Artificial intelligence may be causing a crisis in the creative artshuge problem There is an error messageand further requirements for us A creaking energy systembut there’s one area where it undoubtedly makes life easier: being able to parse what’s being said in an audio clip.
Recordings of interviews, meetings, lectures and voice notes can now be converted to digital text in seconds instead of hours. Artificial intelligence also supports accessibility like instant subtitleswhich will display live captions on the screen even if they were not included in the original video clip.
All this processing requires time and resources, so there are few free options. However, we’ve identified five free but limited services here so you can see how they might suit your needs.
Google Voice Recorder
Google Voice Recorder app for Android Totally free to use. The problem in this case is that it only works with live audio, not recorded clips, and you need to own a Google Pixel phone to use it (there’s a web interface You can access it, but it can only be used to play files, not create files).
It’s perfect if you have a Pixel phone and just need to use instant audio. If you want, you can even connect an external microphone to your phone, and the text transcription appears on the screen almost simultaneously with the recorded audio.
Searching transcripts is easy, you can even search for sounds like “laughter” or “music” and edit the audio simply by adjusting the text. You even get an AI-generated summary of the transcript. If you have a Samsung phone, recorder Similar to how Galaxy AI works, Apple is adding iOS 18.
whisper
OpenAI allows anyone to use its Whisper AI audio-to-text engine for free. However, you will need to use web application Either on Hugging Face (convenient, but often busy and slow) or install the native version on your computer (fast and private, but your computer needs to be able to achieve decent performance levels).
The web interface is easy to use: you can upload files from disk or speak directly into your computer’s microphone. After a few minutes of processing, the text appears on the other side of the window. You can even ask artificial intelligence to translate audio into different languages.
If you don’t want to queue, you can install Whisper locally (if your computer can do it). It’s not the easiest process, but if you’re up for the challenge, here it is Comprehensive instructions here. You then get a native AI transcription service that you can use as often as you like for free.
otter
otter is a professional-grade transcription service for businesses and individuals. It offers a polished experience and a full suite of features—it can transcribe audio to text and create summaries, actionable items, and more.
Across both web and mobile apps, everything is intuitively laid out and easy to navigate, and useful details are sprinkled throughout, from integration with numerous third-party apps to ways to identify different speakers in messages.
As you might expect, this feature comes with reasonable pricing, with paid plans starting at $16.99 per month. If you stick with the free tier, you’re limited to 300 minutes of transcription per month, 30 minutes per conversation, and 3 uploads of audio or files before upgrading.
happy scribe
happy scribe Similar to Otter, it caters to the needs of large companies as well as individuals. It also has a basic free plan: audio in files is limited to 10 minutes, and there are various other restrictions (such as the inability to export files). If you find this service useful, pricing starts at $17 per month.
One of the best parts of Happy Scribe is the elegant and streamlined interface—much of it looks like a slightly tweaked Google Docs page—which means everything is easy to navigate. Your transcriptions are speaker tagged and timestamped, and review tools are easy to use.
The files you produce can be tagged and sorted into folders as needed, and there are useful features here and there: for example, built-in translation tools and custom dictionaries, where you can add words that artificial intelligence might not expect. Another nice feature is that you can also pay for human transcription if you wish.
meet geeks
Go to meet geeks The site promises to handle everything from interviews and meetings to client calls and online courses. This transcription service can handle just about anything you want to throw in its direction. Many of its features are geared toward conferencing (hence the name), but you can use it with any audio you like.
The modern-looking interface gives you quick access to different areas of MeetGeek, including your calendar and past recordings. This works great if you have multiple people on your recording – for example, you can email them all a copy of the recording with just a few clicks.
Getting started with MeetGeek for free isn’t difficult. Paid plans start at $19 per month, but even without paying, you can handle 5 hours of transcription per month, and also get three months of transcription storage and one month of audio storage. The free plan includes features such as uploading and AI meeting summaries.
