With a lot of people adopting the work-from-home regimen to curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus, Zoom gained immense popularity last year. The company has since been working to upgrade its security features, admin control, audio quality, and a lot more. Now, the company is turning its focus towards accessibility features. Zoom has now announced, via an official blog post, that it will make the paid Live Transcription feature available to all users for free in Fall 2021.
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Zoom Makes Live Transcription Free for All
The Live Transcription, for those unaware, refers to the automatic closed captioning feature in Zoom. It’s an AI-powered feature that shows users in a call the captions at the bottom of the display. Live Transcription has been available on paid accounts for quite some time now. A free user can manually add captions, ask an attendee to add captions, or use a third-party tool (such as Otter) for the same.
This changes in the second half of 2021 when this feature starts rolling out to all free account users. Currently, if you are a free account user and desire access to the Live Transcription accessibility feature, then Zoom allows you to manually request access. You simply need to fill this Google Form and then, wait for an official confirmation e-mail to know that you’ve got access to the feature.
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How to Enable Closed Captions on Zoom
Once you’ve received access to the captioning feature, head to the Zoom website and click on “Account Management”, followed by “Account Settings”. Now, click on the “Meeting” tab to see whether ‘Closed Caption’ is enabled or not.
Also, you should know that Live Transcription only supports the English language at the moment. Its accuracy depends on a multitude of factors, including the speaker’s clarity, background noise, proficiency in the English language, and dialects. The other accessibility features available on Zoom are pinning or spotlighting interpreter video, screen reader support, and more.
