Improvements in software technology have made automatic speech transcription possible. His company offers a service that automatically transcribes speech with high enough accuracy that it is gaining popularity with journalists, students, podcasters and corporate workers. Liang, who is the chief executive and co-founder of Otter.ai, a Silicon Valley start-up, has set out to do something about that in the future. “I really miss her,” he said of her death in 2001. Sam Liang longs for his mother and wishes he could recapture the things she told him when he was in high school.

Train Otter to recognize voices, learn special terminology, and improve accuracy.This article is part of our continuing Fast Forward series, which examines technological, economic, social and cultural shifts that happen as businesses evolve.

Because Otter is powered by Ambient Voice Intelligence, it’s always learning and improving.

Attach photos inline with the playable text to add even more visual context. Choose what to save privately or share with others. Record or import audio and Otter transcribes it into smart notes that sync across devices.

Use Otter to remember and review key points from all kinds of conversations, such as online and in-person meetings, lectures, and presentations.

Speed up the playback to skim through a long recording. Jump straight from a smart keyword to see all instances in a note, or use the search box for instant results. Easily capture action items, decisions, and key moments of your session, and then use the Meeting Gems™ panel to assign action items, add comments, ask a question, clarify your thoughts, and organize your notes. Meeting Gems™ can be generated directly from your session by highlighting snippets within the transcript.

Speech to text otter