How It Works

Polmi runs in five stages: capture, transcribe, distill, study, and share. You start a recording (or hand it a file), and a few minutes later a long lecture has become a page you can skim, a set of cards you can review, and notes you can pass to your study group. Here is what happens at each stage and what you walk away with.

1. Capture: record in class or upload a file

Open Polmi before the lecture starts and tap record. The phone can sit on the desk; you are not babysitting a meter. Already have audio from a friend, a lecture-capture system, or a Zoom recording? Drop the file in and skip the live step. Polmi takes audio and video files, so a screen recording of a remote class works the same as a voice memo.

• Record live, or upload audio or video you already have.
• One quick note on the law: you are responsible for getting consent to record where your school or jurisdiction requires it.

Not sure where you stand on that? We wrote a plain-English guide on whether it is legal to record lectures before you hit record.

2. Transcribe: the full text, language detected for you

Once the recording lands, Polmi writes out the whole thing as text. You do not pick a language first; it detects the spoken language automatically, so a lecture delivered in Spanish comes back in Spanish. The transcript is the full lecture, not a clip, which means you can search it, scroll to the moment the professor defined a term, and quote it exactly in an essay.

This is the part most people picture when they think about lecture software, and it is worth seeing on its own. The lecture transcription feature page covers accuracy, supported formats, and how long a recording can run on each plan.

3. Distill: a summary and key terms, so the page is skimmable

A 50-minute lecture is a lot of text. Polmi reads its own transcript and lifts out a summary plus the key terms the lecture leaned on, so the recording becomes something you can scan in two minutes instead of reread in fifty. The summary sits at the top; the full transcript stays underneath for when you need the exact wording.

What you get from this stage:

• A short summary of the lecture’s main points.
• A list of key terms, the vocabulary you are expected to know by exam day.
• The complete transcript, kept and searchable, not thrown away.

4. Study: flashcards and built-in review

Reading notes once does not move much into long-term memory. Polmi turns the lecture into flashcards and gives you a review schedule built on spaced repetition, the method of seeing a card again right before you would forget it. You review inside the app; there is no second tool to set up and no deck to build by hand.

Two pages go deeper here: the flashcards feature page on how cards are made and edited, and a longer read on why spaced repetition works if you want the reasoning behind the schedule.

5. Share: study groups

Lectures are better split across a group. Create a group or join one with a code, share your lectures into it, and read what classmates share, all free. Paid plans are for recording your own lectures. Roundtable bundles five Notebook plans for a study group at $49.99/month, so a whole group records on one bill.

The study groups feature page lays out what is free and what a plan is for, and pricing shows the plans side by side, including web access and the Lectern tier that translates a transcript into one language.

End to end: what one lecture looks like

Say you record a 47-minute biology lecture. By the time you are back at your desk, Polmi has the full transcript, a summary of the key points, a list of terms from that session, and a deck of flashcards scheduled for review. Share it into your group, and three classmates open the same notes from their own phones. That is the whole loop, from the back row to a study session, without retyping anything.

For a worked walkthrough with screenshots, see our guide on turning a recorded lecture into study material.

Common questions

How long does a lecture take to process?

A few minutes for a typical class. The exact time depends on the length of the recording, so a three-hour seminar takes longer than a 50-minute lecture.

What happens to my audio after it is transcribed?

Your transcript and notes are encrypted, and the original audio is deleted by default about a week after transcription. We do not train models on your content. See the privacy policy for the full picture.

Do I need to be online during the lecture?

You record on your phone, and Polmi does the transcription work afterward. Web access to your notes is available on paid plans, so you can pick up on a laptop later.

Can I use Polmi today?

Not quite yet. Polmi opens to students in summer 2026. Until then, the fastest way to be first in line is to join the waitlist; we will email you when it opens.

Coming this summer. Polmi opens to students in summer 2026. Join the waitlist and we will let you know the day it is ready.