If you want to know what it takes to get started with Read AI, here's a step-by-step guide to the onboarding flow, as of Q2 2026. To learn more about our onboarding philosophy, click here.
1. To create a Read AI account, go to read.ai and click "Try for free!"
2. From the "Create account" tab, choose the method you want to use to create and log in to your account.
SSO method: SSO (single sign-on) lets you log in to a service (like Read AI) using your account information from another platform (like Google). Using SSO 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).
Email and password method: If you'd like to create an account with an email and password, click "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 continue with email and password, click "I prefer to sign up with a password".
Enter your first name, last name, and a password (at least 8 characters, including a special symbol), and click "Sign up".
3. Depending on the login method you selected, you may be asked to verify your email before continuing. On the "Check your Inbox" screen, enter the 6-digit code from the email sent by support@e.read.ai and click Verify. If you don't see it, check your spam folder or click Resend Code.
4. It's now time to start configuring your Read account! The first step is connecting Read AI to your calendar. This is how Read AI sees the meetings you are part of that it could join. It is also how it knows who to send meeting reports to, if you choose to share them automatically. On the first screen, "Which calendar do you want to use with Read?", we recommend selecting your busiest calendar, which is usually work-related. Choose Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar, click Continue, and connect the calendar.
Click the account for the calendar you want to connect.
Click "Continue".
In this step, you give Read AI access to your selected calendar. It needs to view your meetings so it knows which ones to join, and it may 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 you previously granted to Read to link to your email address, and you have another chance to review Read's Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
Click "Continue".
5. Once your calendar is connected, you will choose which meetings from your calendar Read AI should join automatically, and whether reports will be emailed. This step is important!
By default, Read AI joins all your meetings. This is so you can make the most of your 7-day free trial and see Read AI in action. You can change this with the Read Assistant will join: drop-down. The options are All calendar events (Recommended), Calendar events I host, or Calendar events that Read is invited to (this last option means it will not automatically join anything, so you will need to add Read AI to your meetings manually if you want it to join). Select your preference.
Note for Zoom meetings: Read can only join a Zoom meeting if you've connected your Zoom account to Read and you're in the meeting, signed in to that same Zoom account. See Upcoming Changes to Zoom Meetings to learn how to connect Zoom.
Next, choose whether Read AI should automatically share meeting reports by email with meeting participants. The default is to share with people with access (more on this in a minute). Click the Email meeting recaps to: drop-down. The options are People with access (Recommended), Only me, or No one. Select your preference.
6. Review "Advanced Settings" by clicking that link (like the options above, it appears after you connect a calendar):
Here you can decide, 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 and video playback (requires an Enterprise or Enterprise+ plan)
- make you discoverable to others in your domain to simplify report sharing
You can change these later. For example, you can turn off the transcript in your settings at Account Settings > Report Content. If you're a Workspace admin, see What are all of the settings and permissions available with Workspaces?
You can also decide which meeting participants should have access to your reports. You can give them "Editor access", "Viewer access", or "No access". These settings determine who is included in "People with access" when you choose your distribution settings.
Click the drop-down arrow for "Internal participant report access" and select an option. Internal participants are people in the meeting who have the same email domain as you. For example, if your email is you@domain-a.com, any meeting participants with an @domain-a.com email address are internal participants.
Then click the drop-down arrow for "External participant report access" and select an option. External participants are people in the meeting whose email has a different domain from yours. If your primary email is from a public email service like Gmail, the internal option isn't available and all participants are treated as external.
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).
Meeting Pre-Reads are an option for recurring meetings. You can set who receives them in Advanced Settings (Send Pre-Reads to) during onboarding, or later in your Account Settings. If you choose to send pre-reads, Read sends the meeting recap from the previous meeting in the series about an hour before the next meeting in the series. These are different from the pre-reads on the Prepare page, which are personal briefs that draw on all your connected sources. To learn more, see Using Prepare to get ready for upcoming meetings. You can turn Pre-Reads on or off in Account Settings > Report Sharing, under Report Distribution > Meeting Pre-Reads.
Select your preferences and click "Done", then "Continue" to move to the next page.
7. Next, on the Supercharge Your Workflow screen, you can connect additional integrations to get the most out of Read AI: Google Meet and Zoom (required to generate notes for those meetings), Teams, Gmail, Claude, and ChatGPT. Click Connect on any you want to set up, then click Continue. For now, you can skip this step by clicking I'll do this later.
8. On the Wrap Up screen, you can download Read AI for Desktop and/or install the Read Extension for Chrome. You can also choose whether to take part in our Customer Experience Program to help us improve our service, by checking the box "Yes, I want to participate in the Read Customer Experience Program". By default, users are not opted in to this program. Click Finish!
9. Onboarding is complete! You will land on the Reports page. If your calendar isn't connected yet, a Welcome to Read pop-up asks you to link it, and a Complete Your Account Setup banner with a Connect Calendar button stays at the top of the page until you do. You'll also see a short demo video. A Getting Started checklist walks you through connecting a calendar, adding Read to a meeting, viewing a meeting report, and connecting an integration, and sample reports are in a Sample Reports folder. Your trial status (Free Trial, with the days left and an Upgrade button) shows in the left navigation.
You can change your settings at any time by clicking the button with your name and email in the bottom left corner of the screen.
From this menu you can open:
- Your Account Settings
- Your Plan & Billing page. Here, you can see information about your plan and any future billing. Saving a payment method is not needed for the free trial.
- Add People, to create a Workspace. Workspaces let you manage multiple licenses if you want other people in your organization to try Read AI. If you're already in a Workspace, this menu shows Workspace Settings instead. You can also create a Workspace from Join Your Team at the top of the left navigation, or with Create a Workspace on the Plan & Billing page.
- Support (Read AI's Support Center)
- Log Out
10. For now, click "Account Settings".
Click "Meeting Recording". Under Auto-Join Preferences, you can change which meetings Read AI joins automatically (Auto-Join Calendar Events and Auto-Join Unscheduled Meetings), or turn off auto-join altogether. Once a calendar is connected, Which Calendar Events lets you choose All calendar events (the default) or Calendar events I'm hosting, and Who's Invited lets you choose Any participants (the default) or Internal participants only (Read only joins when everyone invited is from your domain). Under Assistant Appearance, you can change how your assistant appears when it joins meetings with the Assistant Name drop-down (for example, "read.ai meeting notes" or "<your first name>'s Notetaker").
From "Report Sharing" you can change who has access to your reports, and whether and how your reports are shared automatically. You can change this at any time. To learn more, see How do I control meeting report sharing and distribution?
Under "Advanced", you can see that by default your data is not used to train our models (the Customer Experience Program box stays unchecked unless you checked it during onboarding). If you joined a Workspace when you signed up, you won't see this section, because Workspaces are excluded from this program.
Under Active Sessions, you can see where your account is signed in and log out of individual sessions (Log out) or all of them (Log out of all sessions). If you ever choose to delete your Read AI account, use Delete my account in the Delete Account section here.
11. 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 someone using Read AI invites it to a meeting, they can share the report with meeting attendees based on their settings. To make sure meeting reports are only shared with the intended participants, by default anyone who isn't already a Read AI user needs to create an account to view the meeting notes. However, Read AI also offers an option to make reports publicly accessible through a shareable link, with 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 don't have a Read account yet, start by clicking "View Meeting Report" in the email.
You will be guided through the sign-up process, which is similar to signing up directly on read.ai (see the steps above).
Once you've completed onboarding, you'll land directly on the shared report page so you can review the meeting report that was emailed to you.