client meeting, the discussion shifted to a topic I wasn't fully prepared for. Craqly surfaced relevant points within seconds. With Copilot, I'd have gotten a nice summary afterward, but in the moment, I was on my own.

The Total Cost Question

Microsoft Copilot pricing is layered, and it adds up:

• Microsoft 365 subscription — you need this first (Business Basic starts at ~$6/user/mo, Business Premium ~$22/user/mo)
• Copilot add-on — $30/user/month on top of your M365 subscription
• Total cost — realistically $36-$52/user/month depending on your M365 tier

And remember, that $30/month Copilot fee covers all of Copilot — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams. You can't buy just the meeting features. If you only want AI meeting assistance and don't care about AI in Excel, you're still paying for the full package.

Craqly's pricing is standalone. You pay for the meeting and conversation features you're using. Free tier available, paid plans are significantly less than the Microsoft stack. No Microsoft 365 subscription required as a prerequisite.

For a team that's already fully committed to Microsoft 365 and paying for Business Premium, the $30 Copilot add-on might be easy to justify because you get AI across everything. But for a team using mixed tools or wanting specialized meeting intelligence, the total Microsoft investment is substantial.

Head-to-Head Comparison

Feature	Microsoft Copilot	Craqly
Meeting platforms	Teams only	Any platform (Zoom, Teams, Meet, phone, etc.)
Real-time suggestions	No — summarizes and recaps only	Yes — live prompts, objection handling, talking points
Meeting notes	Yes — good quality in Teams	Yes — with speaker ID and action items
Action items	Yes	Yes
Beyond meetings	Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Chat	Interviews, sales calls, meeting coaching
Platform requirement	Microsoft 365 subscription required	Standalone — no other subscriptions needed
Pricing	$30/user/mo (+ M365 subscription)	Free tier, affordable paid plans
Setup	Admin deployment across M365 tenant	Individual download, running in minutes
Use case focus	General productivity across Office suite	Specialized for live conversations
Mobile support	Teams mobile app	Mobile browser support

When Microsoft Copilot Is the Right Choice

I want to be fair here: if your organization is deeply invested in the Microsoft ecosystem, Copilot is a legitimately great product. The meeting features in Teams are excellent, and you get AI capabilities across your entire productivity suite. The integration is seamless — your meeting notes flow into your chat, your action items can become Planner tasks, and your email follow-ups can be drafted from meeting context.

If you're already paying for M365 Business Premium or E3/E5, the $30 Copilot add-on gives you a lot of value across many tools, not just meetings. For large organizations with standardized Microsoft environments, it's the obvious choice.

When Craqly Is the Right Choice

Craqly makes more sense when:

• Your meetings happen across multiple platforms, not just Teams
• You want active, real-time coaching during calls — not just post-meeting summaries
• You need specialized assistance for sales calls or interviews, not general-purpose AI
• You don't want to pay for Microsoft 365 just to get meeting AI
• You're an individual or small team that wants to get started immediately without IT deployment

The real-time assistance is genuinely Craqly's differentiator. Microsoft Copilot tells you what happened. Craqly helps you while it's happening. Those are meaningfully different value propositions.

Can You Use Both?

Actually, yes. Some people on my team use Copilot within Teams (since we're already paying for it) and Craqly for external meetings on Zoom or when they want real-time suggestions. There's no conflict — they serve different purposes. Copilot handles the Office suite integration and Teams meetings. Craqly handles the live coaching and cross-platform meetings.

It's not the most cost-efficient approach, but if you're already in the Microsoft ecosystem and want real-time meeting assistance, using both covers all your bases.

The Verdict

Microsoft Copilot is a powerful general-purpose AI assistant that happens to have meeting features. Craqly is a specialized meeting and conversation copilot that does one category of things very well. If you live in Microsoft 365 and want AI across your entire workflow, Copilot is the integrated choice. If you want the best possible AI assistance specifically for live conversations — across any platform — Craqly is purpose-built for that.

The right answer depends on where your meetings happen and whether you need help during or after the conversation.

Want to see how real-time meeting assistance feels? Download Craqly and try it on your next call.