Zoom's new feature makes sure you'll catch every word of the meeting

If you're not listening, you better be reading.
By Jennimai Nguyen  on 
Zoom's new feature makes sure you'll catch every word of the meeting

Whether you love subtitles for accessibility reasons or you’ve just gotten used to reading along with the captions while you watch movies, your Zoom experience is about to get drastically better.

Otter.ai is a transcription service partnering with Zoom to launch live captioning for all Zoom calls. It's available as long you have a Zoom for Otter for Business account or a Zoom Pro account or higher.

According to Otter.ai, when you turn the feature on with Otter Live Notes integrated in your Zoom account, you'll be able to see any spoken words turned into highly accurate captions near the bottom of your screen.

This service relies on technology that Otter.ai already provides in its existing services, like taking automatic meeting note transcriptions. Since the captions rely on Otter Live Notes being activated, the live captions will also be transferred to a transcription in the Otter Live Notes web browser tab, which you can launch via the tab in Zoom.

“By adding this new feature, Otter.ai removes the significant problem of miscommunication from remote work, heightening organizations’ productivity and efficiency,” said Sam Liang, CEO and founder of Otter.ai, in a press release. The company also intends this service to help foster accessibility for those who are deaf or hard of hearing, or who use English as a second language.

In addition, the new feature helps UK businesses comply with digital accessibility regulations meant to ensure that public sector services are accessible to all.

Captions can undoubtedly be useful — even if it's just because you inevitably zone out during your next hour-long meeting.

Topics Innovations

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Jennimai Nguyen

Jennimai is a tech reporter at Mashable covering digital culture, social media, and how we interact with our everyday tech. She also hosts Mashable’s Snapchat Discover channel and TikTok, so she naturally spends way too much time scrolling the FYP and thinking about iPhones.


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