AI Audio Tools for Meetings, Podcasts, Text-to-speech

Managing audio is a key component of modern business. Zoom meetings, YouTube videos, and podcasts, as examples, involve listening, adjusting, and transcribing speech.

There’s no shortage of sophisticated audio tools. I’ve tested a selection of them that claim to use artificial intelligence. Here are my findings arranged by the use case:

• Transcribing,
• Podcast tools,
• Meetings, webinars,
• Text to audio.

AI-powered Audio Tools

Transcribing. AudioNotes uses artificial intelligence to convert speech into text. Upload an audio file or speak to the tool and it will transcribe and summarize. The transcription is available for 30 languages, but the summaries are in English only. My tests for this post were in English.

AudioNotes saves all transcripts and summaries automatically in users’ dashboards. Unfortunately, it does not save the audio inside the text. Users can tag the notes to find them quickly and can share them with other registered users.

AudioNotes saves summaries (shown here) and transcripts automatically in users’ dashboards. Click image to enlarge.

Use the tool to create transcripts of videos or podcasts or to record ideas and outlines. In a live chat, an AudioNotes rep told me an iPhone app is coming in “two to three weeks.”

AudioNotes offers a free, limited plan and a blizzard of paid plans under “Personal,” “Pro,” and “PodNotes” categories. Each has multiple pricing models ranging from $49 per year to $249 per month.

Recorder, a free Google app for Android devices, is a close alternative to AudioNotes.

Podcast tools. Podcastle is a multi-feature tool for creating better podcasts. It uses AI to:

• Improve audio quality by removing background noises,
• Create podcast transcripts and outlines,
• Detect and remove filler words — e.g., “um,” “ah,” “like,” “you know.”

Podcastle can create transcripts of podcasts and detect and remove filler words. Click image to enlarge.

The free “Basic” plan includes three…