Microsoft 365 - Live Transcription within Teams Meeting

Live transcription shows speech-to-text of spoken content during a Teams meeting in near real time. The text appears alongside the meeting video, including the speaker's name and a time stamp.

Important/Warning: Be aware that because this service creates machine-generated transcriptions, their accuracy will not be perfect. Most automatic speech recognition (ASR) transcription results in approximately 70-80% accuracy.


Which Teams client supports live transcription?

Currently, live transcription is supported on the Teams desktop clients only. Transcription is supported for spoken U.S. English. The transcript is available after the meeting on Teams desktop or web.

Which type of Teams event is live transcription available in?

Live transcription will only be available within Teams meetings. It is not available in channel meetings or Meet now meetings.

Who can start live transcription

Anyone within the meeting will be able to start live transcription.

How to enable live transcription

Within the meeting, go to the ellipsis menu (...) and select Start transcription.

start live transcription menu optiong

Note: Obscenities will be starred out.

What if I have additional needs for translation, interpretation, and captioning services within UW-Madison Teams?

Please contact the following groups:

Manage captions within a meeting

Teams has built-in closed captioning you can turn on from the meeting controls. Once enabled, you will also have the ability to select the language of your captions.

Can I hide my identity in meeting captions and transcripts?

Yes. When meetings include live captions or transcription, Teams automatically identifies the speaker along with what they say. You can choose to hide your name in live captions, live transcription, and the saved transcription that's available after the meeting. Learn more.

Additional Resources