The US transcription market will reach almost 33 billion by 2027, as users worldwide increasingly consume international multilingual content. Professional transcription and native translation matter — and these are skills possessed by humans, not AI, say industry experts.
Four major transcription industry trends are all about authentic translation and human touch.
Transcription is converting audio or video to written text, enhancing the usability and accessibility of content. The market for the process is huge – with an annual growth rate of 6 percent, the industry is expected to grow to 32.7 billion USD by 2027.
With the advancement of today’s technology, the transcription process has become speedier. Its formats now include transcribing real-time conferences, team meetings, interviews, shows, streams, and other events. It has increased the accessibility of video and audio formats and facilitated non-English content to reach multilingual audiences.
What are the future trends for the booming industry?
1. AI-powered synchronous transcription: will it take over human work?
Set for launch in 2021, Microsoft’s “Group Transcribe” is a transcription and translation app for in-person meetings. It will record the meetings on the device, as well as translate and transcribe in real-time. Powered by AI for speech identification and translation, it is said to be able to transcribe with higher speaker attribution.
“While the AI-powered transcription is in high demand, appreciated for the speed and convenience, the quality standard, reachable only by the professional transcriber and native translator, is prioritized by many end-users,” shares Mindaugas Čaplinskas, the CEO of Go Transcript, one of the industry’s leaders.
2. Authentic translations: quality will matter
As the South Korean Netflix series, Squid Game, became the most-watched Netflix’s show of all time, attracting the attention of 142 million households, the transcription and translation of the show were criticized by the Korean speakers for inaccuracies that changed the authentic meaning behind the dialogues. The critique went viral on TikTok and Twitter, showcasing examples of incorrectly conveyed meanings.
Keeping in mind that 97% of the platform’s US subscribers reportedly watched at least one non-English show in 2020 and only 55 percent of the content on the site is in English, the quality translation matters. And for a large audience, as only 35 percent of Netflix’s customers are located in the US or Canada. “The international audience doesn’t want to, nor should miss out on quality and content authenticity,” said Čaplinskas.
3. All-inclusive, multilingual accessibility for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers
Subtitling and captioning market over the next five years will see an 8% annual growth rate in terms of revenue and therefore reach the size of 340 million USD by 2025. GoTranscript also notices the growth, confirming that the amount of foreign content translations has gone up by 20% during the pandemic.
“Nonetheless, if the transcription, or therefore, translation, is done inaccurately, the visually impaired watchers miss out on the nuances of the script,” continues the CEO of GoTranscript. It’s an audience of around 36 million deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers in the US alone, while globally it makes 5% of the world’s population of over 400 million people. “It’s only natural the content should be widely accessible – accessibility for a long time was, and will prevail as one of the biggest trends.”
4. Human-powered fluency favored in legal & medical sectors
The accuracy of the transcription and translation matters not only for the purpose of authenticity. As these processes are essential parts of the medical and legal sectors, accurate data is more than simply a preference. “Both sectors are increasingly adopting transcription,” claims Čaplinskas. The legal sector adapts transcription at various arbitration, judicial, court, or public hearings, amongst others; the medical sector has uses in laboratory reports, various clinical summaries, medical records, and operative reports.
“The growing need for accurate data will reach its peak by 2024,” says the expert. “As data is the most valuable resource for any organization in order to obtain valuable insights, human-based transcription services help companies, businesses, organizations, and governments to maintain their records at the highest accuracy.”
Conclusion
Accessibility and internationality of content prevail as strong media trends for all-inclusive audiences. Despite efficient AI transcription time turnaround, human-powered transcription prevails as an important niche for data precision, crucial for its rightful and efficient usage in medical and legal sectors, by businesses and their data-based decisions. No less important is an authentic translation of the transcribed content.