Zoom Allows Captions for Free Accounts
Zoom Allows Captions for Free Accounts

Zoom has announced that it will provide automatically generated translations (also known as real-time transcriptions) to all free accounts to make its services more accessible.

The platform faces stiff competition from Microsoft Teams, and the company is constantly looking for ways to improve its products.

The automatically generated subtitles are only available in English. However, the company announced that it will expand to other languages ​​in the future.

“For us, anyone can successfully connect, communicate and interact with Zoom, which is very important to us,” said Theresa Larkin, Director of Product Marketing for Company Meetings & Conversations. “You face significant hurdles when using video communication solutions.

Previously, the company only offered a real-time AI version for paid video conferencing and webinar accounts.

This has drawn criticism from accessibility advocates, who note that zoom calls have become ubiquitous during the pandemic and that there are limited options for deaf users.

If automatic translation does not occur, the Zoom meeting host must either use a third-party translation service or add their translations manually.

The company has added more accessibility options over the past year, including screen reader support and the ability to watch multiple videos simultaneously, so the sign language translator is always visible, even when another user is on the phone.

To enable closed captions during a Zoom meeting, the account owner or a user with administrative rights can log into the Zoom web portal and find the manager account in the navigation menu.

Then you need to select Account Settings and click on the Meeting tab. Under Meeting Options (Advanced), toggle the Title option to enable it.

This functionality was previously limited to paid Zoom accounts

The company said, “For us, anyone can use our platform to successfully connect, communicate and participate. This is very important to us.” Therefore, we focus on creating a platform that everyone can access. Functions like automatically generated captions are an important part of this business.

Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom, said Zoom believes it can advance the video conferencing experience as customers prefer face-to-face conversations and plan to do so in the next five to 10 years.

Yuan lamented the lack of social ceremonies such as handshakes and hugs. He referred to the company's work in the areas of augmented reality and virtual reality.

"We believe that video calls may be a better experience than face-to-face meetings in the future," Yuan said. We're not there yet, but we're working hard to get there.



Save 80.0% on select products from RUWQ with promo code 80YVSNZJ, through 10/29 while supplies last.

HP 2023 15'' HD IPS Laptop, Windows 11, Intel Pentium 4-Core Processor Up to 2.70GHz, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, HDMI, Super-Fast 6th Gen WiFi, Dale Red (Renewed)
Previous Post Next Post