Tired of drowning in meeting notes and scattered information?
Do you wish you had a smart assistant to capture every detail, summarize key points, and even help you act on them?
Many of us struggle to keep up with the flow of information in our busy lives.
Leading to missed insights and lost productivity.
Today, we’re putting two major players head-to-head: Sembly vs Microsoft OneNote.
Overview
We thoroughly tested both Sembly and Microsoft OneNote in real-world scenarios.
Our team used them for daily tasks, meetings, and personal organization.
This hands-on experience helped us fairly compare their features and performance.
Curious about how Sembly AI can change your work? See how it can help you.
Pricing: It has a free trial. Paid plan starts at $10/yearly.
Key Features:
- AI Meeting Notes
- Multi-language transcription
- Automated Task Management
Over 100 million are already using Microsoft OneNote to streamline notes
Pricing: It has a free plan. Custom Pricing Plans are Available.
Key Features:
- Freeform Canvas
- Handwriting Recognition
- Microsoft 365 Integration
What is Sembly?
Ever wish you had a personal assistant for your meetings?
Sembly makes it real. It’s an AI-powered note-taker.
It records, transcribes, and summarizes. You get insights fast.
Also, explore our favorite Sembly alternatives…
Key Benefits
- Transcription Accuracy: Offers highly accurate meeting transcriptions.
- Action Item Detection: Automatically identifies action items from discussions.
- Smart Meeting Summaries: Provides concise AI-powered summaries of your meetings.
- Speaker Identification: Distinguishes between different speakers in a conversation.
- Integrates with Calendars: Syncs easily with your calendar for automatic joining.
Pricing
There are a few options (Billed Annually).
- Personal: $0/month
- Professional: $10/month
- Team: $20/month
- Enterprise: Custom Pricing
Pros
Cons
What is Microsoft OneNote?
Think of a digital notebook that never runs out of pages.
That’s Microsoft OneNote. It’s a freeform digital canvas.
You can type, draw, clip web pages, and record audio.
Also, explore our favorite Microsoft alternatives…
Our Take
Ready to get organized? Over 100 million people are already using Microsoft OneNote to streamline their notes. See why they’ve made the switch – join the millions who are boosting their productivity!
Key Benefits
OneNote has its special strengths:
- Freeform Canvas: Write or draw anywhere. It’s like endless paper.
- Handwriting Recognition: Converts notes to text. Great for pen users.
- Deep Microsoft Integration: Works seamlessly with Office. Perfect for existing users.
- Audio Recording: Embed voice notes directly. Capture meetings easily.
- Web Clipper: Save web pages quickly. Keep research organized.
Pricing
Custom Pricing
Pros
Cons
Feature Comparison
Navigating the world of productivity tools can be confusing for a team. This comparison of Sembly and Microsoft OneNote will highlight their distinct strengths to help you make an informed decision.
1. Core Purpose
- Sembly: Sembly is an AI meeting assistant. Its core purpose is to join online meetings, record meetings, and transcribe meetings to save time on note-taking, boosting meeting productivity.
- Microsoft OneNote: As part of Microsoft Office, OneNote is a digital notebook for organizing thoughts, notes, and information. It is a general-purpose productivity tool, not specifically designed as an AI meeting assistant.
2. Meeting Transcription and Notes
- Sembly: Sembly offers real time transcription of meetings on platforms like Zoom meetings and provides an automated, searchable transcript of every conversation. It is an ideal solution for teams who need accurate meeting notes from their online meetings.
- Microsoft OneNote: While you can record audio in OneNote, it does not automatically transcribe meetings. OneNote users must manually type their meeting notes, a process that can be tedious and prone to missing key details.
3. Meeting Insights and Summaries
- Sembly: One of Sembly’s advanced capabilities is its ability to generate comprehensive meeting summaries and meeting minutes. It provides actionable insights and meeting insights from the discussion, which helps the entire team stay on the same page.
- Microsoft OneNote: OneNote does not have AI-powered features for generating summaries or insights. You would have to manually create your own summary and highlight key insights from your notes.
4. Task Management
- Sembly: Sembly’s task management features are directly tied to meetings. Its AI can identify actionable insights and tasks from the meeting discussions, which can be sent to other project management tools.
- Microsoft OneNote: OneNote offers robust task management features with to-do tags, but it is a manual process. You can create to do lists and mark them as complete, but it won’t automatically extract tasks from a meeting for you.
5. Collaboration
- Sembly: Sembly’s collaboration features are centered on meeting records. It helps the entire team stay on the same page by providing a central location for meeting discussions, recordings, and AI-generated notes.
- Microsoft OneNote: OneNote is a powerful tool for collaboration, allowing onenote users to share notebooks, sections, and pages in real-time. This makes it easy for other onenote users to work on the same document simultaneously.
6. Integrations and Ecosystem
- Sembly: Sembly integrates with popular platforms like zoom meetings and microsoft teams, as well as project management tools. It’s built to fit into existing workflows.
- Microsoft OneNote: OneNote’s biggest strength is its deep integration with microsoft office applications. It works seamlessly with tools like microsoft word, microsoft office, and microsoft apps in general.
7. Accessibility and Devices
- Sembly: Sembly is a cross-platform tool with a web version and mobile apps, allowing you to access meeting records from multiple devices.
- Microsoft OneNote: OneNote also has a desktop version, windows version, and various mobile apps to access onenote from multiple devices. Your notes are stored in cloud storage so you can access them anywhere.
8. Cost and Support
- Sembly: Sembly offers a free tier with basic functionality, while its paid plans unlock more advanced features.
- Microsoft OneNote: The basic onenote cost is minimal as it is included with many microsoft apps. The onenote support is extensive, and Microsoft offers a range of microsoft support options for its users.
9. History and Search
- Sembly: Sembly creates a searchable library of past meetings, making it easy to review multiple meetings to find a specific topic, phrase, or actionable insights.
- Microsoft OneNote: OneNote offers a powerful search functionality that can search across all of your notes and notebooks. It’s a great tool for managing past meetings notes and locating specific information.
10. Platform
- Sembly: Sembly is a dedicated, cloud-based ai meeting assistant that specializes in a single, focused task.
- Microsoft OneNote: OneNote is a versatile digital notebook that can be used on a desktop version, a windows version, or through mobile apps for a wide range of use cases beyond meetings.
11. Advanced Features
- Sembly: Sembly’s more advanced features include AI-powered analysis of meetings to provide conversational insights and automated summaries for specific parts of a discussion.
- Microsoft OneNote: OneNote has its own advanced capabilities like OCR, which allows it to recognize and search for text within images, and deep integration with microsoft office applications.
What to Look For When Choosing an AI Note-Taking App?
When choosing your ideal AI note-taking app, consider these key insights:
Quick Capture & Organization: A good popular note taking app should offer essential features that help you create a new note or notes quickly. You should be able to organize notes easily by using notebook stacks or even create notebook stacks to manage your content.
AI & Advanced Features: Look for advanced capabilities that help you capture meeting content from zoom meetings with automated recording. The app should be able to analyzes conversations, giving you key insights and helping you capture key points from important discussions. These AI-driven features should allow you to create customizable summaries.
Search & Functionality: A robust tool should have robust search functionality so you can quickly find anything you need. Consider if it includes a feature like the evernote web clipper to save content from the web.
Security & Accessibility: You should be able to sync unlimited devices and feel confident that your data privacy is protected. For new users, a free plan is a great way to try out the essential features before committing to a paid plan like evernote premium. You should also check for multilingual support to ensure it works for your entire team.
Workflow and Task Management: The app should allow you to assign tasks and make it a central hub for your productivity.
Final Verdict
So, which AI note-taking app wins?
For most people, Sembly AI is our top choice. It’s built specifically for meetings.
It’s smart AI features automatically capture everything.
You get clear summaries and action items, saving you lots of time.
While Microsoft OneNote is great for general notes, Evernote might be a familiar name.
We tested these thoroughly, and Sembly truly helps you get more done, effortlessly.
More of Sembly
- Sembly vs Notion AI: Sembly specializes in AI-powered meeting notes, while Notion provides a versatile, all-in-one workspace.
- Sembly vs Fireflies.ai: Sembly and Fireflies both transcribe meetings, but Fireflies is known for its CRM integrations.
- Sembly vs ClickUp: Sembly is a meeting-focused AI tool, whereas ClickUp is a comprehensive project management platform.
- Sembly vs Capacities: Sembly focuses on meeting insights, and Capacities excels at visually connecting a personal knowledge base.
- Sembly vs Taskade: Taskade offers a unified workspace for tasks, notes, and video chat, promoting all-in-one team collaboration.
- Sembly vs Notejoy: Notejoy focuses on fast, collaborative note-taking for teams, and Sembly excels at meeting automation.
- Sembly vs Notta: Sembly and Notta both provide transcription; Notta’s standout feature is its high accuracy.
- Sembly vs Craft: Sembly automates meeting notes, while Craft is a beautifully designed tool for creating rich documents.
- Sembly vs MeetGeek: MeetGeek is a virtual meeting assistant that sends email summaries and meeting highlights to participants.
- Sembly vs Mem AI: Mem AI is a powerful AI-driven knowledge management tool that helps you organize your thoughts.
- Sembly vs Evernote: Evernote is a classic note-taking app with a powerful search feature and robust web clipper.
- Sembly vs Microsoft OneNote: Sembly automates meeting notes, while OneNote is a free-form digital notebook with deep Microsoft integration.
More of Microsoft OneNote
- Microsoft OneNote vs Sembly: Sembly excels at AI-powered meeting transcription and summarization.
- Microsoft OneNote vs Notion: Notion AI provides an all-in-one workspace with integrated AI.
- Microsoft OneNote vs Fireflies AI: Fireflies AI focuses on transcribing, summarizing, and analyzing meeting notes.
- Microsoft OneNote vs ClickUp: ClickUp is an all-in-one platform for project management and tasks.
- Microsoft OneNote vs Capacities: Capacities uses an object-based system to connect all your knowledge.
- Microsoft OneNote vs Taskade: Taskade is a collaborative workspace for visual notes and tasks.
- Microsoft OneNote vs Notejoy: Notejoy is built for fast, real-time team collaboration on notes.
- Microsoft OneNote vs Notta: Notta specializes in real-time voice-to-text transcription and translation.
- Microsoft OneNote vs Craft: Craft offers a visually elegant editor with powerful document linking.
- Microsoft OneNote vs MeetGeek: MeetGeek is an AI assistant for managing and summarizing meetings.
- Microsoft OneNote vs Mem AI: Mem AI automatically organizes your notes using AI-driven connections.
- Microsoft OneNote vs Evernote: Evernote is known for its powerful web clipping and search features.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the main difference between Sembly and Microsoft OneNote?
Sembly excels in AI meeting automation, providing smart transcriptions and summaries. OneNote offers a versatile, free-form digital canvas for all types of notes, drawings, and multimedia, but lacks built-in meeting AI.
Can I use these apps for general personal note-taking?
Yes. OneNote is highly versatile for personal note-taking, brainstorming, and organization. Sembly focuses more on structured meeting content but can also record and manage personal voice notes.
Are my meeting recordings and notes secure with these services?
Both Sembly and Microsoft OneNote employ strong encryption and security measures. Always check their latest privacy policies to understand how your data is protected and managed by each company.
Do these apps integrate with popular meeting platforms like Zoom or Microsoft Teams?
Sembly is designed to integrate directly with platforms like Google Meet and Microsoft Teams for automatic meeting capture. OneNote, part of Microsoft 365, integrates deeply within the Microsoft ecosystem, including Teams.
Which app is better for automating note-taking during live discussions?
Sembly is superior for automating live discussion note-taking. Its AI actively transcribes, identifies speakers, and summarizes key points and action items, freeing you to participate fully in the conversation.
