Top AI Speech to Text Tools for Researchers and Educators

Speech-to-text technology has seen remarkable advancements thanks to AI. Today, a wide range of AI-powered tools can generate instant transcripts of both audio and video files with impressive accuracy, often within minutes. Not long ago, this level of efficiency was just a dream for researchers.

I still remember my time as a research assistant at the doctoral office at Mount Saint Vincent University—transcribing a single hour of audio was a painstakingly slow process. If the recording had background noise or featured participants with strong accents, the challenge became even greater. Now, with AI-driven tools like the ones I’ll be sharing below, all you need to do is upload your file, and within minutes, you’ll receive a full transcript.

But transcription is just the beginning. What makes these tools truly powerful is their ability to go beyond simply converting speech to text. Many now offer built-in data analysis features that allow you to extract meaningful insights from your transcriptions. You can automatically summarize key ideas, conduct sentiment analysis, identify recurring themes, and detect patterns—tasks that would otherwise take hours of manual effort. Now, these capabilities are integrated directly into the same tools you use for transcription, saving you both time and effort.

All the tools in this collection support both audio and video transcription. If you’ve already recorded video interviews or have video files you want transcribed, simply upload them, and your transcripts will be ready in no time.

If you use platforms like Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, or Zoom, keep in mind that they offer built-in transcription services at no extra cost, though they lack advanced data analysis features. Similarly, if you use a video editing tool, check whether it includes integrated transcription and captioning—many modern video editing platforms now offer these features.

Before diving into the list, a word of caution. Be mindful of the data you upload to AI tools. Always review a tool’s privacy policy to understand what data it stores, for how long, where it is stored, and who has access to it. Never upload files containing sensitive or personally identifiable information to ensure data security.

Lastly, this post is adapted from my upcoming book on AI in academic research. If you’re a researcher looking for ways to streamline your workflow and boost productivity, this book will provide valuable insights and practical tools—stay tuned!

AI Speech to Text Tools

Below our top picks for speech to text tools for researchers and educators. Let’s start with table summarizing the main features of each one of them:

1. Rev AI

Rev AI is a powerful AI-driven speech-to-text tool to use to transcribe your interviews. Rev AI can handle both audio and video files making it an excellent choice for transcribing video interviews and video conferences.

The way it works is simple: upload your file (Rev supports various files including MP3, MP4, WMV, AVI and more), provide your email and your completed transcript will be emailed to you once ready.

If you need real-time transcription, Rev AI also offers streaming transcription, allowing you to transcribe audio or video as it’s streamed. However, this feature is currently available in only nine languages, including English.

And for those of you who would rather hire a human transcript to do the job for you, Rev AI does offer human-created transcription with a 24-hour turnaround time (English only).

Besides basic transcription services, Rev AI offers powerful AI-driven features to help you analyze your interview data more efficiently. Instead of spending hours manually reviewing transcripts, you can leverage automated insights to identify key themes, sentiment, and important topics within your data.

As for pricing, Rev AI offers a free trail which provides you with credits for up to five hours of transcription, for more its offers pay as you go $0.25/min.

2.Otter AI

Otter AI is another good alternative to Rev AI. I have been using both Rev and Otter on and off for sometime now and found them really helpful. Like Rev AI, Otter AI also works with both audio and video files making it a great option whether you’re conducting face-to-face interviews (with recordings), video conferencing interviews, or even transcribing podcasts and lectures. And yes Otter AI does offer real-time and post-recording transcription capabilities.

Otter AI is available as a mobile app, desktop browser, or Chrome/Firefox extensions. If you’ve already conducted an interview and need a transcript, just upload your audio or video file, and Otter AI will generate an accurate transcript in minutes. All your transcripts are neatly stored in the My Conversations tab where you can access, review, edit, and organize them for later use.

And for those of you using Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet for video conferencing, Otter offers this handy AI-powered assistant called OtterPilot which can automatically join the meeting, transcribe in real-time, and even generate summaries.

No longer taking notes while interviewing, Otter captures everything for you, allowing you to stay fully engaged with your participant. Even better, if any slides or screen shares are presented during the discussion, OtterPilot automatically adds them to the meeting notes, ensuring no details are lost.

Beyond transcription, Otter AI comes with various AI features to help you extract qualitative insights from their data. For instance it provides speaker identification, helping you keep track of who said what, highlight key takeaways, tag specific parts of the transcript, assign action items within your notes, searching through transcripts, identify key themes, sentiment, and important points within conversations, and many more.

Otter AI offers various plans, the free plan is basic and offers up to 300 monthly transcription minutes; 30 minutes per conversation; Import and transcribe 3 audio or video files lifetime per user. For more credits and features check out pro plan ($8.33 per user/month), Business plan ($20 per user/month), and Enterprise plan (custom pricing).

3. Descript

Descript is another good AI speech to text tool I recommend for teachers and educators keen on generating transcripts for their audio and video files. Descript is basically a video editing tool but it offers some amazing audio and video to text functionalities.

So, yes this is a full-fledged platform that helps you manage, edit, and analyze recorded interview data with ease. Some of the features it offers include automatic transcription, speaker labeling, and AI-driven summarization.

Descript supports 23 languages and can handle large files seamlessly—though for best performance, longer files (over 15 hours) are split into manageable segments.

Descript’s AI-powered analysis features are also worth considering here. These include the ability to instantly generate summaries of key insights from your transcriptions, automatically add chapter markers which makes it easier to navigate lengthy interviews, and If you need to highlight important moments, Descript’s Find Good Clips feature scans your recording and identifies the best snippets (helpful when you’re pulling quotes or key excerpts for analysis).

Another feature that makes Descript incredibly useful for research is text-based editing. Once your interview is transcribed, you can edit the text, and it will automatically adjust the corresponding audio or video.

For remote interviews conducted over Zoom, Descript integrates directly with the platform, allowing you to import and transcribe Zoom recordings effortlessly. You can also upload files directly from URLs, making it easier to pull in data from various sources.

As for pricing, Descript offers various plans including a free plan (Free trial for 1 hour), Hobbyist ($19/month), Creator ($35/month), Business ($50), Enterprise (custom pricing).

4. Sonix

Sonix is a versatile AI-powered transcription tool perfect for educators and researchers like you, whether you’re conducting face-to-face interviews, video recordings, or videoconferences. Supporting over 50 languages, Sonix quickly transforms your audio and video interviews into organized, searchable text. But Sonix goes beyond simple transcription—it uses AI to analyze your data, detect topics, create automatic chapter markers, and even generate concise summaries, helping you quickly pinpoint the most relevant insights from your research.

Sonix also offers advanced search capabilities enabling you to swiftly locate key phrases or specific moments within lengthy transcripts. If your research involves multiple languages, Sonix seamlessly translates transcripts into over 50 languages, making multilingual studies easier than ever.

Sonix offers seamless integration with tools like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, thus enhancing your research workflow, making your transcription process efficient, collaborative, and hassle-free.

5. Riverside AI

Riverside is a powerful AI-driven transcription tool designed to make your research workflow smoother. Whether you’re handling face-to-face interviews, video recordings, or virtual meetings, Riverside provides fast and highly accurate transcriptions. No more struggling with unclear recordings or spending hours on manual transcription, Riverside does the work for you with automatic, real-time text generation.

Riverside also offers impressive built-in editing capabilities. You can refine your transcriptions by directly modifying the text, and the corresponding audio or video will adjust automatically. This makes it easy to clean up interviews, extract key insights, or prepare quotes for research papers.

Automatic speaker detection ensures every voice is correctly labeled, making multi-participant discussions much easier to analyze. As for its pricing, it offers various plans : Free (limited features, only 2 hours of multi-track recordings), Standard ($15/month), Pro ($24/month), Business (custom pricing).

6. TurboScribe AI

TurboScribe is another interesting AI speech to text tool to consider. TurboScribe Handles up to 10 hours of audio or video at a time making it a powerful fit for researchers dealing with long interviews or large datasets.

And like previous tools, TurboScribe doesn’t stop at transcription, it also offers interesting analytic features including: the ability to automatically recognize speakers so you can easily distinguish between participants in multi-person conversations without extra work.

For multilingual research, TurboScribe supports over 98+ languages and includes a built-in translation feature that supports up to 134+ languages. You can export transcripts in various formats, including PDF, DOCX, and SRT, making it simple to integrate findings into reports or presentations.

As for its pricing, TurboScribe offers the following plans: Free plan with limited features (3 daily transcripts, 30 minute uploads), TurboScribe Unlimited ($20/month).

Amber Script

AmberScript is another good option to check out for your speech to text transcriptions. The tool provides both AI-powered and human-verified transcription and supports over 70 languages.

AmberScript also tallows you to export transcripts in various formats, including subtitles, making it a versatile choice for accessibility. It also offers Speaker labeling for interviews with multiple participants.

Pricing options include a free trial with 10 minutes of free credits upon sign-up, an hourly credit plan at $10 per hour, a monthly subscription at $8.3 per hour, and a yearly subscription at $6.7 per hour. With its seamless integration into research workflows, AmberScript makes transcription effortless and efficient.

Final thoughts

There you have it a collection of some of the best AI speech to text (video to text) tools to use to generate instant transcriptions for both your audio and video files. And as I mentioned, these AI-powered platforms go beyond the mere transcription to generating analytic insights to help you develop nuanced understanding of your data including insightful summaries, identification of speakers, uncovering topics and recurring themes, and many more. And if you are an academic researcher interested in learning more about how to leverage the power of AI in your academic research, you definitely don’t want to miss my upcoming book, stay tuned!