With today’s virtual meeting overload, keeping track of whats been discussed in which meetings can be overwhelming. That’s where a real-time voice transcription and notetaking service like Otter.ai’s can be useful, allowing users an easy way to go “back to tape” and search for the information they need.
As it has for many communications and collaboration technologies, the need for real-time voice transcription and notetaking capabilities has increased during the pandemic. Otter.ai, for example, has seen uptake from many enterprises across vertical industries, Simon Lau, product VP for Otter.ai, told No Jitter in a briefing. To meet demand for its service, Otter.ai has been growing its list of video meeting integrations, with the latest, for
Google Meet, announced last week.
To use the Otter Live Notes and Video Captions integration for Google Meet, users must first download a Google Chrome extension that allows them to open the Otter transcription service directly from a Google Meet call, Lau said. Once they’ve pinned the Otter extension to the browser toolbar, users can click on the icon to open a transcription panel or live closed captioning in a Google Meet meeting. Users can adjust the size of the caption text, and the panel is moveable, he added.
From the extension, users have access to other Otter features, including the ability to edit transcripts, tag other users within a transcript, and take notes, Lau said. The extension is available for all Otter service plans at no additional cost, Lau said.
Otter is platform-agnostic; besides Google Meet (as well as Google Hangouts), Otter works with a host of other cloud meeting services, including Microsoft Skype for Business, GoToMeeting by Logitech, UberConference, BlueJeans by Verizon, Lifesize, Cisco Webex, and Highfive by Dialpad. However, Zoom support was a focus in 2020 due to the video meeting service’s sudden adoption during the pandemic, and Otter.ai
launched Live Video Meeting Notes for Zoom last April, Lau said. He added that Otter.ai isn’t stopping with its current slate and will be announcing additional videoconferencing integrations this year.
In addition to bringing the service to more platforms in 2021, Otter.ai hopes to add speaker identification to the service and tighter calendar integrations, which can be used to attach transcript capabilities to a meeting without the need of turning it on, he said.
Additionally, Otter.ai will continue to work on improving the accuracy of its transcription, using all available sources to make it happen. “We also want to learn from the user's edits,” Lau said. “As they are editing and correcting words within the interface, we learn.”
