The best AI for transcribing interviews in 2026

If you transcribe interviews and the interview happens on a call you attend, almost any of these tools works and the decision is about price. If the interview is in person, or if you do not want an extra guest showing up in the participant list in front of a candidate or a client, the field narrows sharply: you need one that records from your own computer.

A meeting gets summarised and forgotten. An interview gets quoted: you go back to it weeks later to check the exact sentence the candidate, the patient or the user said. That changes three things when you choose a tool. The audio has to still be there, not just the text. The transcript has to play back from the line you care about, because text alone never settles an argument. And a lot of interviews happen in a room, with no call, where a bot has nothing to join.

It is the one everybody recognises, and that is worth something when you have to explain to an interviewee what is recording them. Its pricing page advertises USD 8.33 per user per month on the annual plan, with 1,200 minutes a month, and transcription in English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese. It joins Zoom, Teams and Meet for you, which is exactly what you want when a colleague runs the interview and you only want the text afterwards.

The one most built around the interview ending up somewhere else: the CRM, the ticket, the team channel. Its page says the bot that joins the meeting can carry a name you choose, and that a Chrome extension records with no bot at all. It supports Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian, plus more than a hundred languages in beta. The monthly per-seat price was not shown on its pricing page the day we read it, so ask for it before you commit a team.

The sensible pick when interviews run long. Every plan, the free one included, allows up to 5 hours per recording, and Pro is USD 8.17 per month on annual with 1,800 minutes. Its pricing page mentions both an online meeting recorder and a bot-free recorder, so both ways of working live in the same place.

If the transcript is going to be published, this one wins and there is not much to argue about. More than 150 languages for transcription and subtitles, 80 for translation, and human proofreading from EUR 1.75 per minute for when the text genuinely has to be exact. Basic is EUR 17 a month, or EUR 8.50 billed annually. It is a transcription tool before it is a notes tool.

• Someone else runs the interview and you only want to read it: Otter.
• The interview has to land in the CRM without anyone copying it by hand: Fireflies.
• Interviews run two or three hours: Notta.
• The transcript will be published or subtitled: Happy Scribe.
• The interview is in person, or you do not want an extra participant in front of the interviewee: keep reading.

A bot only works if there is a call to join. In an in-person interview, in a cafe or in a room, there is nothing for it to enter. Reline records from your side: it captures your microphone and the sound coming out of your own computer, so it works the same with a call or without one, and on a call no new participant appears in front of the candidate.

It keeps the recording next to the transcript, so any line plays back from the exact moment it was said, which is what you actually need weeks later. It detects sixty languages on its own, and in the transcript it separates you from the other person. The audio is captured on your computer and transcribed and summarised in the cloud. There is a free plan and it does not ask for a card.

What it does not do: it will not join someone else's call and record it for you, so if you need the interview captured while you are not there, the tools above serve you better. And recording someone is still your legal responsibility: say so and ask before you start, which is also what makes the interview usable afterwards.