With clear audio, automated transcription accuracy typically exceeds 95 percent . The gap between a great transcript and a rough one is almost never the engine. It’s the recording.
What moves accuracy most, in order
- Audio quality. A dedicated microphone beats a laptop mic across the room, every time.
- Crosstalk. Overlapping speakers are the hardest thing in transcription; one voice at a time transcribes nearly perfectly.
- Background noise. Record in the quietest room available.
- Specialized vocabulary. Product names, drug names, legal terms: custom vocabulary teaches them once, for every future file.
- Language setting. Auto-detect is right most of the time; set it explicitly for short, noisy, or mixed-language files.
See where the transcript is uncertain
Speak AI records how confident the transcription engine was in each sentence, so you can find the shaky parts instead of rereading a whole file.
- Open the file and find the toolbar above the transcript.
- Select the highlighter icon, Transcription confidence.
- Tick Low to tint sentences the engine scored under 55 percent, Reduced to tint those under 75 percent, or both.
Each level carries a count, so the menu tells you whether a file is clean or worth reading through before you rely on it. Some transcripts carry no confidence figures at all, and the menu says so rather than reporting zero. The tint is a reading aid: it changes nothing in the transcript, and it is hidden while you are editing.
The Insights tab says the same thing in a sentence, alongside the other summary figures for the file.
On a translated file these figures describe the original transcription rather than the translation, because the transcription is what the engine measured. See Translation for reading a translation against its original.
To have the tint on every file you open, turn on Highlight low-confidence transcription under Preferences > Media View.
Testing accuracy before you commit
The honest test is your own audio, not a benchmark. Upload a real recording, the kind your team actually produces, and read the result. The free trial includes enough transcription to do exactly that, and if your evaluation file is longer than the trial cap, ask us to extend it: book a free consult.
When automated isn’t enough
Legal records, published interviews, compliance archives: order human transcription on the same file and get the highest accuracy available, reviewed by a person.
Related: Custom vocabulary · Supported languages · Human transcription