You’re in another meeting, trying to listen, think along, and take notes all at the same time. By the time the meeting’s over, you have a barely readable document with action items you still need to figure out. Sembly AI aims to solve that problem by automatically recording your meetings, transcribing them, and immediately creating usable summaries.
Who’s behind Sembly?
Surprisingly little is publicly known about the exact founders and founding year of Sembly. What we do know: the company has now raised more than $1 million through various funding rounds. The most recent round was a combination of seed funding and crowdfunding via StartEngine, where individual investors could participate.
Among the investors, we find names like MI-GSO | PCUBED and Aurelia Ventures. These aren’t typical tech investors, but firms with backgrounds in project management and consulting. That might explain why Sembly focuses so heavily on features like task detection and risk identification in meetings – features that are especially valuable for project teams.
The company doesn’t have European roots and stores data both in the EU and the United States. For teams with strict GDPR requirements, that’s good to know, although Sembly states it’s compliant with European regulations.
Who is Sembly for?
Sembly primarily targets professionals who have lots of meetings and want structure in them. Project managers who need to extract action items from meetings, executive teams who want to document decision-making, and consultants who need to accurately capture client conversations – these are the groups that benefit most.
The tool is less suitable if you work on the go a lot and need a full-featured mobile app. Sembly has deliberately chosen not to actively support their mobile apps anymore, and it shows. Users complain about crashes and recordings that don’t save on mobile. If you often want to join or record meetings from your phone, you’re better off looking at alternatives.
It’s also probably too limited for those who occasionally want to record a meeting. The free plan only gives you 1 hour of recording time per month. That’s one long meeting or two short ones, and you’ve already hit your limit.
What can Sembly do?
The free Personal plan offers basic recording and transcription for up to 1 hour per month. For unlimited recordings, proxy attendance, and advanced integrations, you need a Professional or Team subscription.
- Automatic transcription in 48+ languages: Sembly records your meeting and converts everything to text. Works with Dutch, English, French, and 45 other languages. Reviewers indicate that the accuracy is good, even with speakers who have an accent or non-native pronunciation.
- AI Meeting Notes and summaries: After the meeting, you don’t get an endless transcript, but a structured summary. Sembly distinguishes between decisions, risks, action items, and general notes. That structure consistently comes up in reviews as one of the strongest features.
- Proxy Attendance: This is a standout feature. You can have Sembly attend a meeting without being there yourself. The AI bot joins, records, takes notes, and sends you a report afterward. Handy if you’re double-booked or if a meeting doesn’t really require your presence.
- Automatic detection of tasks and action items: Sembly recognizes when someone is assigned a task or mentions a deadline. Those action items are displayed separately and can be forwarded to your project management tool. Users mention this as a real time-saver.
- Semblian chatbot: You can ask questions about your meetings afterward. “What were the customer’s main objections?” or “What deadlines were mentioned?” The AI searches the transcript and provides answers. Works similarly to ChatGPT, but specifically for your meeting data.
- Integrations with Slack, Trello, and Todoist: Action items from your meetings can be automatically sent to these tools. The integration list is more limited than competitors like Fireflies, which also have CRM connections.
- Speaker identification: Sembly recognizes who’s speaking and labels it in the transcript. Especially useful in larger meetings where you want to search back afterward for who said something specific.
The tool is entirely web-based. You don’t need to install anything – neither do your meeting participants. Sembly joins as an additional participant (a bot) that watches and listens.
What does Sembly cost?
Sembly has three plans. The Personal plan is free but limits you to 1 hour of recording per month and one user. You can upload audio and video files, but there are limits on those as well.
The Professional plan costs $1 per month, or $1 per month if you pay annually ($1 total). This gives you unlimited recording time, proxy attendance, and access to all AI features without restrictions.
The Team plan is designed for multiple users and costs $1 per month, or $1 per month with annual billing ($1). This includes team features like shared workspaces and collaborative access to meeting data.
New users get a 7-day trial to test out the paid features. That’s just enough to see if the tool fits your workflow, but it’s short compared to some competitors that offer 14 days.
Sembly doesn’t offer lifetime deals. So you’re locked into an ongoing subscription.
What should you watch out for?
The mobile experience is the biggest pain point. Sembly technically still has mobile apps, but barely supports them anymore. Users report that recordings crash, don’t save, or that the interface doesn’t work well on smaller screens. Sembly itself recommends using the tool via mobile browser, which isn’t ideal if you want to quickly record something on the go.
Another annoying issue: the Sembly bot sometimes gets stuck after a meeting ends. You then have to manually remove it from the call, which is awkward and sometimes causes confusion among other participants who think someone is still listening in.
Long meetings are automatically split into multiple parts. This happens without warning and can be confusing when you’re reviewing your notes afterwards. You then have to figure out yourself which parts belong together.
Saving recordings also fails occasionally. Users report that a meeting was recorded but doesn’t appear in their dashboard. Sembly has no good error handling for this – the recording is just gone.
Finally: the free plan feels more like a demo than a usable option. With 1 hour per month, you can barely use the tool seriously. That’s a deliberate choice to push people toward the paid plans, but it makes it difficult to properly evaluate Sembly before you pay.
Sembly alternatives
Sembly isn’t the only AI meeting assistant. Here are three alternatives you should consider:
- Otter.ai: Choose this if you’re on the go a lot and need a mobile app. Otter has better mobile apps than Sembly, but the task detection is less advanced. The structure of summaries is also clearer with Sembly.
- Fireflies.ai: Comparable to Sembly in terms of functionality, but with many more integrations. If you want to connect meetings to your CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce) or project tools (Asana, ClickUp), then Fireflies has a broader offering. The AI summaries are comparable in quality.
- Fathom: Completely free for individual users, without the limitations of Sembly’s free plan. You get unlimited recordings and transcriptions. However, fewer features – no proxy attendance for example, and the task detection is more basic. But if budget is an issue, this is a serious option.
Frequently asked questions
A few questions that come up frequently about Sembly:
Can Sembly attend meetings if I’m not there?
Yes, that’s the Proxy Attendance feature. You send the Sembly bot to a meeting and it records, takes notes, and sends you a summary afterwards. Handy if you’re double-booked or if a meeting doesn’t really require your presence but you still want to stay informed.
Does Sembly support the Dutch language?
Yes, Dutch is one of the 48 supported languages. Transcription and AI summaries work in Dutch, although the interface itself is in English. Users indicate that the quality is good, even with speakers who have an accent.
Does Sembly have a mobile app?
Technically yes, but Sembly no longer actively supports the mobile apps. They’re buggy and users complain about crashes and recordings that don’t save. Sembly itself recommends using the tool via mobile browser instead of the app. If you need a good mobile experience, Otter.ai is a better alternative.
Conclusion
Sembly does what it’s good at – creating structured meeting summaries – really well. The automatic detection of decisions, risks, and action items saves time and works reliably. For project managers and teams that have a lot of meetings and want structure in them, it’s a solid choice. The proxy attendance feature is unique and practical if you don’t need to be physically present everywhere.
But the mobile experience is subpar and the free plan is too limited to really evaluate the tool. If you often work on the go or want to test extensively first without paying, there are better options. And with a price tag of $1 per year for unlimited use, you need to have regular meetings to make the investment worthwhile.
