Zoom plans to roll out auto-caption support to free accounts this fall as part of its efforts to make the service more accessible, the company has announced. If you are a free account holder and need previous access to the feature, Zoom allows users to manually request access to the Live Transcription feature via a Google form linked to in the announcement.
Automatic transcripts are not an entirely new Zoom feature. The service previously offered AI-powered live transcription for all of its paid accounts. Otherwise, meeting hosts had to manually add their own captions or use a third-party service. But now the feature is becoming available to the millions of people who rely on Zoom’s services for free. A Zoom support page notes that the Live Transcription feature is currently only available in English.
Automatic captioning is also available with other video conferencing services such as Google Meet. However, given how widespread Zoom has become since the start of the pandemic, it’s great to see it add more accessibility features. Previous attempts to make Zoom more accessible have included allowing meetings to pin and highlight interpreters during a call, as well as adding support for screen readers.