Teams meetings and automatic captioning

If necessary, enable automatic subtitling in Teams sessions, which also automatically translates the spoken language into a desired language. In Teams meetings, you can also conveniently use an automatic transcription, i.e. a text equivalent.

In Teams, captioning is so-called standard equipment, that is, you can activate them just by clicking on the captioning. Please, notice that captioning is a personal aid for all users, i.e. everyone must turn on subtitles from their own Team's settings if necessary. The organizer of the meeting cannot therefore caption on behalf of all participants, but everyone uses subtitles only on their own behalf. See detailed instructions from Microsoft's help bank!

After you have enabled automatic captioning for the spoken language, you can also turn on the automatic translator. The instructions can be found on the same, already mentioned page. Try it!

In addition to subtitles and translations, meetings can be transcribed in Teams, i.e. text documentation, a text equivalent of the meeting's speech. You should also read these instructions from Microsoft's help bank.

Speech recognition, speech-to-text automation, and automatic translation are based on machine learning, artificial intelligence, and general machine operating logic, as well as the ability of algorithms, so the quality varies quite a bit depending on for example the speaker and the topic being talked about, so these tools have their own limitations and problems, too. However, captioning is also an important part of the digital accessibility of video technology, and automatic subtitling and translation are excellent aids here, which are constantly developing in leaps and bounds for the better.

Shared by Head og the Service Paula Vaskuri, ICT Services, 13.2.2023