As a journalist, transcribing the audio of my interviews used to take forever, and it was the most painstaking task imaginable.
Then, my journalist friend turned me onto Otter.ai, and my life changed. Now, since all of my interviews have been conducted over videoconferencing apps, I simply record the conversation and import the audio into Otter.ai, which does the work for me.
However, I soon won’t even have to do that, as the company has released Otter.ai Assistant, a new tool that automatically joins Zoom meetings on a user’s calendar to record, take and share notes with other meeting participants.
This service, available to Otter.ai Business users, eliminates the need to even take notes. If someone is late to a meeting, has to step away or skip the meeting altogether, a real-time transcript is always available.
Even if you want to join the meeting without audio, you can always follow along with the live transcript.
The service connects to Google and Outlook calendars, enabling easy scheduling and sharing of upcoming recordings. During meetings users, can collaborate with attendees by highlighting, commenting and automatically sharing the notes.
Even if the meeting isn’t scheduled, users simply need to post the Zoom link into Otter.ai for the service to begin taking live meeting notes.
The two companies already have an existing integration that provides live captioning services for videoconferencing calls and webinars on Zoom.
In a statement, co-founder and CEO Sam Liang said virtual meetings aren’t going away, so they must be more productive and alleviate Zoom fatigue.
“Now, through the power of artificial intelligence, you can send your Otter Assistant to meetings on your behalf so you can focus on what’s most relevant without worrying about missing anything,” Liang said. “There has never been an easier way to share meeting content.”
Zoom’s ongoing partnership with Otter.ai reflects where videoconferencing and collaboration is headed: a seamless experience designed to support the hybrid workforce and reduce the gloom that comes with sitting in front of a camera for hours during virtual meetings.
Otter.ai also integrates with Google Meet for transcripts, and other platforms like Microsoft Teams offer their own integrated transcription service.
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