AI Transcription Service: Benefits of AI Speech-to-Text

What is an AI Transcription Service?

Speech-to-text transcription is an ancient art. But today, its latest iteration feels like science-fiction. AI Transcription is the use of artificial intelligence to convert speech into a text document, or transcript. Developers use machine learning to build software that can tell when somebody is speaking and quickly convert what they say into text.

Today, automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology powers many facets of life. Voice typing, automated customer service calls, and virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa all use a form of ASR. AI transcription is much quicker (and less easily disheartened!) than in 1980. Rev’s AI transcription service can transcribe your entire recording within five minutes. Accuracy depends on the clarity of the speaker and the recording. Rev’s industry-best accuracy reaches an average of 86%.

AI Speech-to-Text vs. Human Services

Human transcribing is faster, cheaper, and more accurate in our networked modern world. Rev guarantees 99% accuracy for its human transcriptionist service. The turnaround time is under 12 hours.

You may prefer human or ‘traditional’ transcription if your audio features multiple speakers or background noises. AI transcription accuracy is still compromised by difficult accents and ambiguous words like two/to/too. If near-perfect accuracy is essential, human transcription is the clear choice.

Advantages of an AI Transcription Service

Professional AI transcription is the preferable option for a whole range of use cases. Let’s look at the benefits of AI speech-to-text a bit closer.

Speed

The speed of AI transcription may be its key selling point. Consider how immediate other automated speech-to-text services need to be. Voice search, virtual assistants, and phone bots rely on near-instant recognition.

When it comes to a longer document such as a political speech, doctor’s notes, a live lecture, or podcast, Rev has a turnaround time of five minutes. We provide an estimate of exactly how long it will take and notify you the moment we finish.

That’s not to say that AI transcription isn’t time-consuming. It took many years of development, using hundreds of hours of recordings, to make today’s ASR this powerful. But the benefit for the user is a near-instant response when they need it. Meanwhile, machine learning boffins continue to advance the technology behind the scenes.

Cost

Human transcription costs more than AI transcription for the end-user due to the cost of labor. Rev provides human transcription at a very reasonable rate. We have trained our network of 50,000 transcriptionists to work quickly and accurately. Still, Rev’s AI transcription is much cheaper at $0.25/minute of audio vs. $1.25 per minute for human transcription. Plus, each customer gets their first 45 minutes free to ensure this is the right service for their needs.

To enjoy the cost benefits of automated transcription, go with a service that offers the accuracy you need. Otherwise, automation may be a false economy. Consider the time you will need to spend making corrections. An ASR service with proven accuracy will cost more upfront but work out cheaper than manually revising the results of basic text-to-speech software.

We’ve looked at the cost benefits of an automated speech-to-text service. But the cost advantage isn’t just due to the automation – it’s due to the service element. Look at it another way: it is usually cheaper for a business to use an AI service than to build its own speech recognition system. Building a system might be preferable in a few cases when a company has extremely high ASR usage. But the expense incurred includes development team costs, data costs, and infrastructure costs. In most cases, it makes economic sense to use a service.

Integration

Another advantage of AI transcription is that you can integrate it into your website or software. This way, you can create ‘always on’ functionality to enhance usability and efficiency for your employees or customers. Many services that depend on speech recognition operate in this way.

Integration may be as simple as Dropbox and Google Drive functionality. Rev’s integration with services like these empowers you to upload your audio file to a third-party service and receive a text file back automatically.

Rev has also made its API (application programming interface) available to developers who wish to harness the power of Rev’s high-quality transcription and caption services in their apps.

Who Can Benefit from AI Transcription?

Many businesses, organizations, and individuals can save time and money by using an AI transcription service. Let’s take a look at some examples.

Which Organizations Benefit from AI transcription?

AI transcription can benefit any business that can use fast, cheap transcription where 99% accuracy is not essential.

Media professionals use ASR to get quick written versions of presentations, speeches, and interviews. Podcasters and video producers can provide a transcript alongside their audio or video to enhance search-ability and accessibility. Likewise, conference producers can provide notes to attendees. They may also build website content with a written record of seminar presentations.

Students and teachers in the education sector can benefit from getting instant, searchable notes. A student might record a lecture or ideas for an essay and immediately transform them to the written word. A lecturer could record their own presentation to be re-used, shared, or edited for later use.

In the medical sector, doctors can save time and see more patients by dictating their notes between sessions.

Market researchers can quickly transcribe interviews. Legal services, where great swathes of material are gathered and will need to be searched later, can make extensive use of automated transcription. And anybody who participates in meetings – if there’s not too much crosstalk – can benefit from written notes.

In fact, 69% of survey respondents reported an increase in productivity from using speech-to-text services.

Which Everyday Tasks Can Automated Speech-to-Text Enhance?

Everybody uses Zoom or other video conferencing software these days. But, when working from home, it’s easy to get distracted and miss important details from a call. Sharing a transcription of each Zoom call is a simple way to keep everyone on the same ‘page.’

Rev offers different automated (and human) options to achieve this. You can order Live Captions for Zoom to have your calls captioned in real-time. Then, click ‘Save Captions’ at the end of the call to download a transcript. Or, record the audio of your video call and send it to Rev for automated or human transcription.

AI transcription is also a great tool for users with learning difficulties. You may find it easier to work from a lecture or meeting notes if you have both a recording and a transcript. And you may find it easier to write by dictating your ideas. In each case, the cheapest, quickest, and most accurate way to do this is with an industry-leading automated transcription service.

When to Use an AI Transcription Service

AI transcription services work best if you have clear-spoken, clear-recorded audio featuring no more than two speakers. AI is an excellent speech-to-text solution if you need a transcript and have a limited budget, and if a rough draft of the text will suffice. For many businesses, professionals, and students, automated transcription has become a valuable, powerful, and accessible speech-to-text tool.