Google releases a new local-first Granola competitor

Google has released Google AI Edge Foresight, a Mac app that serves as a local-first competitor to AI note-takers like Granola. The app works completely offline using the on-device EmbeddingGemma 2 model with 740 million parameters, capturing meeting notes across apps, including in-person meetings. It features a split-screen view for manual shorthand notes alongside AI-generated notes, allows users to view transcripts or chat with a Gemma 4-powered assistant, and supports uploading documents such as PDFs, Google Docs, Microsoft Office formats, plain text, Markdown, and web bookmarks to build a knowledge base for real-time question answering. Optimized for Apple Silicon, the app is designed to function without internet access, making it useful for travel or offline settings. While Google's earlier dictation app was experimental, this new tool may showcase the capabilities of its Gemma offline models, though Google could also release a consumer version integrated with its cloud-based Gemini apps for video calling. The meeting note-taker market is highly competitive, with recent entrants like Wispr, Calendly, and Superhuman (formerly Grammarly), which acquired Fathom last month.

(Source：TechCrunch)