WhatsApp has become even more enterprise-friendly with the addition of voice message transcripts.
The Meta-owned messaging and collaboration platform has released capabilities over the past 18 months that have made it a more compelling option for businesses, with voice message transcripts another compelling addition to this trend.
Transcripts are also generated on users’ devices so nobody, including WhatsApp, can hear or read their personal messages.
WhatsApp’s announcement blog wrote:
There’s something special about hearing your loved one’s voice, even when you’re far away. Though sometimes, you’re on the move, in a loud place, or you receive a long voice message that you just can’t stop and listen. For those moments, we’re excited to introduce voice message transcripts. Voice messages can be transcribed into text to help you keep up with conversations no matter what you’re doing.”
To get started, users can navigate to Settings > Chats > Voice Message Transcripts to easily toggle transcriptions on or off and choose their preferred transcript language. To transcribe a voice message, simply long-press on the message and tap “Transcribe”. It will not automatically transcribe every message.
Transcripts will be rolled out globally in the coming weeks, initially supporting a select number of languages. On iOS, the supported languages for voice message transcripts depend on a user’s OS version. If they’re using iOS 16 or later, available languages include English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Chinese, and Arabic. For iOS 17 and above, additional languages such as Danish, Finnish, Malay, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Hebrew, and Thai are supported.
On Android, transcripts are available in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian. Over the next few months, additional languages will be added.
How Could This Benefit Businesses
Among the critical benefits for enterprises is the improved accessibility by converting spoken messages into text. It enables team members to rapidly review messages when audio isn’t an option, such as in noisy environments or during meetings. It also allows for more straightforward reference and searching of past conversations, boosting efficiency and organisation within teams.
Additionally, voice message transcripts cater to diverse workforces, including those with hearing impairments or who prefer written communication. This feature makes WhatsApp a more versatile tool for businesses, supporting both real-time communication and asynchronous collaboration.
Finally, as companies continue to embrace hybrid and remote work models, seamlessly switching between voice and text helps maintain fluid communication across different work environments.
The Full WhatsApp As An Enterprise Collaboration Platform Journey
In July, WhatsApp introduced a new file-sharing feature, “Nearby Share,” that works similarly to Apple’s AirDrop. Nearby Share enables users to quickly transfer large files, including documents, photos, and videos, between Android and iOS devices without an internet connection.
Over the last 12 months, WhatsApp has also added WhatsApp Communities as a new way to organise events and the capability to reply to administrator announcements. Then there’s the recently added capability for users to pin a message to the top of their chats for up to 30 days, an enterprise-friendly voice chat upgrade that empowers users to host large groups of up to 128 participants in audio calls, and a call scheduling feature within group chats.
All those feature enhancements were bolstered by the news in September that WhatsApp is almost ready to send messages to third-party apps for EU-based users. WhatsApp also teased cross-platform voice and video calling within WhatsApp, which is planned for rollout in 2027.
