Microsoft’s new ‘Group Transcribe’ iPhone app offers free real-time transcription and translation

Microsoft is out today with a new iPhone app that’s aiming to improve in-person meetings and conversations with a new take on smart transcription. The Group Transcribe iOS app is now available and boasts features like highly accurate real-time transcription, translation, speaker attribution, and more.

Spotted by TechCrunch, the new app from the Microsoft Garage incubator team launched today. The company shared the news on the Microsoft Translator Blog.

While there are existing services like Otter that offer similar features, Microsoft Group Transcribe for iPhone is unique in that everyone in a meeting starts a shared session so they’ll all “leverage their phone’s microphone to capture a highly accurate transcript, showing who said what in real-time.” It also offers strong translation support at launch.

Powered by cutting edge speech and language technology and with a unique multi-device audio input format, the project enables highly accurate speaker attribution so conversation participants can see who said what in their preferred language.

Microsoft highlights the benefits here for those with accessibility needs:

The live transcript enables people who are deaf, hard of hearing, and non-native speakers to participate in conversations fully by follow along in real time. Group Transcribe enables all participants to be more present and focused in meetings with the confidence of a high quality transcript.

Along with the accurate live transcription, the live translation works with 37 languages in 82 locales.

Here’s how Microsoft describes the key feature of the Group Transcribe app:

• Group Transcribe provides high-quality, real-time transcription and translation
• Start a conversation from your phone and easily invite others to join*
• Stay focused without taking notes or pushing-to-talk
• Follow along with the conversation in real-time in your preferred language
• Browse and view previous transcripts on your device
• Easily share transcripts with others

Microsoft Group Transcribe for iPhone is a free download and available now from the App Store. Learn more about the app in the full announcement post here.