Otter.ai announced on Tuesday that it can now transcribe meetings where speakers switch between languages within the same session. The company is adding support for 27 languages, bringing its total supported count to 31 once the rollout finishes. The new feature automatically detects when a conversation shifts from one tongue to another without requiring users to adjust settings manually. For example, a call moving from English to Korean to Portuguese will be transcribed continuously. Thirteen languages are available immediately, including Mandarin Chinese, Korean, German, Italian, Cantonese, Portuguese, Russian, Indonesian, Malay, Dutch, Turkish, Vietnamese, and Polish. The remaining 14 languages, such as Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Arabic, Hindi, Thai, Hebrew, Norwegian, Greek, Macedonian, Persian, Czech, Hungarian, and Romanian, will follow soon. These new languages run on Otter’s own speech models trained with publicly available datasets and reviewed by native-speaking volunteers. The update addresses difficulties global teams face when language differences complicate meetings. An Otter spokesperson stated the tool helps any company build a system of record for voice AI communication regardless of location. The launch coincides with Otter’s expansion into workplace tools like Work Mode and Live Assist after receiving $320 million funding from General Catalyst.
This expansion matters because it allows international teams to utilise the platform without manual intervention during multilingual discussions. The company specifically trained models for these regions rather than relying solely on generic systems. Accuracy checks involved native speakers reviewing transcripts to ensure quality. The feature supports specific use cases where language switching occurs naturally in business meetings.
- 13 languages available now, 14 arriving soon
- Automatic detection of language switches within calls
- Models trained on public data and native speaker review
