Otter transcribes meetings live and turns them into summaries — how it works, where its Spanish accuracy falls short and how it compares with Transkriptor.
Transcribing a one-hour interview by hand typically takes three or four hours; an app delivers a draft in minutes, and even half an hour of cleaning up is an enormous saving. The catch is that most engines are tuned for clean English first, so accuracy in other languages, crowded rooms and heavy accents is where the real differences hide, as does the question of where your audio is processed. The app in this guide takes a focused look at Otter, the best-known name for meeting transcription, covering what it does unusually well — live captions, summaries and meeting-app integration — and the situations where another tool may be safer.
Otter transcribes meetings live as people talk, connects to Zoom, Meet and Teams, and produces a summary of the key points when the call ends.
Nothing else in the category does its core trick quite this way: text appears on screen while participants speak, and afterwards a summary pulls out the key points instead of leaving you with a raw wall of words. That makes it a strong fit for recurring work meetings and classes where notes used to be somebody's job. English accuracy is clearly ahead of its Spanish, the interface itself is in English, and transcription needs an internet connection because audio is processed on servers rather than the phone. Treat it as the English-language meeting benchmark, and verify carefully when conversation moves into other languages or sensitive territory.
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Questions & answers
Which transcription app is the most accurate?
Across languages, Transkriptor gives the most consistent results and separates speakers, which is exactly what matters in an interview. Otter offers more features overall, but its engine is clearly tuned for English and makes noticeably more mistakes in other languages, so language coverage should drive the choice more than the feature list.
Can I transcribe a recording I already made?
Yes. These apps accept an existing audio or video file from your phone, not just live recordings, so you can run an old interview, a WhatsApp voice note or a recorded lecture through them after the fact. Importing a file and recording in the moment are both standard options across the category.
How accurate can I expect automatic transcription to be?
With one speaker, clean audio and no background noise, accuracy is high and reviewing is quick. When people talk over each other, carry a strong accent, use technical jargon or meet in a noisy room, it drops sharply. Read the output as a draft that removes most of the typing — never as a finished text you can publish without checking.
Are my transcriptions private?
It deserves attention: nearly all of these services process audio on their servers rather than on the phone, which means uploading the recording. Before sending a confidential interview, a medical consultation or a meeting with sensitive data, read the provider's privacy policy and check how long the file is kept and who can access it.
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