Google Launches Offline AI Meeting Note-Taker for Mac — SkimNews
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- Google AI Edge Foresight is a new Mac meeting note-taker that runs entirely offline using the on-device EmbeddingGemma 2 model (740 million parameters), and Google has optimized it specifically for Apple Silicon.
- The app mirrors Granola's split-screen layout — manual shorthand notes on one side, AI-generated notes on the other — and adds a Gemma 4-powered chat assistant that can answer questions over the live transcript.
- Users can upload PDFs, Google Docs, Microsoft Office files, plain text, Markdown, and web bookmarks to build a local knowledge base the app queries in real time when a meeting topic touches that material.
- The same Google team shipped an AI-powered dictation app in April that never reached mainstream usage, and the company suggests Foresight is primarily a showcase for its offline-capable Gemma model family.
- The meeting note-taker market is intensifying — dictation company Wispr and scheduling company Calendly each released their own note-takers recently, and Superhuman (formerly Grammarly) acquired Fathom last month.
Why it matters: By running entirely on-device, Foresight targets professionals who can't send sensitive meeting audio to the cloud — a wedge incumbents like Granola can't match without a local mode of their own. Google is also using the app as a low-risk proving ground for its offline Gemma models, and the company notes a future cloud-based consumer version through Gemini remains possible.
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