Take a quick look around you – how much artificial intelligence technology can you find? You might not realize it, but many of the devices we use each and every day are powered by highly advanced AI software that was specifically designed to make humans’ lives a little bit easier. Every time you ask Alexa to set a timer or use Siri to dictate a text message, you’re playing a small part in ushering in a new technological era that will revolutionize the way many of us go about tackling our daily tasks and responsibilities.
AI technology offers far-reaching benefits and nearly limitless use cases worldwide, including its role in enhancing accessibility. Many well-regarded assistive technology solutions – like captioning and transcription – can now be powered wholly or in part by artificial intelligence to boost the efficiency and user-friendliness of these technologies. Let’s explore how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the transcription process and helping to make audio and video content more accessible to people of all backgrounds and abilities.
What is transcription?
First things first: Transcription refers to the process of converting audio and video content to written text. Transcripts can be generated from a wide variety of live and pre-recorded content offerings, such as YouTube videos, Zoom calls, in-person lectures and more. In a traditional transcription approach, a professional human transcriber will review a provided audio or video recording and manually type out everything they hear.
Written transcripts typically include textual representations of both spoken dialogue and non-speech audio elements like sound effects, pauses and applause breaks, among other things. Subsequently, accurate transcripts are incredibly valuable tools for consumers and audience members who are Deaf or hard of hearing, as well as other individuals who need or prefer to engage with information in a readable format.
How does AI transcription work?
There’s no doubt that professionally trained human transcribers are highly skilled and capable of delivering incredibly accurate final transcripts that are up to the task of supporting individuals with disabilities. However, human transcribers tend to be expensive to hire and are prone to bandwidth issues, which can impede their ability to offer scalable accessibility support.
For this reason, professionals in many industries have been increasingly interested in technology-powered alternatives to manual transcription approaches. Subsequently, artificial intelligence has emerged as a promising new solution for individuals and businesses seeking to level up their transcription offerings.
AI transcription tools utilize highly advanced learning and language models to convert human speech to text. Through Natural Language Processing, AI-powered devices are trained to string together bite-sized portions of spoken audio input to create full words, phrases and sentences that can then be represented as text or used to help the device respond to spoken commands.
Many AI-powered transcription tools are highly efficient and allow creators and business leaders to generate written transcripts of their content in only a matter of minutes and at a fraction of the cost commonly associated with human transcription services. It is important to note, however, that not all automatic transcription software is created equal. Many built-in transcription tools, for example, utilize very cursory AI models that may not be capable of producing transcripts accurate enough to support modern accessibility requirements.
These kinds of native AI solutions may demonstrate weak performance particularly in situations where an audio or video recording:
- Contains substantial background noise
- Features ongoing crosstalk
- Includes multiple speakers, accents or dialects
- Has overall poor audio quality
That’s why many business leaders are turning to advanced AI transcription tools – like those offered by Verbit – to help enhance the accessibility of their content and communications without compromising on the quality, efficiency and affordability of their transcription efforts.
Advanced transcription solutions from Verbit
Verbit has long been recognized as one of the leading providers of accessibility technology solutions and offers highly advanced transcription solutions that are specifically tailored to meet the needs of professionals and consumers across a wide range of industries.
Verbit’s newest technology offering, Captivate™, is a state-of-the-art solution that uses high-level, industry specific training models to deliver more accurate and comprehensive captions and transcripts of real-time communications. Captivate learns as it goes, incorporating customer feedback and input into its language algorithms to further finetune its language processing and transcription capabilities. As a result, Captivate delivers more accurate transcripts at a price point that makes scalable accessibility within reach for educators, business owners and content creators.
In addition to offering efficient, accurate and affordable transcription technology, Verbit’s platform also includes add-on features and enhancements that can help clients maximize the value of their existing transcripts. Gen.V is one such feature set that is changing the face of transcription technology for Verbit customers around the world. Gen.V uses generative AI technology to analyze audio and video transcripts and automatically generate valuable insights such as:
- Summaries
- Keywords
- Headings
- Quizzes
Gen.V makes transcripts for searchable, actionable and interactive, thus increasing their utility and offering next-level support to community members of all backgrounds and abilities. Interactive transcripts like those offered by Verbit don’t just deliver more equitable experiences to individuals with disabilities, they make audio and video content more engaging for all consumers.
Verbit: The future of AI transcription
Verbit’s AI-powered transcripts and transcription insights offer more hands-on learning and content experiences to individuals with neurodivergent conditions and specific learning needs, community members with disabilities and just about anyone who benefits from a multimodal approach to learning.
With industry-leading accuracy rates, user-friendly solutions and cost-effective technology, Verbit’s platform offers business leaders, educators and content creators unparalleled access to accessibility enhancements that grow alongside their industries and communities. If you’re interested in learning more about Verbit’s AI-powered captioning and transcription solutions or want more information about how artificial intelligence is changing the face of modern accessibility, reach out today to speak to a member of our team.