Which tool to choose
You have two levels. The first is system dictation, already on your phone: the microphone icon on the keyboard turns your voice into text wherever you're writing. Fast for a short message, but it writes word for word what you say, errors and fillers included.
The second level is dictating to an AI assistant: you talk to it freely and it gives you back a tidy text, with the right punctuation and the tone you ask for. For an important email, a delicate message or a long text, this second level wins: it turns your messy speech into something ready to send. The smart choice: system dictation for messages on the fly, AI assistant for anything that has to sound good.
How to do it
On the phone and on the computer the principle is identical, only where the microphone button sits changes.
- For quick dictation: open wherever you want to write, tap the microphone icon on the keyboard (on the Mac, press the dedicated key twice or look for "dictation" in the settings) and speak.
- For a polished text: open the AI assistant app, turn on the microphone and dictate freely what you want to say, even in a messy way.
- Ask the AI to turn the speech into clean text with the request below.
- Reread before sending: the voice gets proper names wrong and sometimes one word for another. The final glance is yours.
The operational syntax, to dictate to the assistant:
I'm now going to dictate the gist of an email to you, in a messy way. Turn it into a well-written email in English with the right punctuation. Tone [formal / friendly]. Correct the errors and remove the repetitions and the fillers like "you know", "let's say". Don't add things I didn't say. Here's what I want to say:
[dictate here by voice, freely]
A useful update for 2026: phone dictation has become much more accurate on punctuation, capitalization and spelling, and some systems now let you speak without expecting you to say the exact words from the start, fixing things afterward. If you hadn't used dictation in a while because it made too many mistakes, it's worth trying it again.
A concrete example
Giulia is an accountant and in the evening, tired, she has to reply to a delicate email from a client worried about a deadline. Typing with her thumbs costs her effort and comes out in a curt tone. She opens the AI assistant, turns on the microphone and dictates off the cuff: "so I have to reply to Mr. Rossi who's anxious about the F24, tell him I checked, the deadline is the twentieth, there's time, he shouldn't worry, maybe let's talk Monday at the office".
The AI gives back: "Dear Mr. Rossi, I have checked your situation. The deadline is set for the 20th, so there is still time and no reason to worry. If you prefer, we can meet on Monday at the office to go over things calmly. Talk to you soon." Giulia rereads, checks the date is right, sends. Thirty seconds instead of five minutes, and with a warmer tone than the one she would have produced with her thumbs.
When it does NOT work (and how to fix it)
If the dictation gets names and technical terms wrong
The voice trips on proper names, acronyms and your job's jargon. Fix: for system dictation, correct the few wrong words by hand; for the AI assistant, at the end of the dictation write "the client's name is Ghezzi with the H, the F24 is a tax form" and it fixes it. Dictate the difficult names by spelling them out, or write them yourself afterward.
If you're embarrassed to speak to your phone among other people
Dictating on a train or in an open office is uncomfortable. Fix: use dictation for the moments when you're alone (in the car, at home, walking) and keep typing for when you're among people. Or dictate in a low voice: the microphones of recent phones pick up even quiet speech well.
If the dictated text comes out too "spoken" and not very professional
Without the AI, system dictation puts even the "um"s and the half-finished sentences in black and white. Fix: for anything a client or a boss will read, go through the second level (the AI assistant that cleans it up), not raw dictation. Direct speech is fine for a message to a friend, not for a work email.
A tip from someone who actually uses it
Dictate as if you were explaining the thing to a colleague sitting next to you, not as if you were writing. People freeze because they try to "dictate well", with already-perfect sentences, and that way they lose the advantage of the voice. The beauty is precisely in throwing out the gist in a messy way and letting the AI put it in order: your brain thinks faster than your fingers write, and the voice frees that speed. Let it handle the form, you just think about the content.
Frequently asked questions
Does dictation work well in English or is it designed for one language?
It works well in English, both system dictation and the AI assistants': the language is fully supported and the accuracy is high. Just watch out for dialects and mixed-in foreign words, where it can trip. For the rest, English is handled without problems.
Is what I dictate recorded and listened to by someone?
The most recent phone dictation often works directly on the device, without sending the voice online. AI assistants, on the other hand, process the voice on their servers and may keep it. For sensitive things, check in the settings whether you can turn off saving, and use system dictation (which stays on the phone) when the content is confidential.
Is dictating really faster than typing, or do you lose time correcting?
Dictating is faster, we're talking about three or four times the speed of typing, and that holds even counting the rereading. The misunderstanding is to think the corrections eat the advantage: with an AI assistant that cleans up the text, the corrections by hand come down to checking proper names and numbers. The time saved stays, and how.