Balto: Real-time AI guidance and agent-assist platform that coaches contact-center and sales agents live during calls. IceCubes: Bot-free Chrome and Edge extension that reads a meeting platform's own captions to transcribe and summarize Meet, Zoom, and Teams calls. Which one wins depends on your platform mix, budget, and how hands-off you want notes to be.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Balto when guiding agents live through objections and compliance requirements matters most, and IceCubes when sales reps who want call summaries automatically tied to crm records matters most. Run both through a week of actual calls to see which suits your workflow.
Real-time AI guidance and agent-assist platform that coaches contact-center and sales agents live during calls.
Bot-free Chrome and Edge extension that reads a meeting platform's own captions to transcribe and summarize Meet, Zoom, and Teams calls.
Balto is a contact-center AI platform centered on real-time guidance during live customer and sales calls. Rather than focusing on post-call review, Balto listens to conversations as they happen and surfaces dynamic prompts, objection-handling cues, compliance checklists, and knowledge-base answers to the agent in the moment. Its Agent Assist pulls relevant information so reps can respond to customer questions instantly, while real-time QA automatically scores interactions across all calls and flags compliance risk early, maintaining an audit trail for supervisors. Coaching automation tailors recommendations to each agent's performance, and real-time note generation produces call summaries without manual write-ups. Balto also offers voice AI agents to handle high-volume, repeatable calls and supports omnichannel context across voice and digital channels. It integrates with CRMs and telephony systems such as Salesforce and RingCentral. The platform is used across industries including healthcare, insurance, banking, collections, and home improvement, and is aimed at contact centers and sales teams that want in-the-moment guidance, compliance assurance, and automated quality management at scale. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
IceCubes is an AI meeting assistant distributed as a browser extension for Chrome and Edge that captures meetings without sending a bot participant into the call. Instead of joining as a separate attendee, the extension reads the transcript directly from the conferencing platform's built-in closed-captioning service and maps speaker names from the meeting interface, then layers AI processing on top. It works with the web clients of Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams, and supports additional platforms through web tab sharing. After a meeting, IceCubes produces AI summaries, extracts action items, and surfaces conversation insights, with custom 'Smart Tags' for pulling out specific information the user cares about. For revenue teams it adds sales-oriented features such as matching meetings to contacts, deals, and accounts in Salesforce and HubSpot, plus coaching and qualification frameworks. Because it relies on native captions rather than a visible recorder, it is positioned as avoiding the disruption and IT-policy friction of bot-based notetakers. The product is actively maintained, offers a free transcription tier without a credit card, and is operating in 2025-2026. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Balto is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); IceCubes is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Balto | IceCubes |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Real-time, in-call guidance with dynamic prompts and objection cues | Chrome and Edge browser extensions |
| Standout feature | Agent Assist that surfaces knowledge-base answers live | Bot-free capture by reading the platform's own closed captions |
| Team usage | Automated quality assurance scoring across 100% of calls | Speaker identification mapped from the meeting UI |
| Integrations | Real-time compliance monitoring with audit trails | AI summaries, action items, and custom Smart Tags |
| Languages & capture | Automated call summaries and coaching recommendations | Supports Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams web clients |
| Best-fit workflow | Integrations with CRMs and phone systems such as Salesforce and RingCentral | CRM matching to contacts, deals, and accounts in Salesforce and HubSpot |
Balto
Choose Balto if you need guiding agents live through objections and compliance requirements — strengths include guides agents during the call rather than only analyzing afterward.
IceCubes
Choose IceCubes if you need teams that need notes without a bot joining due to it or compliance constraints — strengths include no visible recording bot, reducing meeting disruption and policy friction.
Balto
IceCubes
It depends on your workflow. Balto is strong for guiding agents live through objections and compliance requirements, while IceCubes is strong for teams that need notes without a bot joining due to it or compliance constraints. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Balto is a free tier with paid upgrades and IceCubes is a free tier with paid upgrades. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
Often yes: teams combine tools when one handles capture and another handles analysis.
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