Audio management is an important part of modern business. Zoom meetings, YouTube videos, and podcasts, for example, require audio to be heard, coordinated, and transcribed.
There is no shortage of sophisticated audio tools. I’ve tested a few of those that claim to use artificial intelligence. Here are my findings, organized by use case:
- transcription,
- podcast tools,
- meetings, webinars,
- Convert text to speech.
AI-powered audio tools
Transcript in progress. AudioNotes uses artificial intelligence to convert speech to text. Upload an audio file or speak to the tool and it will transcribe it for you. Transcripts are available in 30 languages, but abstracts are in English only. This article was tested in English.
AudioNotes automatically saves all transcripts and summaries to your dashboard. Unfortunately, the audio in the text is not saved. Users can tag notes to find them quickly or share them with other registered users.
AudioNotes automatically saves the synopsis (shown here) and transcript to the user’s dashboard. Click image to enlarge.
You can use this tool to transcribe videos and podcasts, record ideas and synopses. An AudioNotes rep said in a live chat that the iPhone app is expected to be released “in the next two to three weeks.”
AudioNotes offers a free limited plan and a ton of paid plans in the “Personal”, “Pro”, and “PodNotes” categories. Each has multiple pricing models ranging from $49 to $249 per year. per month.
A free Google app for Android devices, Recorder is a near replacement for AudioNotes.
podcast tool. Podcastle is a versatile tool for creating better podcasts. Use AI to:
- Remove background noise to improve audio quality.
- create a podcast transcript and synopsis,
- Detects and removes filler words such as “um”, “ah”, “like”, “you know”.
Podcastle can create podcast transcripts and detect and remove filler words. Click image to enlarge.
The free “Basic” plan includes restrictions such as 3 hours of audio, limited access to editing tools, and watermarks on transcriptions. Paid plans are “Storyteller” and “Pro” for $ 11.99 and $ 23.99 per month. Both have rich features and capacity.
Closer alternatives to Podcastle are Auphonic, Descript, and Adobe Podcasts.
meetings, webinars. Otter is an AI assistant that automatically generates meeting recordings and summaries. Invite Otter to a Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet meeting. Convert audio to text and capture slides.
Otter automatically generates meeting transcripts and summaries, converts audio to text, and captures slides. Click image to enlarge.
Add comments to the transcript and share it with the group. An overview is similar to a table of contents. Clicking on a section takes you to that location in the recorded audio, making it easy to navigate your recordings.
Otter is also a useful tool for recording and transcribing podcasts.
Otter’s free “Basic” plan includes 300 minutes of transcription (30 minutes per conversation) each month. The “Pro” and “Business” plans cost $8 and $20 per month and are billed annually.
MeetGeek is a close alternative to Otter.
Convert text to speech. Murf is an AI speech generator that converts text to speech. Useful for creating audio versions of video narrations and articles for YouTube, his TikTok, etc. Paste the text into the tool and the audio will be generated.
Murf offers multiple voices, including male, female, educator, and developer. The difference was evident in my testing. Some voices were much better than others. So hear a few before choosing one. Then add pauses and adjust speed and pitch as needed.
Murf is a text-to-speech audio generator, useful for creating video narrations. Click image to enlarge.
Murf’s free plan includes 10 minutes of speech generation and 3 users. Basic, Pro, and Enterprise plans are $19, $26, and $99 per user per month, billed annually. Each progressively provides more functionality.
Speechify is a close alternative to Murf.
