Get Started with Cluely AI: Your First Meeting in Under 5 Minutes

Cluely AI transforms how professionals prepare for, participate in, and follow up on meetings — turning passive attendance into active insight generation. Whether you’re a sales rep refining your pitch, a hiring manager running interviews, or a remote team lead optimizing collaboration, setting up your Cluely AI account correctly is the first step toward unlocking real-time coaching, AI-generated summaries, and actionable meeting analytics. This isn’t just another calendar sync tool — it’s an intelligent meeting companion designed to elevate your communication intelligence from day one.

Why Setup Matters More Than You Think

A rushed or incomplete Cluely AI setup can cost you critical features: missed transcription accuracy, incomplete speaker identification, delayed summary delivery, or even missing real-time coaching prompts during live calls. Unlike generic AI meeting assistants, Cluely AI relies on precise integrations (Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams) and personalized preferences to deliver value. Getting it right the first time means you’ll start capturing insights — not troubleshooting permissions.

For example, one SaaS sales manager skipped verifying her microphone permissions in Chrome during setup. As a result, Cluely AI couldn’t capture her side of client conversations for two weeks — delaying her ability to review tone, pacing, and objection-handling patterns. A 90-second check saved her hours of manual note-taking and rework.

Step 1: Create & Verify Your Cluely AI Account

Go to cluely.ai and click Sign Up (top-right corner). You’ll be prompted to enter your work email — not a personal Gmail or Yahoo address unless it’s your official company domain. Cluely AI uses domain verification for enterprise plans, so using your work email ensures seamless future upgrades.

Choose a strong password (minimum 8 characters, including a number and symbol)
Confirm your email by clicking the verification link — check spam if it doesn’t arrive within 2 minutes
Complete your profile: add your name, job title, and timezone (this affects when daily recap emails are sent)

💡 Pro Tip: Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) now — go to Settings > Security after logging in. It takes 30 seconds and prevents unauthorized access to your meeting history and coaching data.

Once verified, you’ll land on your dashboard — clean, minimal, and focused on your upcoming meetings. This is where your Cluely AI journey begins.

Step 2: Connect Your Calendar & Video Platforms

Cluely AI works best when it knows when and where your meetings happen. It supports Google Calendar, Outlook (via Microsoft 365), and Apple Calendar — plus native integrations with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams.

Connecting Google Calendar

Click Integrations in the left sidebar
Select Google Calendar
Click Connect → sign in with your work Google account
Grant permissions for “See, edit, create, and delete events” — this lets Cluely AI auto-detect meetings and pre-load context (e.g., agenda links, attendee names)

⚠️ Note: If you use multiple Google accounts, ensure you select the one tied to your work calendar — Cluely AI won’t pull events from personal calendars by default.

Linking Zoom, Google Meet, or Teams

For Zoom: Go to Integrations → Zoom → Click Connect → log in and authorize Cluely AI to access your meeting recordings and transcripts (required for post-meeting analysis)
For Google Meet: Cluely AI joins as a silent participant via Chrome extension (install it here) — then enable “Join all Google Meet calls automatically” in Settings > Auto-Join
For Microsoft Teams: Use the Cluely AI Teams app (available in AppSource) — install it to your Teams workspace and approve permissions for chat, meeting transcripts, and recording access

✅ Test it: Schedule a quick 5-minute test meeting with yourself. Within 60 seconds of joining, you’ll see the Cluely AI icon appear in your meeting controls — and a subtle green indicator light confirms active listening.

Step 3: Configure Your Preferences for Smarter Insights

Cluely AI adapts to your goals — but only if you tell it what matters. Don’t skip this step.

Set Your Role & Focus Areas

Under Settings > Coaching Preferences, choose your role (e.g., Sales Rep, Recruiter, Customer Success Manager) and up to three focus areas:

Tone & Confidence (e.g., “Reduce filler words”, “Increase vocal warmth”)
Structure & Clarity (e.g., “Open with clear objective”, “Summarize key decisions at end”)
Engagement & Listening (e.g., “Ask more open-ended questions”, “Pause after speaker finishes”)

These selections train Cluely AI’s real-time coaching engine — so during your next call, it might whisper, “You’ve used ‘um’ 7 times in the last 2 minutes — try pausing instead.”

Customize Summary Templates

Cluely AI generates summaries in seconds — but you control what’s included. In Settings > Summary Preferences, toggle on/off:

Action items (with assignees and due dates)
Key decisions & blockers
Sentiment trend (positive/neutral/negative shift over time)
Competitor mentions (great for sales teams)
Follow-up suggestions (e.g., “Send pricing doc + case study”)

Example: A product marketing lead enabled “Competitor mentions” and “Follow-up suggestions”. After a competitive win-back call, Cluely AI flagged that the prospect mentioned “Notion” twice — and recommended sending a Notion-integration demo video. She sent it 12 minutes post-call. The deal closed 3 days later.

Step 4: Run Your First Cluely AI-Powered Meeting

Now for the moment you’ve been waiting for — your first fully supported meeting.

Before You Start

Ensure your browser is Chrome (v115+) or Edge (v115+) — Cluely AI’s real-time features require WebRTC support
Open your calendar and locate the meeting — Cluely AI will auto-detect it if you connected your calendar correctly
Click the Cluely AI icon in your browser toolbar → select Start Live Coaching

During the Meeting

Cluely AI runs silently in the background — no notifications unless it detects something actionable:

🟢 Green pulse = active listening and analysis
🔔 Subtle chime + tooltip = real-time tip (e.g., “You’re speaking 22% faster than average — slow down for clarity”)
📝 Auto-captured quote = highlighted when someone says something Cluely AI tags as high-value (e.g., budget signal, timeline mention, pain point)

No need to take notes. No need to record manually. Cluely AI captures audio, transcribes speech, identifies speakers, and logs nonverbal cues (like long pauses or overlapping talk) — all in real time.

Right After the Meeting

Within 90 seconds of ending the call, you’ll receive:

A rich-text summary in your Cluely AI dashboard (with timestamps, speaker labels, and sentiment heatmaps)
An email digest (if enabled) with bullet-point highlights and 1–2 follow-up recommendations
A shareable link to the full transcript + audio clip (perfect for looping in stakeholders)

Try this: Open your first summary and click the Coaching Report tab. You’ll see metrics like:

Speaking ratio (you vs. others)
Filler word count per minute
Question-to-statement ratio
Emotional tone consistency

This isn’t vanity data — it’s diagnostic. One customer support lead discovered she spent 78% of discovery calls talking at customers instead of with them. After two weeks of Cluely AI feedback, her ratio flipped to 42% — and CSAT scores rose 27%.

Step 5: Review, Refine, and Scale

Your first meeting is just the baseline. Cluely AI learns from every interaction — but you guide its evolution.

Review Your Coaching Report Weekly

Every Monday morning, Cluely AI sends a Weekly Insight Digest, showing trends across your last 5 meetings. Look for patterns:

Are certain topics triggering more filler words?
Does your tone dip during technical deep dives?
Which types of questions generate the most engagement?

Use these insights to adjust your Coaching Preferences — e.g., if you notice low engagement in Q&A segments, add “Ask one clarifying question before answering” to your focus list.

Invite Your Team (Optional but Powerful)

If you’re on a team plan, invite colleagues via Team > Invite Members. Once they join, Cluely AI can compare anonymized benchmarks — like average speaking time per role or common coaching themes across your sales team. This turns individual growth into collective capability.

Troubleshooting Quick Reference

Issue	Likely Cause	Fix
No green indicator in meeting	Browser extension disabled or outdated	Reinstall Chrome extension; check `chrome://extensions`
Missing speaker names	Calendar didn’t include attendee emails	Manually add emails to event or use Cluely AI’s “Tag Attendee” feature mid-call
Summary delayed >2 mins	Poor upload bandwidth or firewall blocking `*.cluely.ai`	Test speed; whitelist domain in IT settings

Still stuck? Our cluely tutorial library includes video walkthroughs, and our support team responds to queries in under 90 minutes. You can also contact us for personalized onboarding help.

Final Thoughts: Your Meeting Intelligence Journey Starts Now

Setting up Cluely AI isn’t about ticking boxes — it’s about building a foundation for measurable, repeatable communication improvement. From your very first meeting, you gain objective data on how you show up, what you say, and how others respond. That kind of insight used to require expensive coaches or painstaking self-review. Now it’s automated, contextual, and deeply personal.

Remember: Cluely AI gets smarter the more you use it — but only if setup is intentional. Take those extra 90 seconds to verify permissions. Spend 2 minutes refining your coaching focus. Run that test meeting before your big client call.

In under five minutes, you went from zero to a fully operational AI meeting assistant. Now it’s time to let Cluely AI do what it does best: listen, analyze, and help you speak with more impact — every single time.

Ready for more? browse Getting Started tutorials for advanced workflows like interview scoring or sales call grading. Or explore our latest cluely review comparing Cluely AI against Otter.ai and Fireflies — including accuracy benchmarks and coaching depth analysis. For deeper strategy, more tutorials cover everything from CRM syncs to executive briefing automation.