WhatsApp may soon let you automatically transcribe voice notes

WhatsApp has been spotted working on a feature to transcribe voice notes on Android devices. Using the speech recognition feature on your smartphone, WhatsApp will process sent and received voice notes locally and display the transcribed text in the same chat window. This feature is currently under development and may come in handy when voice messages cannot be listened to. It also improves accessibility for hearing-impaired users, allowing them to use the built-in voice annotation feature.

Feature Tracker WABetaInfo Discover A new feature is being developed in WhatsApp beta for Android 2.24.7.8 – the ability to transcribe voice notes. The Meta-owned chat platform is still developing the feature, which means even beta testers can’t try it out right now. However, feature trackers have shared images of what the feature will look like when it launches.

WhatsApp will download additional data to enable voice note recording
Image source: WABetaInfo

In the screenshot posted by WABetaInfo, we can see a pop-up card explaining how the feature will work when it eventually rolls out to users. A message notifies users that the app requires downloading 150MB of new app data to their smartphone in order to enable voice note recording on the smartphone.

WhatsApp will also inform users that it will use on-device speech recognition, which will allow the app to provide voice recordings while protecting user privacy and retaining end-to-end encryption of their messages. This also shows that downloaded voice notes can be transcribed even if no data is available.

It is worth noting that WhatsApp has been testing the same feature since the launch of WhatsApp iOS beta version 23.9.0.70 in May 2023. The app also downloads these language packs to the user’s smartphone, enabling transcription in different languages. According to the feature tracker, WhatsApp users on iOS will also be able to search these transcripts as the texts are indexed like regular messages.