How to Stop Read AI From Automatically Joining Your Teams Meetings

I remember the first time I saw Read.ai pop up in a meeting I didn’t invite it to. I thought someone had made a mistake. Then it happened again. And again.

If you are reading this, you are probably in the same boat. You want that bot gone, not just hidden.

Let me walk you through exactly how to remove read ai from Teams, and more important, how to make sure it never comes back.

The trouble is that most people try the obvious fix — uninstalling the app from the Apps section. That removes the icon and the sidebar, but it does not stop the bot from joining meetings.

Read.ai works through your calendar. It gets added as an attendee. Until you deal with that, it will keep showing up.

I will share the two-step fix that worked for me, plus what to do if you are an IT admin or if an external guest is the one bringing the bot in.

The Core Problem: Why Removing the App Icon Is Not Enough

When you uninstall Read.ai from your list of installed apps, Teams stops showing you its tab and transcript options. That is fine if you only want to stop seeing the app in your side panel.

But the bot itself is not a normal app. It is a meeting participant. It gets invited via the calendar event. So even after you uninstall, the bot still receives the meeting invite and joins.

Think of it like this: removing the app from your phone does not stop someone from texting that phone number. The number is still active.

For Read.ai, the “number” is its permission to read your calendar and appear on invites. You have to revoke that permission too.

That is why the instructions you find online that only say “go to Apps and delete” are incomplete. You need to do two separate things:

• Remove the personal app — to clean up your interface.
• Revoke calendar access — to stop the bot from being added to future meetings.

Below are the exact steps for both, starting with the quick fix for individual users.

Method 1 – Quick Fix for Individual Users (Remove and Block)

This is the method I used first. It works for most people who just want the bot out of their meetings without bothering IT.

Step A: Uninstall the Personal App

1. Open Microsoft Teams and click Apps in the left sidebar (the icon that looks like a grid of squares).
2. At the top of the Apps page, click Manage your apps.
3. Scroll down until you see Read AI in the list. If you have many apps, you can type “Read” in the search bar.
4. Click the three dots (…) next to the app name.
5. Choose Uninstall from the menu. Confirm if asked.

That removes the app from your personal view. But again, do not stop here. The bot can still join meetings because it lives inside your calendar.

Step B: Revoke Calendar Access (The Critical Step)

This is what actually stops Read.ai from joining. I missed this for two weeks and kept wondering why the bot kept appearing.

1. Go to Calendar in Teams (the calendar icon on the left).
2. Find a previous meeting where Read.ai was present. It does not have to be a past meeting — any meeting on your calendar that includes the bot works.
3. Click on that meeting to open its details.
4. Scroll down to the list of attendees. You will see Read.ai (it might appear as “Read Assistant” or “Read AI Meeting Assistant”).
5. Hover over the bot’s name. A small trash can icon or Remove from appointment link should appear. Click it.
6. Save the meeting.

This action tells Teams that you no longer want the bot listed for that series. If the meeting is recurring, you will be asked if you want to apply the change to all future instances.

Choose All events in the series.

One more thing I learned the hard way: if you use Outlook for email, check your Outlook Web Access settings too.

Go to Outlook on the web, click the gear icon (Settings), then Calendar > Automatic processing.

Look for any setting that says “Meeting Insights” or “Read.ai integration” and turn it off. Sometimes the app is tied to your Microsoft account, not just Teams.

Why This Works

When you revoke the calendar permission, the bot is no longer added as an attendee on new meeting invitations. It cannot join meetings it is not invited to.

Together with uninstalling the app, this gives you a clean break.

Method 2 – The Admin Override (Blocking Deployment)

If you are an IT admin and want to remove read ai from Teams for your whole organization, the individual steps above will not help everyone. You need to block the app from the backend.

I had to do this for a client who had the app auto-deployed across their tenant. Here is what worked.

1. Sign in to the Teams Admin Center at admin.teams.microsoft.com.
2. In the left menu, go to Teams apps > Manage apps.
3. Use the search bar to find Read AI.
4. Click on the app name to open its details.
5. On the app detail page, click the Block button. Confirm the action.

Blocking prevents anyone in your organization from installing the app in the future. But it does not automatically remove the app from meetings that are already on users’ calendars.

For that, you will need to also push a policy to remove it from existing installs.

Go to Teams apps > Permission policies and create a new policy that sets “All apps” to “Block all apps” except the ones you want. Assign that policy to your users.

This forces the app to be uninstalled from their client.

One important note: if the meeting was created before you blocked the app, users may still see the bot attendee in their calendar until they manually remove it (using Step B from Method 1) or until the meeting series ends.

Method 3 – The Nuclear Option (Preventing Future Joins from External Guests)

During a Live Meeting

1. In the meeting window, click the Participants button (the person icon).
2. Next to “Participants”, look for a small gear or three-dot menu.

Click it.

• Find the option Let external meeting participants add apps and turn it off.

This blocks any participant from adding a bot or app during the meeting.

It is a live control, so you have to do it before someone invites the bot.

Permanent Fix for Organizers

If you are the meeting organizer, you can change the default permission for all your meetings.

Open Outlook or Teams and go to Meeting options. Change the setting Who can add apps to Only organizers.

This prevents anyone else from inviting Read.ai to your meetings.

I use this method myself.

It only takes a minute and saves a lot of frustration later.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does removing Read.ai from Teams remove it from Outlook?

No.

Teams and Outlook have separate permissions.

If you use Outlook for meetings, you need to repeat the calendar revocation step in Outlook Web App (Settings > Calendar > Automatic processing).

Will the organizer know if I block or remove the Read.ai app?

Not at all.

Blocking or uninstalling the app only affects your view. The organizer can still invite the bot, but you will not see its transcripts or notes in your chat.

The bot itself will still be present in the meeting unless the organizer removes it.

What if I cannot find the “Remove” button in my Teams Admin Center?

That means your account does not have Global Admin or Teams Admin permissions.

You need to ask your IT department to block the app.

They can look up the app’s GUID and block it via PowerShell or the Admin Center.

Does Read.ai still record my meeting if I remove the app?

If you remove the app from your client, you cannot view any recording or notes.

However, the bot remains in the meeting as a participant and still records for the organizer unless someone (with permission) removes the bot from the participant list during the meeting.

I hope these steps help you take back control of your meetings.

Once you revoke the calendar permission, the bot will stop appearing.

If you run into any edge cases — like the bot being readded by a different user — come back to Method 3 for the extra layer of protection.