July 25, 2026
AI tools for D&D session notes (2026): an honest guide
The short answer:there are three real approaches in 2026. Audio-first tools (Archivist AI is the established one) record your sessions and transcribe them, useful if your table wants everything captured verbatim. Notes-first tools turn the notes you already write into a campaign wiki; that's the category Lorevia is in, and full disclosure, we make Lorevia. And the DIY route: pasting your notes into ChatGPT or Claude each week. Which fits depends on two questions: is your group comfortable being recorded, and do you need reliable memory across dozens of sessions or just a recap now and then.
The three approaches
| Approach | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Audio-first (Archivist AI) | Tables that play in voice chat and want sessions captured live with nobody writing anything | Everyone must be comfortable with recording; past sessions can't be re-recorded, so old campaigns start from zero |
| Notes-first (Lorevia) | Tables where someone already takes notes, and campaigns with months of existing history to import | Someone still has to write the notes (rough fragments are enough, but the floor isn't zero) |
| DIY (ChatGPT / Claude) | One-shots and short arcs; a single recap from tonight's notes costs nothing | No persistence: by session 30 you're re-pasting history and cross-linking NPCs by hand |
There are also lighter recap tools (Saga20 and RollSummary are two we've seen) that focus on one-off session summaries rather than a persistent campaign wiki; if all you want is tonight's recap, that category may be enough.
What AI is actually good at here
Extraction and recall, not creativity. AI is genuinely good at pulling NPC names, locations, promises, and quest threads out of messy notes, keeping a running entry for each, and answering who-was-that questions months later. The failure mode to avoid is the opposite: a model inventing details that never happened at your table. A purpose-built tool should constrain output to your source material and put a human approval step in front of anything becoming canon. That's how Lorevia works: it extracts only what your notes actually say, it won't invent NPCs or events, and you approve, edit, or reject every entry before it lands in the codex.
The DIY option, honestly
Pasting session notes into a general chatbot works fine for a one-off recap, and it costs nothing. The pain arrives with persistence: session 30 needs the context of sessions 1 through 29, so you end up re-pasting history, managing your own archive of chats, and cross-linking NPCs and plot threads by hand. You become the database. For a one-shot or a six-session arc, that trade is fine. For a multi-year campaign, the bookkeeping quietly becomes a second hobby, which is the exact problem you were trying to solve.
Three privacy questions to ask any tool
Before handing over your campaign, ask: 1) Does it record audio, and what happens to the recordings? 2) Is your campaign content used to train models? 3)Can you export and delete everything? Since we're the disclosed example here, Lorevia's answers: audio is deleted the moment transcription finishes and only the transcript is kept; your content is processed by our providers to build your codex but not used to train their models, per their business terms; and you can export a full backup or permanently delete your account and data anytime. Whatever tool you pick, its answers to those three questions should be findable in its privacy policy, not just its marketing.
Frequently asked
Will it make things up about my campaign?A general chatbot might; that's the risk of the DIY route. Purpose-built tools should ground everything in your notes or transcripts. In Lorevia, if a name isn't in your notes, it doesn't appear, and nothing becomes canon without your approval.
Do I have to record my table? No. Recording is one approach, not the price of entry. Notes-first tools work from typed or handwritten notes; Lorevia also takes audio if you want it (every account gets a free hour of transcription to try), but plenty of tables never record at all.
What do these cost?Archivist offers a 30-day trial and paid tiers from roughly $10/month. Lorevia's free plan is perpetual (one campaign, two organized sessions a month, up to 3 players), with paid plans from $6/month. The head-to-head is in Lorevia vs Archivist AI; if you're comparing manual wiki platforms instead, see World Anvil alternatives.
The fastest way to find out if AI notes help your table: grab your last session's notes, however messy, and paste them into Lorevia on the free plan. Five minutes settles it.