Appreciation post: that free AI transcription tool I almost ignored

I was dead set on paying for Otter.ai for my podcast notes. Then a buddy at a coffee shop in Portland told me to try out the built-in transcription in Google Docs first. I laughed it off. But after my 3rd month of paying $30 a month for a service I barely used, I gave it a shot. It's not perfect but it caught 95% of my 45 minute interview without a single crash. Anyone else find a free tool that quietly does the job better than the paid ones?

2 comments

2 Comments

sage_rodriguez19d ago

Honestly, same thing happened to me with a voice memo app my friend swore by for her lecture notes. I paid for Otter for a solid six months and it was always crashing mid-recording or missing whole chunks when my speaker had an accent. Tbh, I was so skeptical of free stuff too, figured you get what you pay for. Ngl, it feels kind of embarrassing that we both got schooled by the free version, but hey, at least we're saving money now.

evan_harris1419d ago

Man, my buddy found some free voice memo app that caught his whole lecture perfectly.