Can You Get a Zoom Transcription?

Wherever you look today, workplaces are holding meetings, interviews, workshops and even activity days all online. Embracing the benefits that tools such as Zoom, Teams and Google Meet have given us, employers are delivering alternative ways for everyone to stay connected and up to speed.

When such tools are used for important meetings or training sessions, an accurate transcription of the session is often required. We’ve touched upon how Microsoft Teams and Google Meet attempt this, and in this blog, we will look at whether Zoom can deliver high-quality transcriptions.

You can obtain a Zoom transcription, but there is some debate around accuracy.

Below, we’ll explain why this is and what you could do to enhance any Zoom meetings that need transcribing.

How to get a meeting transcript in Zoom

Getting a meeting transcription in Zoom is fairly simple, but there are a few steps to take. With its inbuilt technology  using AI, mistakes can unfortunately be commonplace. Read on for our guidelines on how to pull a transcription from your Zoom meetings.

Enable cloud recording

In your Zoom account, find the recording tab. Make sure that cloud recording is switched on.

Enable transcription services

In your Zoom settings, you’ll find an option for transcription services. Ensure this is enabled. Free Zoom subscriptions do not typically provide this feature, so if you don’t have a paid account, your best route to transcription is to send the audio or video file to us.

If you have a Zoom Business, Education or Enterprise Account, you’ll be able to gain a transcription of your meeting. You should also check that you have admin control as without this, you cannot switch transcription services on.

Record your meeting

Record your meeting as normal. For full transparency, it would be best to first inform all attendees that the meeting is being recorded.

Access your recording

Within the Zoom web portal, you’ll be able to find the recording of your meeting. From here, you’ll be able to locate your transcript.

Get your transcript

With all meetings where cloud recording has been used, you’ll receive an automatically generated transcript, which can be accessed alongside the video recording. From here, you can simply read it or download it if you wish.

As we touched upon earlier, you may notice inaccuracies. This is to be expected, especially if there are multiple speakers or you use low-quality equipment. With your downloaded transcript, you can put this into a text editor, play back the recording and manually edit the text before uploading it to Zoom again.

It is worth noting that not only is this time-consuming, but you might find that you struggle just as much as the AI did with picking out specific speakers, words or sounds.

How to improve the quality of a Zoom recording

If you have played back your file and noticed it’s a little distorted, too quiet, hasn’t picked up all the voices or has poor video playback, there are a few things you can do.

Invest in better equipment

Part of the reason your transcription is inaccurate could be due to the equipment you use. If your microphone isn’t the best quality, it’s going to struggle to pick up audio. It might suffice for one voice speaking softly, but once another person speaks a little louder, it could crackle and become muffled. The inbuilt Zoom transcription then misses out on potentially key parts of the conversation.

Create a better environment

Even if you have the best equipment on the market, a loud room could still cause problems. The Zoom transcription tool will pick up all spoken words, and if your microphone is too sensitive, it’ll pick up what else is being said around the room. This could make your transcription very difficult to understand.

Instead, find a space exclusively for you and the other attendees. Even if the Zoom transcription isn’t completely accurate, it’ll be of better quality than that of a recording in a loud room.

Adjust the Zoom settings

There are settings within Zoom that can enhance audio. You can utilise features such as suppress background noise to aid with improving the sound quality.

Run a test

If the meeting is of particular importance, you may first like to ensure the tools work as they should. Perhaps run a test conversation beforehand and then review the transcription to check that the quality is sufficient.

Are Zoom transcriptions accurate?

This is hard to say with total certainty. If just one person is talking, the equipment is high quality, there are no additional noises and you have time to make edits, then Zoom transcriptions could be fairly accurate.

In a meeting scenario, however, there is room for improvement. Whilst AI tools such as those built into Zoom can pick up words and relay entire conversations, they can miss a lot of what truly matters.

A study by Zoom itself showed that it currently has a word error rate of 7.4%. Whilst this is relatively low, it can also be a cause for concern, especially when vital transcripts for legal or medical reports are required. Its overall transcription accuracy rate came in at 70-80% which again, whilst fairly high, does pose potential issues. Pitch this against human transcribers and you’ll soon see that certain automated tools aren’t quite up to speed yet.

Even if we can look past these error rates, we should remain aware of just how much they could affect us.

The accuracy rate, when compared to human transcription, is still some way off, but even if Zoom managed to bring itself up to 99% accuracy, it could still more than likely struggle to deliver an optimal transcription.

Where do Zoom transcriptions make mistakes?

Multiple speakers

With its current capabilities, if multiple people are speaking at once, it becomes hard for Zoom to differentiate between speakers. This could risk parts of the dialogue being incorrectly attributed, and lead to an inaccurate transcription. Factor in different accents, too, and the transcription tool may quickly become overwhelmed.

Contextual understanding

The transcript tools within Zoom and other similar services are not yet up to speed with understanding tone, slang, acronyms or other nuances. This could result in the transcript recording words that weren’t used and, in some cases, make up words entirely.

Without it being proofed, such poor transcribing could lead to an incorrect or totally nonsensical quote being given.

Accuracy

As previously mentioned, Zoom currently offers around 70-80% accuracy. In data-driven and information-led scenarios like HR interviews, medical studies, legal reporting and staff training, these numbers simply aren’t high enough. The implications of inaccurate transcriptions from a Zoom meeting could have wide-ranging consequences.

Ultimately, everything detailed above can lead to a waste of two things: time and money. If you rely on your Zoom transcriptions, and they are wrong, lack context or don’t read as they should, you may have to hold the interviews or meetings again and reattempt a transcription. If things still don’t look right, you may need to hire a specialist transcription team to rectify the mistakes.

This can all be avoided by simply using Zoom for the meeting, and then relying on a professional transcription service. You’ll save time and money by not repeating processes and instead having everything completed quickly and accurately.

How should you transcribe Zoom meetings?

Zoom meetings are still, for the time being, best transcribed by fully qualified human transcribers. Even though paid Zoom accounts come with a transcription option, the lack of accuracy and the potential for mistakes mean it could be better to source an option that delivers consistently accurate results from the beginning.

Our team at McGowan Transcriptions, for example, regularly transcribes files from Zoom meetings for legal transcription, research groups and medical transcribing. Using their expert skills to detect changes in tone, pauses and industry-specific language, we can ensure that you are given an accurate transcription of the meeting. With simple and secure file transfers, your data remains safe, and with quick turnaround times, your transcriptions can be back with you rapidly.