Balto: Real-time AI guidance and agent-assist platform that coaches contact-center and sales agents live during calls. Shadow: A bot-free, Mac-based AI meeting assistant that transcribes and summarizes calls locally without joining as a participant. This comparison weighs them on pricing, features, and everyday workflow fit.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Balto when guiding agents live through objections and compliance requirements matters most, and Shadow when privacy-conscious teams that prefer on-device transcription matters most. Try them side by side on real calls before deciding — needs vary by team.
Real-time AI guidance and agent-assist platform that coaches contact-center and sales agents live during calls.
A bot-free, Mac-based AI meeting assistant that transcribes and summarizes calls locally without joining as a participant.
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
Shadow is a bot-free AI meeting assistant for macOS that captures meetings by listening to your computer's audio in the background rather than joining the call as a visible participant. Because transcription runs locally on the Mac, the audio does not need to leave the device for that core processing step, which the company positions as a privacy advantage. Shadow can automatically detect when a meeting starts, transcribe the conversation with speaker identification, and turn the discussion into structured notes, summaries, and follow-up items. It also captures on-screen content alongside the spoken audio, so material shared during a call (slides, dashboards, or shared windows) can be reflected in the output. The tool works across common conferencing platforms including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Webex, Slack, and Discord. Users can configure customizable prompts (described as Skills) to generate notes, summaries, or drafted emails, and connect outputs to other tools via webhooks. It is aimed at professionals and teams who want meeting capture without adding another bot to the call. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Balto is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Shadow is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Balto | Shadow |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Real-time, in-call guidance with dynamic prompts and objection cues | Bot-free capture that records system audio without joining the meeting as a participant |
| Standout feature | Agent Assist that surfaces knowledge-base answers live | On-device (local) transcription on macOS |
| Team usage | Automated quality assurance scoring across 100% of calls | Speaker identification during transcription |
| Integrations | Real-time compliance monitoring with audit trails | Captures on-screen content in addition to spoken audio |
| Languages & capture | Automated call summaries and coaching recommendations | Customizable prompts/Skills to generate notes, summaries, and emails |
| Best-fit workflow | Integrations with CRMs and phone systems such as Salesforce and RingCentral | Webhook integration to connect outputs to other tools |
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.
Shadow
Choose Shadow if you need capturing notes and summaries across multiple conferencing platforms without a bot joining — strengths include does not add a visible bot to meetings.
Balto
Shadow
It depends on your workflow. Balto is strong for guiding agents live through objections and compliance requirements, while Shadow is strong for capturing notes and summaries across multiple conferencing platforms without a bot joining. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Balto is a free tier with paid upgrades and Shadow is a free tier with paid upgrades. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
Sure. Running both makes sense when their strengths don't overlap and the budget allows.
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