Ever since videos and audio tapings were made, that generated the inherent need to have a written version of that content. The reason is simple, not everyone can understand every bit of audio due to accents, how fast someone speaks and so on. It’s a problem we encounter in the case of video and audio content as well. Figuring out the best way to deal with these issues was not simple, but that’s how transcriptions were introduced, as a solution to the problem. And while now we can use an AI transcription service, that was not always the case.

The beginning of transcriptions

People have been transcribing spoken conversations into written content for centuries. In fact, the first transcriptions were made thousands of years ago, on stone tablets or via manuscripts. Things have changed quite a lot, but initially, manual transcriptions have always been the direct solution for this type of situation. 

And while manual transcriptions were great for that time, as our society evolved, they started showing their limitations. For example, manual transcriptions have quickly become prone to error and inconsistency. While that could be corrected, it was still the type of issue that could lead to a misunderstanding of the content. Repairing everything would be very time-consuming and not without its fair share of challenges.

As industries evolved, the need for accurate transcriptions has become extremely important. And that’s why we couldn’t just rely on manual transcriptions all the time. Granted, what is a downside can also be an upside as well. In this case, manual transcriptions are very helpful because you can go through multiple times, figure out where you made a mistake and revise it. That might prove to be more difficult in the case of a digital or AI transcription where you didn’t work on the transcription itself.

The use of typewriters managed to revolutionize the industry, and it managed to bring in a very creative, innovative approach to the industry. It allowed people to desensitize themselves from manually writing any spoken word. It offered a shift towards digital transcriptions, while still conveying a very impressive and easy to understand system. 

Digital transcriptions started taking over

The importance of shifting to digital systems for transcribing became obvious once computers started being a mainstream unit. At first, it was difficult to buy and access a computer. In the span of a few years, more consumers and businesses started getting access to these devices. All of a sudden, writing transcriptions on a keyboard became the norm. And ever since the 90s, that has become the main way we would transcribe pretty much any type of content. 

That’s what makes digital transcriptions very impressive, because they are fast, effective, and you can easily revise and optimize them. The fact that you can also keep multiple versions and copies of the same file also helps immensely, because it does help save a ton of time and effort, without worrying about any type of downsides. 

Is a digital transcription better than manual typing? Absolutely, one of the major advantages comes in the form of speed. You have a much faster speed, which leads to better productivity. You can also revise stuff quicker, and as we said, keep multiple copies of the same file or different versions. Add to that the fact that you can minimize the risk of error and it’s easy to share the file to someone via email or other solutions, and it’s clear that transcriptions are very effective.

Delving into automated digital transcription

The next evolution was to create software that would transcribe stuff on its own, without human assistance. The early digital transcription tools were meant to automate recorded audio and transform it into text. The problem encountered here is that the accuracy was quite limited. Machines were not able to fully understand the text, and there were frequent errors. A lot of the time, you had to manually change stuff and optimize things, which was not exactly the ideal option. But it worked, and it managed to bring a distinct perspective into the process. 

AI transcriptions: the ultimate solution

Since AI has become a major factor in industries worldwide, it has also managed to enter the transcription world. And that’s the thing here, AI can be very effective when it comes to understanding a certain topic and providing very accurate transcriptions. In fact, an AI transcription has a plethora of benefits, as you can see below:

• AI transcriptions are very accurate, comprehensive, and they provide the result much faster than software or a manual transcription. In time-sensitive situations, that can be very helpful and effective.
• AI can lower the error rates, which is very powerful because it allows us to solve any issues a lot faster. As AI gets better and better, it is possible to reach a point where we will have an AI transcription that’s error-free.
• It’s also less expensive to do a transcription using AI when compared to relying on a human service or software. That’s why it does make sense to use AI transcription services, since they are proven to work very well, and they always provide us with an exceptional return on investment.
• These transcriptions can be great for a variety of industries. You can use AI to transcribe legal content, medical content, interviews, audio recordings and many others. Simply put, any audio or video content can benefit from an AI transcription very quickly.
• The service is very scalable, you can easily handle a variety of formats and in some cases, transcribe multiple content pieces at once.

While manual transcription was great for a very long time, things have evolved. Now, we focus a lot more on using digital systems and AI in order to obtain very comprehensive and accurate transcriptions. An AI transcription is inexpensive, very accurate, and you can access it quickly. We highly recommend using AI transcription services, since they can provide amazing results and exceptional value!