Sessions: My Favorite AI Powered Zoom Alternative

Automated transcripts with on the fly translation and more.

Heads up: You can get a discounted lifetime deal if you are reading this by noon on Friday, January 26. I will get an affiliate commission if you use my link.

I have a lot of video conferencing tools after searching high and low for good Zoom alternatives.

I hate Zoom. It's bloated and tends to freeze easily. I am also not a fan of giving one company a market monopoly by just going with what everyone else is using.

I've found a lot of great video conferencing tools, some of which I will review here in the future. Probably the best overall workhorse of the bunch is Sessions, which is a full-featured video conferencing tool that uses AI for everything from agenda creation to automated transcripts.

Now, I have other tools that make automated transcripts, like Vivomeetings. Vivomeetings is also a great contender for a Zoom alternative and I use it for one-on-one meetings. But Vivomeetings gives you a transcript after the fact. Sessions gives you transcripts on the fly, and the AI will actually translate them to your chosen language during the call.

This means I can give classes for foreign students and they can get a translation while they are live on the call with me.

Sessions has extremely reliable in my 6 months of usage, and I haven't had the issues of "your bandwidth is low" like I get from Zoom. It has a gazillion features that are available and the prices are better than Zoom. Events, booking, permanent rooms, etc.

Now, Sessions has some quirks. For example, initially they didn't record video in full screen but left a large border because they were designing recordings for gallery view. This has been fixed, but you have to check a box in recording settings to turn full screen recording on. Additionally, a sliver of a border is still rendered around the video, which might be an issue for those wanting to record yoga classes or other full-screen video.

So you may be wondering why I use Vivomeetings for one-on-one meetings if I have Sessions. Well, I got a Vivomeetings lifetime license first, and I happen to like Vivomeetings' clean interface with large, accessible buttons. It's Zoomlike with a better look and feel than Zoom, so it's very easy for newbies to login and use. This is not to say that Sessions is overly complicated, but it does have a lot more going in bottom toolbars, because of all the options for transcripts and what not. Sessions can be a little bit overwhelming since it’s so feature-rich.

However, Sessions is my preferred meeting tool for group classes, precisely because of its robust AI tools.

The pricing for Sessions is very reasonable. Sessions has a free option, but the AI tools are not included. The free offering is still generous, however, and you don't have to worry about getting cut off at 40 minutes like Zoom.

If you can grab the lifetime deal in time, get it.