Which tool to choose
It depends on the language, the length and how much you care about privacy.
- Italian audio, occasional use, free: an online tool with a free plan billed in minutes (for example a few hours a month). You upload, you download the text.
- Live meetings on Zoom, Meet or Teams: Otter, which connects to the video call, transcribes in real time and labels who is speaking.
- Maximum accuracy and confidential files: a tool based on Whisper (the open source transcription model). Some offer it via the web; more technical users can run it on their own computer, so the audio never leaves the device.
- Many long files every week: a paid plan, which raises your monthly minutes and usually improves accuracy and file handling.
How to do it
From a browser or an app, the path is the same.
- Prepare the file. The cleaner the audio, the more precise the transcription. If the recording is noisy, clean it up first with an audio enhancement tool.
- Upload and set the language. Open the tool, upload the file and select Italian (or whatever language is spoken): if the tool guesses it on its own, check that it picked the right one, otherwise it gets everything wrong.
- Start the transcription and wait. A few minutes for an hour of audio. Some tools automatically separate the speakers (Speaker 1, Speaker 2).
- Read through and correct. No automatic transcription is perfect. Listen again to the spots flagged as uncertain and fix names, acronyms and technical terms.
- Export in the format you need. Plain text to copy it, or a format with timestamps if you need to know the minute of each sentence.
If you want an AI to clean up the raw transcription for you (remove the "ums", join broken sentences), paste the text into a conversational assistant with this instruction.
The operating syntax:
This is the raw transcription of a recording. Rewrite it in correct English: remove the hesitations and repetitions, join the broken sentences, keep the exact meaning and do not add anything that was not said. Mark in parentheses the spots where the text was unintelligible.
A concrete example
Giulia recorded a one-hour university lecture with her phone. She uploads it to a Whisper-based tool, sets Italian, and after five minutes she has the text. The AI got some specialist terms wrong (it transcribed them as similar-sounding common words). Giulia listens again only to the three minutes where those terms appear, corrects them, then pastes the text into the assistant with the cleanup instruction and gets a readable version, free of hesitations. From an hour of recording, in half an hour she has complete written notes.
When it does NOT work (and how to fix it)
If it gets technical terms or proper names wrong
The AI replaces the words it does not know with common ones that sound similar. Fix: search and replace the recurring terms in the final text (your editor's "find and replace" function). For proper names, keep a list handy and correct them all at once.
If several people are speaking at the same time
When voices overlap, the speaker separation gets confused and the text gets mixed up. Fix: for important meetings, ask everyone not to talk over each other; when recording, separate microphones help the AI tell who is speaking.
If the accent or dialect is strong
Accuracy drops with strong accents or dialectal inflections. Fix: choose a Whisper-based tool, which is more robust with accents, and plan for a more careful review. Cleaner audio and slower speech help.
If the file is too long for the free plan
The cap is in minutes per month. Fix: split long files, spread the transcription over several days or several free tools, or move to a paid plan if you transcribe often.
A tip from someone who actually uses it
Don't aim for the perfect transcription on the first try: aim for the fast draft. The AI takes you from nothing to 90% of the text in five minutes; you correct that 90% in a quarter of an hour. Transcribing by hand from scratch would cost you hours. The value isn't automatic perfection, it's the time it gives back to you.
Frequently asked questions
How accurate is automatic transcription?
On clear audio, in standard language, 85-95%. The best models reach 95-98%. Accuracy collapses with noise, strong accents, technical jargon and several overlapping voices. Human review remains necessary for the texts you publish.
Do my audio files stay private?
It depends on the tool. Online services upload the audio to their servers. If the content is confidential (a company meeting, sensitive data), use a Whisper-based tool run on your own computer, so the audio never leaves the device, and always read the privacy policy.
Can I transcribe a phone call or a video call?
Yes, if you have the consent of the people speaking. Recording a conversation without the others knowing can be illegal depending on the country and the context. Always give notice.
Does automatic transcription replace a human transcriber?
For everyday uses yes; for contexts where a mistake is costly, no. A legal record, a medical report, a quote to be published still require the human eye: the AI gets things wrong precisely on specialist terms and names, that is, where the error weighs most. It is an accelerator, not a replacement for the final check.