Otter.ai Review - AI Navigator

Otter.ai may not have been around particularly long – being established in 2016 -, but the company that created the tech has quickly risen through the ranks to make a name for itself within the transcription software industry, with Otter.ai becoming a particularly well-known transcription app.

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But what exactly is Otter.ai, and how does it function?

In our review, we are going to be diving deeper into the artificial intelligence-based software that is Otter.ai and going through the various features that it offers to decipher whether it is a transcription service that is worth investing in. Let’s get started.

What Is Otter.ai?

Otter.ai

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Otter.ai lets users create their own personal voice recognition systems by uploading audio files or directly transcribing them from video sources.

The software can be installed on any device with an internet connection, including desktops.

It also includes several tools that allow you to easily transcribe audio files, add tags, and even share them with other people.

The best thing about Otter.ai isn't that it requires no special skills to use; rather, it's incredibly easy to use for anyone, even those who don't necessarily have much experience with technology.

Anyone can create their own personal voice recognition system without having any knowledge of programming languages.

The software also allows the user to cut out the middle man by eliminating the need to deal with difficult user interfaces.

Who Created Otter.ai?

Otter was founded by two brothers-Daniel Siegel and David Siegel- back in 2016. They had previously worked at another startup called VOCALIQ which they sold to Microsoft.

After this initial success, the brothers decided to strike out on their own. This is how Otter.ai came to be.

Their goal was to create a simple way for anyone to be able to easily create their own voice-recognition system.

How Does Otter.ai Work?

The first thing you'll need to do when setting your account up is to choose which file formats you'd like to work with.

You can either upload an MP3, record audio from a microphone or webcam, or transcribe videos directly off YouTube or Vimeo.

Once you've selected the type of media that you want to work with (audio or video), you just click "Start Transcribing" and the software will begin transcribing the audio/video content.

After the conversion process has been completed, you will be presented with a list of all the transcript files that were created during the conversion process.

You can then select which ones you want to keep and delete those you don't need anymore. You can either download the final versions of your documents as.txt files or convert them to PDFs if you prefer.

You can also set up your account so that you get notified when new files are added to the library.

As soon as you log back into your transcription account, you will be notified that there are new transcribed items available for you to review. Click on the link to access the new files.

As mentioned earlier, Otter.ai supports a wide variety of audio file formats, so you can use it to transcribe anything from music to podcasts to speeches.

However, because the system is powered by a machine learning algorithm, it may not be able to accurately identify every word or phrase.

Because of this, it's important to wait until it has learned and adapted to your speech patterns before using it too heavily.

How Does The Otter.ai Artificial Intelligence Work?

When it comes to how the AI of the software works, Otter.ai utilizes a combination of deep learning techniques and neural networks in order to analyze the audio and video content that you provide.

These two technologies are sometimes referred to as NN (neural network) and DL (deep neural network), respectively.

When you upload a document, the software automatically splits the document into smaller chunks and feeds each one through a series of filters that extracts specific information from each chunk.

For example, the system might look at the pitch, volume level, and duration of certain words in your speech to determine whether they belong in English or not.

It might also try detecting the gender of the speaker, and even the emotional state (positive/negative) of their voice.

Once this initial analysis has been performed, the software creates a mathematical model based on the data extracted.

This model is then applied to predict what other words might be associated with each piece of audio or visual content. To put it simply, the software tries to guess what you’re going to say next.

The software uses an attention-based RNN (recursive neural network) algorithm to do this. This allows the software program to pay more attention to certain parts of the audio than to others, depending on their significance.

For example, it might ignore the end of the sentence, but focus on the beginning.

The software continues doing this until it reaches the end of the audio clip. At this point, it has built a model of your entire conversation and can start predicting which words you'll say next.

The software does this by analyzing the context surrounding each word that you speak.
Otter.ai does this by looking at the previous few sentences you've written, along

with any punctuations, to help make its prediction. If you're talking about something that happened yesterday, the software may recognize that you used "today" and "yesterday," and assume that the upcoming word could be another reference to the same day.

What Features Does Otter.ai Offer?

Otter.ai offers a lot of extensive features which includes the following:

Automatic speech recognition (ASR): lets you automatically transcribe audio recordings, so you can easily create text documents from them.
Text To Speech (TTS): Automatically converts text into spoken words.
Voice Search: This particular feature allows you to search the web using your voice
Real-Time Audio Player: Plays audio in real-time.
File Manager: allows you to manage your files, folders, and documents.
Document Converter: Converts between different document formats.
Live Streaming: Streams live video from web cameras.
Screen Recorder: Records what's displayed on your screen.
Chatbot: This allows you to create chatbots that respond to user questions.
Translation: Translate text from one language to another.
Video Player: Plays videos in real-time
Image Viewer: Opens images in the browser window.
Media Library: Offers easy access to your files.
Email Attachments: Sends attachments via email.
Bookmarking: Creates bookmarks within websites.
Google Drive Integration: This feature allows you to store files in Google Drive.
Cloud storage: Lets the user upload and share documents across multiple devices.
Spell check: Checks for spelling mistakes in written documents.
Grammarly: Helps improve your writing skills.
Offline mode: Can work even if there is no available internet connection.
Multi-Language support: Supports over 50 languages, including English, Spanish, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, and more.

Is Otter.ai Safe?

Yes, Otter.ai is definitely safe to use! The company has been operating for several years and has already accumulated millions of users worldwide, earning its place as a reputable brand.

The company also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, which means that you don't have anything to lose when you try their service.

How Much Does Otter.ai Cost?

Otter.ai offers a monthly subscription fee depending on how many hours per week you want to spend transcoding audio files.

There are three plans for the service: one costs $9.99 per month, another costs $29 per month, and the third costs $49 per month. Prices are correct at the time of writing.

Does Otter.ai Work With All Devices?

Yes, Otters.ai works with all major mobile platforms! This includes iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.

You can also use the software on desktop computers as well as laptops.

Otter.ai Advantages

So what are the major advantages of this particular software? Here are some of the most noteworthy features of Otter.ai.

Support for Any Type of File Format: Use it to transcribe any type of file format, including MP3s, OGG's (Ogg Vorbis), WAV’s, FLAC’s (Free Lossless Audio Codec), AIFF’s (Apple Interchange File Format), AAC’s (Advanced Audio Coding) and more.
Powerful Features: Otter.ai includes features such as an image viewer, a file manager, a document converter, a media library, an email attachment, a bookmarks feature, a spelling checker, a grammar checker, translation, an offline mode, multi-language support, Google Drive integration, cloud-based speech recognition, and much more.
High Accuracy: Otter.ai has an accuracy rate of 99.7%.
24/7 Customer Support: A customer support service that is available at any time by email or phone.
No Installation Required: Simply download the app, and get started immediately.
Free Trial: Gives you a chance to try out the service before committing to it fully.
Easy Setup: Drag and drop your audio files into the interface and get started right away.

Otter.ai Disadvantages

It's always crucial to look at both the positives and the negatives in any product review, so let's take a look at some of the disadvantages of the Otter.ai software.

Low-Quality Audio Files: The quality of the results will rely on the amount of training data that you provide. If you don't include enough of your own speech in the data, you won't get very good training results.
No-Multi Track Recordings: You cannot record multiple speakers at once. If you want to transcribe multiple speakers at once, then you'll need to split each speaker apart manually.
Struggles to Understand Certain Accents or Dialects: You may be able to train the software to recognize certain accents or dialects, but it will have difficulties understanding them if they are not saved in the database.
Slow Speed: Otter.ai takes longer than most similar services to process audio files.
Limited Availability: Only available in certain parts of the world.