Otter adds Korean meeting transcription and 12 other languages

Otter.ai added Korean and 12 other languages to its meeting transcription service on November 10. Users can now record a meeting conducted in Korean or import a Korean recording and get a transcript in that language. The additions bring the number of supported transcription languages to 17, including the four Otter already offered: English, French, Spanish and Japanese.

Otter announced the expansion at Web Summit in Lisbon. Alongside Korean, it added Mandarin Chinese with simplified characters, German, Italian, Cantonese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Indonesian, Malay, Dutch, Turkish, Vietnamese and Polish. The company says the new languages are available on desktop, mobile and the web without an extra language fee on existing plans. The usual workflow still begins by choosing the language spoken in the meeting or recording.

Switching languages during a meeting

Otter also announced a multilingual mode that will follow a conversation as participants change languages. The company gave the example of a call that moves between English, Portuguese and Mandarin without someone pausing to adjust a setting. Otter described that broader mode as forthcoming. One exception already exists: with French set as the default, Otter can switch between French and English during a conversation.

In the standard workflow, the recording uses the language selected when it started. Changing the default during a call leaves that recording on its original setting. Otter’s online Notetaker can join Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams as a guest. For automatic attendance, it uses events from a connected Google or Microsoft calendar and requires meetings that admit guest participants. Once it joins, the bot appears in the meeting app’s participant list.

File imports differ across devices

On the desktop app or the web, users can choose a language when they import a meeting recording. The mobile app uses the account’s default transcription language for imported files. Someone whose default is English would need to change that setting before importing a Korean interview on mobile. The web and mobile apps share the same default language setting.

Otter accepts files of up to 5 GB each. Supported formats include M4A files from Apple Voice Memos, MP3 and WAV audio, and MP4 video. Once the upload finishes, transcription continues on Otter’s servers, so the import screen can be closed.

If a recording was transcribed using the wrong language, the conversation owner can ask Otter to process the original audio again on desktop or the web. A person who received a shared transcript needs the owner to make that change. The selection also becomes the default for future recordings. The transcription language setting leaves Otter’s menus and navigation in English.

Transcripts and translated summaries stay separate

The transcript captures what people said in the language they spoke. Otter’s AI Chat can return a translation of the transcript, summary or action items in another language. For example, someone can keep the original transcript of a Korean meeting and request an English summary in chat. The translated output appears as a response and leaves the source transcript intact.

Otter says users on the free Basic plan can export transcripts in plain text only. Paid plans offer additional formats, including Word documents and PDFs. A person who receives a shared conversation can download it if they have export permission. Otter also offers a separate export for the conversation’s own summary on desktop or web. On mobile, users can copy that summary.

Existing usage limits still apply. The free Basic plan provides up to 300 minutes of transcription per month and 30 minutes per conversation. It also allows three audio or video file imports per account in total. The Pro plan raises the limit to 90 minutes per conversation and allows 10 file imports each month.

Otter has named 14 more planned languages: Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Arabic, Hindi, Thai, Hebrew, Norwegian, Greek, Macedonian, Persian, Czech, Hungarian and Romanian. The company is accepting expressions of interest in beta testing those languages. General availability for all 14 would bring the total to 31. Otter has given no release date for them.