Otter.ai can transcribe in more languages now - with more on the way

Transcribing audio used to be a lengthy and tedious process that required listening to recordings and taking handwritten, manual transcriptions. However, Otter.ai's AI-enabled service makes the transcription experience as seamless as uploading your audio -- and the tool is now expanding into even more languages. 

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On Wednesday, Otter.ai announced it is expanding its offerings to Spanish and French. The tool will offer real-time transcription services to people who use in-person and virtual meeting platforms, such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet. 

Users can use Otter's AI Chat feature to ask follow-up questions about the transcription in their preferred language. Switching to a different language is simple: visit Otter's settings and select your preferred language. 

Otter.ai said it was important to expand its high-quality transcriptions, which its claims exceeded industry-leading models, to meet the growing demands of the global community. 

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"At Otter.ai, we're incredibly proud of our advancements in AI-powered transcription, achieving accuracy that surpasses industry leaders like OpenAI's Whisper model," said Sam Liang, co-founder and CEO of Otter.ai.

In my personal life, I've found some super-helpful use cases for Otter.ai's service are transcribing long lectures, talks, or briefings that I would like to reference in my reporting later, as well as interviews, which make up a large part of my everyday workflow. 

The only limitation to the new update is that it will only be a transcription service at launch, not a translation service, meaning the speaker must talk in the language they want to be transcribed. 

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The French and Spanish transcriptions are available on the web and in Otter's Android and Apple mobile apps. The company offers multiple subscription tiers, including a free option. Otter.ai said it plans to introduce additional language support throughout 2025.