Here’s Why Automatic Transcripts Need to Be Edited

Atomic Scribe’s $1/minute automatic transcription option has been a huge hit with both our new and returning clients. Using AI often gets transcripts back quicker and allows us to work more efficiently.

But our service is not strictly automatic. The $1 rate also includes a transcriptionist looking over the AI-generated transcript to make corrections and to get as close to 100% accuracy as possible.

Here’s why that step is so necessary.

Very, very few files are perfectly transcribed by AI. In fact, we would claim we’ve never seen automated transcription have 100% accuracy.

The biggest issue is that even with clear audio with a single speaker, there is still a variety of dialects, slang word, accents, and background noise that impact automated transcription quality. Luckily, these things are easily fixed when the editor goes through the AI-generated transcript, but it does show that AI cannot be completely relied on currently.

A human editor can catch not just words being spoken, but context. AI has trouble with words that sounds similar. For example, a speaker may say “He is a minor” to indicate a youth, but the AI transcribes it as “He is a miner” as a profession. Imagine how much something like that can change a transcript’s meaning!

AI also has difficulty with proper nouns, such as names of companies or places. But don’t worry – these are all things that human editors can easily fix.

One big flaw with automatic transcription we’ve noticed is the inability to handle speaker identification. Even for audio with a woman with a high-pitched voice speaking to a man with a deep voice, AI can sometimes get confused. We’ve seen instances where AI has identified 5 people speaking throughout a transcript when there were clearly only two speakers in the audio.

That’s something that can be very confusing for clients, so it’s another reason why human editors are so important. While computers haven’t mastered differentiating voices yet, we can confidently say that Atomic Scribe transcriptionists have.

Lastly, you must edit your automated transcripts for readability. Even if the AI gets every word right, there are likely mistakes with sentence structure and punctuation. We find that this is actually the area in which our editors do the most work, as automated transcripts are often riddled with formatting errors.

AI also won’t account for a specific format or template you may prefer for your transcript. That’s something a transcription company will work with you on so that your transcript looks exactly as you want it to.

Automatic transcription is a huge benefit for some audio and video files, as it saves the transcription company time and it saves the client money. However, the human element is still necessary. Without it, the accuracy and readability of the transcript is not of the highest quality.

So, if you order AI-generated transcription, make sure human editing and proofreading is part of the service. It is necessary in order to get the quality you deserve.