Bring your own AI keys

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If you already pay Anthropic or OpenAI directly, you can point Notate at your own accounts instead of buying the AI plan. Notate uses your key, the provider bills you, and nothing is drawn from a Notate AI allowance.

This is an option on the Sync plan. It needs an account because your keys are stored on the server, which is also what lets the CLI and MCP use them.

Which key turns on what

There are two, and they do different jobs. Most people have one, not both, so it is normal for some AI features to be on and others off.

Your keyWhat it turns on
AnthropicChat with your notes, writing tools (completions, rewrite, summaries), auto-tagging, AI image descriptions, and the Meeting Assistant
OpenAIAudio transcription, including live meeting transcription

An Anthropic key does nothing for transcription, and an OpenAI key does nothing for chat. Settings lists each feature under the key that powers it, so you can see at a glance what is on and what is not.

Semantic search is included either way. It runs on Notate’s own embeddings provider and costs a few cents a year per person, so we cover it rather than ask you for a third key that almost nobody has.

Adding a key

  1. Open Settings → AI.
  2. Paste your key next to the provider and choose Save.
  3. Notate checks the key against the provider before storing it, so a typo fails right away instead of turning into a broken feature later.

Once saved, a key is never shown again. You will see a masked fingerprint like sk-ant…4f2a, which is enough to tell two keys apart. Keys are encrypted before they are written to the database.

Remove a key any time from the same screen. AI features that depended on it switch off immediately.

Choosing a Claude model

With an Anthropic key you can pick which Claude model to use: Sonnet 4.6 (the default), Sonnet 5, Opus 5, or Haiku 4.5. The setting appears once a key is saved, and applies only to your Anthropic key.

Model choice is not offered on the AI plan, where Notate manages the model.

What this does not change

  • End-to-end encryption still turns AI off. With encryption on, the server cannot read your notes, so there is nothing to send to a provider. That is true whether the key is yours or ours.
  • Your notes still pass through Notate’s servers on the way to the provider. Your key changes who pays, not where the request goes.
  • Provider costs are yours. Notate does not mark anything up and does not see your provider bill.

Getting a key

Both require a funded account with that provider. If you would rather not manage any of this, the AI plan includes everything above with no keys to set up.