Speech & transcription accuracy FAQ

Learn more about the foundation of Otter AI: speech recognition and transcription accuracy. Whether it's business meetings or important discussions, our in-house processing provides you with accurate conversations every time. This guide equips you with the knowledge of how speech recognition and transcription work within Otter.

How does Otter transcribe speech-to-text?

Otter.ai is entirely cloud-based and operates purely on AI technology, eliminating the need for human transcribers. Our speech-to-text engine seamlessly supports English without requiring extensive personalized training of your voice. With advanced machine learning, our speaker identification algorithm learns from just a few tagged paragraphs for each speaker, ensuring accurate differentiation. The outcome is a clear, speaker-labeled transcript with synchronized audio and text, enhancing your transcription experience significantly.

How accurate is Otter's speech recognition?

Otter.ai's speech recognition technology is generally quite accurate, especially when using Otter Notetaker, which records the internal audio stream of a meeting, versus recording manually in Otter, which relies on your device’s speaker and microphone.

However, the accuracy can vary based on factors such as background noise, speaker accents, and the complexity of the conversation. While Otter.ai strives to provide high accuracy, it's always a good practice to review and edit the transcriptions to ensure complete accuracy, especially for critical tasks or important conversations. Regular updates and improvements are added to the AI algorithms to continue to improve accuracy. 

How does Otter handle filler words (e.g. "um", “ah”, “hmm”)?

Filler words, interjections, and hesitation markers are programmatically ignored. These include sounds such as “hmm”, “um”, “ah”, “uh”, and many more, that are spoken in conversation as a pause for thought.