The Zoom meeting experience is now much more accessible and inclusive with AI-powered voice capabilities. Whether you’re connecting from a quiet home office or a crowded business environment, accessibility in online meetings is a necessity, not a luxury. AI technologies reduce communication challenges, especially for hearing impaired individuals, multilingual teams, or those with poor internet connections.
Let’s take a closer look at Zoom’s latest AI-based captioning and translation innovations.
Improved and Accurate Real-Time Captions
AI-powered voice recognition technology in the Zoom meeting environment now improves the accuracy of real-time captions using smarter models. Even complex terms or noisy environments are supported with more consistent and reliable transcription.
This is especially useful for meeting participants who follow speeches with subtitles. Clear and accurate captioning is the foundation of Zoom AI Companion features:
- Meeting summaries
- Instant Q&A
- Action items
“Accessibility technologies are often designed to be used only by people with disabilities. While it’s of course important for people with disabilities to have access to tools that work for us, communication can become much more accessible when groups work together to adapt their conversations. The ability to use captions in a Zoom meeting without drawing the attention of all participants makes it possible for access to be a group responsibility.”
Emma McDonnell, Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Washington
Customizing the Caption View: Font, Color and Placement
Zoom meeting captioning features can be tailored to the different needs of participants. Captioning may be needed for different reasons, such as being in a noisy environment, having different hearing levels, or for easy processing of written information.
Zoom therefore allows you to customize the appearance of captions:
- Adjust font size
- Change font and background color
- Adjust opacity
- Determine position on the screen
This flexibility helps meet a wide range of accessibility needs and provides a more inclusive meeting experience for everyone.
“As somebody who uses captions frequently for presenting accessibly and inclusively, more control over caption locations and size adds a lot of value.”
Jen Mankoff, C.S. Professor, University of Washington
Real-time Translation Support in 36+ Languages
Language barriers shouldn’t be a problem in online meetings. Zoom offers real-time captioning support in 36+ languages thanks to speech and machine translation AI. Common languages like English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, and French are supported, as well as languages that don’t typically offer this service.
Closed captioning for meetings and webinars is included as an add-on to Zoom Workplace Enterprise plans and paid Zoom Workplace plans.
When you join a meeting, Zoom detects the language spoken and translates the subtitles into your preferred language. This feature is ideal for
- Collaborating with international teams
- Learning in global classrooms
- Multilingual events
Advanced Bilingual Captioning and AI Speech Detection
In Zoom meeting processes, AI speech detection can detect when speakers change languages. For example, if someone starts in English and continues in German, the subtitles automatically switch to the correct language.
In this way:
More clear and understandable subtitles
Easier communication in multilingual environments
Advanced Bilingual Captioning and AI Speech Detection
In Zoom meeting processes, AI speech detection can detect when speakers change languages. For example, if someone starts in English and continues in German, the subtitles automatically switch to the correct language.
In this way:
- Seamlessly track language changes in a sentence
- More clear and understandable subtitles
- Easier communication in multilingual environments
Fast and Reliable Subtitles with On-Device Processing
When your internet connection is weak, lost subtitles can be a big problem. Zoom AI technology now supports on-device subtitle processing:
- Subtitles are processed locally on your device
- Subtitles are not lost even with low bandwidth
- Works even when traveling or with unstable internet connection
You can easily use this feature by turning on Automatic On-Device Subtitles in Zoom meeting settings.
Improve Your Zoom Meeting Experience with Enhanced Accessibility Features
The Zoom meeting experience is now more inclusive thanks to AI-powered audio technologies and AI closed captions. If you’re using the latest version (as of 6.5.0), you’ll see many improvements automatically:
- Customizable captions
- On-device rendering support
- Multilingual and bilingual captioning options
Whether you read captions in your preferred language, customize their appearance, or access them seamlessly even on a poor internet connection. Zoom aims to make the online meeting environment more accessible and inclusive for everyone.
For detailed information about Zoom meeting AI features, you can access Zoom’s blog content “Here’s how AI is helping make Zoom meetings more inclusive and accessible” here.
ETGI Group provides Zoom’s sales, training and support services in Turkey. You can contact us for detailed information.
