WhatsApp working on new feature to transcribe audio messages into text

February 10, 2023

2 min read

The popular messaging app WhatsApp is working on a new feature that will transcribe audio messages into text. As a result, users who are not fans of listening to audio messages will be able to simply read the content of such messages as regular text.

Audio transcription feature coming to WhatsApp

As noted by WABetaInfo, the latest beta version of WhatsApp for iPhone introduce a transcription feature for audio messages. With this feature, the app will identify what was said in the message to transform the audio content into text. Of course, since this is an early beta, there are some limitations.

For example, transcriptions are not available when no words are identified or when the voice message is in a language other than the language set for transcriptions. On the other hand, all transcripts will be processed on the device and won’t be uploaded to WhatsApp or Apple servers, which is a big advantage in terms of privacy.

At this point, only the beta version of WhatsApp for iPhone has the transcription feature, and it’s unclear when it will come to the Android app. Telegram, one of WhatsApp’s main competitors today, already offers audio and video transcription. However, in that case, the feature is only available to Telegram Premium subscribers. On WhatsApp, the feature will be free for everyone.

More about WhatsApp

A few days ago, WhatsApp announced multiple new features coming to its app. These include Status reactions, Voice status, and link previews on Status. The company has also been working on a new option to let users send messages to themselves.

In addition, WhatsApp is still working on a new version of its macOS app that has been completely rebuilt with Catalyst technology. However, there’s no word on when the new macOS app or the audio transcription feature will be made available to all users.

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