It was automated captions last year, but now Google has added a transcription option for Google Drive users.
Launched this week, the new tool is a bid to keep Drive users with Google, as opposed to uploading their videos to one of the many AI transcription tools out there.
Now, when you open a video in the player, the transcript will appear in a sidebar next to it. You can also hit the gear icon to open video options and select ‘transcript’ from there.
What Does the New Google Drive Tool Offer?
The transcript option should make videos more accessible for users. They can see the currently spoken text as the video plays, and can also search the content to find a specific moment.
However, to access this new tool, users must have captions enabled for their video. To do this, right-click the video in Drive then select the ‘Manage caption tracks’ option. From here, tick ‘Generate automatic captions’.
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Google adds that you can also generate captions when the video is playing. If you go to the three dot menu on top right on your window, you’ll see a ‘Manage captions tracks’ option. From there, choose ‘Generate automatic captions’.
Who Will Have Access to the new Google Drive Tool?
All Google Drive users will be able to try out the new transcript tool. This means all Google Workspace customers, Google Workspace Individual subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts.
Google adds that those of us with personal Google accounts “can upload or request automatic captions after uploading a video to Drive”.
The company adds in its release note that rapid release domains should see the feature appear in the next 15 days but it might take longer for scheduled release domains.
Google Undercutting Rivals
Google is going after paid-for transcription services such as Otter with this new launch. But it will need to scramble to add features like AI-generated summaries, editable transcripts or a roundup of actionable items if it is going to compete in the enterprise space.
Otter has pretty seamless integration with Google Meet for example (as well as Zoom). However, there are limits in place for free users so this might be where Google gains fans.
It could be, though, that this is also just a neat way to make people play around with the hundreds – if not thousands – of family videos that they upload to Google Drive each year.
