Sam Liang, the visionary Founder and CEO of Otter.ai, a US-based transcription software company, is revolutionizing how conversations are captured and recalled. A Stanford Ph.D. and serial innovator, he combines deep technical expertise with a passion for human-centered AI, transforming spoken words into intelligent collaboration tools that enhance productivity, communication, and teamwork worldwide.
Sam, who had an inquisitive nature towards technology right from his birth, initially took his academic path at Peking University where he earned a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science. After that, he went to the University of Arizona for his Master’s. Eventually, he completed his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, with Professor David Cheriton, the first investor in Google assigned to him as a mentor. This whole journey through academics was of great help to Sam for his innovations driven by artificial intelligence.
Sam’s career reflects a relentless pursuit of innovation. After leading location-based services at Google, where he earned top innovation honors, he founded Alohar Mobile, later acquired by Alibaba. In 2016, he launched Otter.ai, redefining meetings through advanced speech recognition and deep learning. Backed by elite Silicon Valley investors, Otter’s success and partnership with Zoom positioned Liang as a trailblazer in AI-powered communication.
Otter.ai applies cutting-edge AI projects to improve productivity, reduce meeting times, operate automatically, and provide valuable information to the business processes.
AI Meeting Agent: Otter.ai’s AI Meeting Agent gives real-time transcription, automatic summarization, and insights which can be acted upon during meetings. It records important moments, outcomes, and talks thereby allowing the teams to be in sync and effective while at the same time not losing any important information.
AI Chat: AI Chat picks up the main points from the meeting transcripts and prepares emails, outlines, or summaries. It allows swift team actions, enhances interaction, and guarantees that no vital data is missed.
Automated Summaries: Otter.ai is capable of generating brief and easily-readable summaries from lengthy meetings. The attendees can very quickly understand the main points, determinations, and action items, which not only saves time but also makes the information accessible and easy to implement.
Action Item Capture: The AI understands what tasks to perform, who to give what task and when to do it. This ensures that the follow-up is done swiftly, the team members are held accountable, and no large tasks or decisions can be overlooked.
Sales Agent: The AI Sales Agent frees up the sales team from client follow-ups, note-taking at meetings, and CRM integration by handling it all, hence sales workflows are made more efficient, engagement is increased, and the sales team can work quicker and not lose any of the insights.
SDR Agent: The AI SDR Agent is responsible for managing demos, making appointments, and conducting customer conversations directly on the website, which leads to smoother sales development practices and higher lead engagement rate even without human presence.
Sam's leadership has transformed Otter.ai into a worldwide trendsetter in AI-based meeting solutions, processing over millions of conversations and empowering users by the million. The product got recognized as one of the Top 10 AI Apps by Google, Apple, and The Wall Street Journal. The extraordinary partnership with Zoom and backing from prestigious Silicon Valley investors are proof of Liang's ability to mix innovation with efficiency through necessity.
No personal scandal or improper behavior has been publicly associated with Sam. He is viewed as a forerunner in AI and voice technology, whose breakthroughs are of such that the handling of privacy and data-collection issues is done in a timely and thoughtful manner, hence, accompanying the innovations.