Quick answer: Krisp is an AI-powered desktop application that eliminates background noise, echo, and room reverb on both ends of your calls while processing audio locally on your device. It offers a free tier with 60 minutes of noise cancellation per week, as well as paid options for unlimited use and meeting transcription.
What Is Krisp?
Krisp is an audio enhancement and productivity tool categorized under AI tools. It functions as a virtual layer between your physical microphone or speakers and your communication software. Its primary job is to filter out unwanted background chatter, environmental noise, and acoustic interference in real time.
Because it runs as a dedicated audio intermediary, Krisp works with any call app. Users can configure it directly inside platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Google Meet, Discord, and others. Beyond muting background commotion from your own microphone, the software can also clean up the incoming audio feed from people talking on the other side of the call.
Core Audio and Productivity Features
Krisp provides a suite of real-time audio and meeting assistance features designed to improve remote discussions:
- Real-time microphone noise cancellation: Strips out ambient background noises such as keyboard typing, barking dogs, construction, and household sounds from your microphone.
- Real-time speaker noise cancellation (hear side): Eliminates noise coming from other call participants so you can hear them clearly, even if they are calling from a loud space.
- Echo and room reverb removal: Cleans up acoustic reflections caused by hard walls or poorly treated rooms.
- Voice clarity enhancement: Optimizes the presence and intelligibility of speech during conversations.
- Custom background voices: Manages how secondary voices in the room are handled.
- AI meeting assistant: Automatically records calls, provides full speech transcription, and generates AI meeting summaries along with actionable items.
On-Device Audio Privacy
A notable technical characteristic of Krisp is how it handles audio data. The tool processes audio locally on your device. Your raw voice data is never sent to external servers for noise processing, ensuring that sensitive business and personal conversations remain on your local hardware.
Krisp Pricing and Plans
Krisp operates on a freemium pricing model. It has a free plan available, though it does not offer a standalone free trial for paid tiers. The available plans include:
- Free: Priced at "Free (60 min/week)", this tier grants users up to 60 minutes of noise-free calls every week at no monetary cost.
- Pro: Listed at "$16 / month", this tier is designed for individual professionals requiring more audio capacity. Note that a subscription is required for unlimited noise cancellation at $8/month per user.
- Enterprise: Requires contacting sales for custom enterprise-wide agreements and deployments.
Key Advantages of Krisp
There are several distinct benefits to using Krisp:
- Universal platform support: You do not need dedicated plugins for specific meeting software; it works seamlessly across Zoom, Teams, Slack, Discord, Google Meet, and any other calling app.
- Bi-directional filtering: It handles both outgoing mic noise and incoming speaker noise, giving you control over two-way call clarity.
- Strict privacy: Processing voice on-device removes concerns about third-party audio transmission or server-side eavesdropping during live calls.
- Integrated notes and transcriptions: Combining sound cleanup with an AI meeting assistant allows you to generate notes and action summaries without opening separate recording tools.
- Accessible free option: The 60-minute weekly allotment allows occasional callers to clean up meetings without paying.
Limitations to Consider
Before adopting Krisp, buyers should keep a few tradeoffs in mind:
- Strict free plan caps: The 60 minutes per week limit on the Free tier is quickly exhausted by everyday remote workers.
- Hardware performance impact: Because audio filtering happens locally, the application may introduce slight audio latency on older computer hardware.
- Transcription performance: While Krisp provides meeting transcripts and summaries, its AI transcription accuracy is lower than dedicated transcription services like Otter.ai or Fathom when dealing with complex discussions.
- Subscription requirement: Continuous, unlimited noise cancellation requires an active paid subscription.
Who Is Krisp Best For?
Krisp is best for remote workers, customer support agents, and podcasters in noisy environments who need professional call quality. Whether you work in a shared household, an open office, or a coffee shop, it ensures your audio remains audible and distraction-free on any conferencing tool.
Who Is It Not For?
Krisp is not intended for teams needing full meeting intelligence and CRM sync. Dedicated meeting workflow platforms like Fathom or Fireflies.ai combine noise-free recording with deep meeting notes, summaries, and automated CRM integration in a single tool, making them a better fit for sales and revenue operations.
Final Verdict
The verdict on Krisp is straightforward: it provides the most reliable noise cancellation available, making it a utility that every remote worker should have installed.
Sources
- Krisp Official Website: https://krisp.ai
Photo by sandeep kumar on Unsplash
