Granola, the popular AI note-taking app used in meetings across corporate America, exposes your notes to anyone with a link by default. The Verge AI reports that despite Granola marketing notes as “private by default,” the app’s own settings menu reveals the opposite: “By default, your notes are viewable to anyone with the link.”
This is a serious problem for anyone recording sensitive meetings. And it gets worse.
📋 What’s actually exposed
The Verge AI confirmed the issue firsthand. A reporter accessed their own Granola note from a private browser window, no login required. The public page displayed:
- The full AI-generated meeting notes
- Who the note belongs to and when it was created
- Partial transcript access, including quotes and AI-generated summaries pulled from specific bullet points
Full transcripts are reportedly available to collaborators who open the same folder or note inside the Granola desktop app. It’s unclear whether any Granola account holder can access your transcript, or only people you’ve explicitly shared your workspace with. Granola didn’t respond to The Verge’s request for clarification.
🔒 How to fix it right now
If you use Granola, stop reading and do this:
- Open Granola and click your profile in the bottom-left corner
- Go to Settings
- Find Default link sharing and change it from “Anyone with the link” to either “Only my company” or “Private”
- While you’re there, toggle off “Use my data to improve models for everyone” unless you want Granola using your anonymized meeting data for AI training
🚨 Why this matters
The “public by default” pattern is a known dark pattern in SaaS products. Google Docs does something similar with link sharing, but there’s a critical difference: Google Docs requires you to actively create and share a link. Granola generates links for every note automatically.
One LinkedIn user flagged this issue last year, noting that “these links aren’t indexed, but if you share or leak one, even accidentally, it’s public to whoever finds it.” At least one major company has already denied use of the tool to a senior executive due to security concerns, according to a source who spoke with The Verge AI.
For an app that records meetings, many of which contain confidential business discussions, strategy talks, and HR conversations, defaulting to public access is a baffling design choice. The fact that Granola still describes notes as “private by default” on its marketing site while the settings menu says the exact opposite raises real trust questions.
Granola does store notes with encryption at rest and in transit on AWS, and says it doesn’t retain meeting audio. It only keeps notes and transcripts. The company also says it doesn’t share data with third-party AI companies like OpenAI or Anthropic for training, even when users have the data improvement toggle enabled.
But none of that matters much if your notes are one leaked URL away from being public.
If you’re evaluating AI meeting tools for your team, this is a reminder to check sharing defaults before rolling anything out. The full investigation is available at The Verge AI.