Zoom has made a new live transcription tool available to all users, regardless of whether they pay for the video conferencing platform or not, making it easier for more people to connect and communicate.
Available across all free and paid Zoom Meetings and Zoom Video Webinar accounts, the feature automatically generates speaker subtitles for viewers or meeting participants.
Currently, the tool is only available in English, but the video conferencing company plans to add other languages in the future. However, Zoom does support third-party captioning services which might offer a similar service in other languages.
The feature can be enabled through the Zoom web portal or privately requested during a meeting session using the toolbar.
The tool enables Zoom video conferencing to be more accessible to more people, such as those with hearing impediments.
Theresa Larkin, Zoom Meetings and Chat product marketing manager said: “Without the proper accessibility tools, people with disabilities face tremendous barriers when using video communication solutions. That’s why we are focused on building out a platform that is accessible to everyone, and features such as auto-generated captions are an important part of that mission.”
The company is also looking to target multi-language translation capabilities in real-time, with its acquisition of Karlsruhe Information Technology Solutions (KITE) earlier this year. KITE is a startup that develops real-time AI-powered translation technologies.
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