Live Meeting Transcription Works Well Only Under Certain Conditions

Recording apps can now transcribe multi-speaker meetings in real time, but accuracy depends on room acoustics, the number of speakers, and where microphones are placed. Processing may occur on the device, in the cloud, or through a hybrid setup, each involving trade-offs between speed, accuracy, and privacy. Smartphone built-in microphones offer limited directional sensitivity, and live speaker labels can be wrong or swap mid-conversation unless corrected by the user. Transcription tends to perform reliably with small panels, single presenters, lectures, and turn-taking discussions in English with standard accents. Noisy rooms and large groups with overlapping speech remain more challenging.