For those who want to know what it takes to get started with Read AI, here’s a step-by-step guide of the onboarding flow, as of Q2 2026. To learn more about our onboarding philosophy, click here.
1. To create a Read AI Account, navigate to read.ai and click "Try for free!"
2. From the "Create account" tab, choose the method you want to use to create and login to your account.
SSO Method: SSOs are a way of authenticating to log in to a service (like Read AI) using your account information from another platform (like Google). Using SSOs means that you don't have to create and manage a new password for your Read account. If you'd like to use SSO, choose the method that you'd like to continue with.
Select the account you want to connect with.
In this step you can see which permissions Read AI needs to create your account. It is also another opportunity to review our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Click "Continue".
We've used Google SSO for this example. If you choose another SSO method, the screens will look a little different, but the steps are the same (choose SSO method > select account > review and approve permissions).
Username and Password Method: If you choose to create an account with an email and password, click on “Continue with email and password". This is underneath the SSO options.
Type in your work or school email address and click “Continue”. You may be prompted to use an SSO method after this step; if you'd like to proceed with email and password, click on "I prefer to sign up with a password".
Add your name and password, and click “Sign up”.
4. Depending on the login method you selected, you may be prompted to verify your email before continuing. Look for an email from support@e.read.ai with the verification code.
5. It's now time to start configuring your Read account! The first step will be connecting Read AI to your calendar. This is how Read AI will be able to see meetings you are part of that it should potentially join. It is also how it will know who to send meeting reports to, if you choose to share those automatically. Click on the calendar you want to connect to.
Click on the account for the calendar you want to connect.
Click “Continue”
In this step, you will give Read AI access to your selected calendar. It needs to view your meetings so it knows which ones to join, and it might need to edit your calendar to update an event with the link to the report -if you choose to share reports that way. Click the "Select all" field. Here you can also see the access previously granted to Read in order to link to your email address, and another chance to review Read's Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
Click "Continue".
6. Now you will configure which meetings from your calendar Read AI should join automatically, and whether reports will be emailed. This step is important!
The default is to have Read AI join all your meetings. This is so you can make the most of your free trial and get a proper look at Read AI in action. You can adjust this setting by clicking on the drop down arrow for "Read Assistant will join." The options are having it join all your meetings, only meetings you host, or only those you invite it to (this last setting means it will not automatically join anything, so you will have to add Read AI manually to your meetings if you want it to join). Select your preference.
Now, configure whether Read AI should automatically share meeting reports via email with meeting participants. The default is sharing with participants with access (more on this in a minute). Click on the drop down arrow for "Email meeting recaps to." The options are people with access, only you, or no one. Select your preference.
7. Review"Advanced Settings" by clicking on that link:
Here you can determine, for your reports, whether Read AI should:
- generate meeting notes including AI-powered summaries, chapters, action items, and key questions
- include a transcript
- include audio/video playback
- make you discoverable to others to others in your domain to simplify report sharing
You can also determine which meeting participants should have access to your reports. You can give them "viewer access", "editor access", or "no access". These settings inform who is included under "people with access" when you are selecting distribution settings.
Click on the drop down arrow for "Internal participant report access." Internal participants are individuals in the meetings who has the same domain name as yours on their email. For example, if your email is you@domain-a.com, any meeting participants with email address of @domain-a.com are considered internal participants.
External participants are those who are part of the meeting, but have an email with a different domain from yours.
Meeting recaps are emails that include a summary of the meeting, topics, action items, key questions, transcript, highlights, and participant talk time. They may also include audio and video playback (depending on your plan).
Pre-Reads are an option for recurring meetings. If you choose to send out pre-reads, Read will send out the meeting recap from the previous meeting in the series ~1 hour prior to the next meeting in the series.
Select your preferences and click "Done", then "Continue" to move to the next page.
8. Next, you can connect additional Integrations to make the most out of Read AI. The more integrations you enable, the more Read can do to boost your productivity. For now, we can skip this step by clicking "I'll do this later."
9. In this next step you can download the Read AI desktop app and/or Chrome extension. You can also choose whether or not to participate in our customer experience program to help us improve our service. By default, users are not opted in to this program.
10: Onboarding is complete! You will land on the Reports page, but you can adjust your settings at any point by clicking on the button with your email on the bottom left corner of the screen.
From this menu you can access:
- Your Account Settings
- Your Plan & Billing page. Here, you can see information related to your plan and any future billing. Please note that saving a payment method is not necessary for the free trial.
- Workspace creating ("Add People"). Workspaces enable you to manage multiple licenses if you want other people in your organization to try Read AI.
- Read AI's Support Center.
- Log Out
11. For now, click on "Account Settings".
Click on "Meeting Recording" Here, you can adjust which meetings Read AI joins automatically, or disable auto-join altogether. You can also change how your assistant is displayed when it joins meetings.
From "Report Sharing" you can adjust who has access to your reports, whether your reports are automatically shared, and how. This can also be changed at any point.
Under Advanced, you can see that our default is that user's data is opted out from training our models (this will be unchecked unless you checked the box during the onboarding flow.). Note, if you joined a workspace upon signup you will not see this section, as workspaces are excluded from this program.
You can also review here all active sessions for your account. If you ever choose to delete your Read AI account, this is where you can do it.
12. About an hour after you create your account, you will receive a “Welcome to Read” email
Joining Read AI from a Shared Meeting Report
When a person using Read AI invites it to meetings, they have the option to share the report with meeting attendees based on their settings. To ensure that meeting reports are only shared with intended participants, by default anyone who is not a ReadAI user already will need to create an account to access the meeting notes. However, Read AI also offers an option to make reports publicly accessible via a shareable link—no account required. The meeting report owner controls these sharing settings.
If you've received a Read AI meeting report, and want to review it but do not yet have a Read account, you can start by clicking "View Meeting Report" from the email.
You will be guided through the sign up process which is similar to signing up directly on read.ai (see steps above).
Once you've completed the onboarding flow, you'll land directly on the shared report page so that you can review the meeting report that was emailed to you.