WhatsApp begins rolling out a new feature: users can transcribe voice notes in Hindi and English

If you are at work or in a meeting, receiving a voice message from a friend on WhatsApp can be quite disturbing and often puts you in a difficult position. You want to know what the voice message says but you cannot play it in the middle of a meeting. Almost all of us have been in such a situation before but guess what? WhatsApp is working on a solution for it. According to a recent report in WA Beta Info, WhatsApp has started rolling out a feature that will allow you to convert voice messages to text and read their content without having to play it out loud. The feature is currently being tested with a small group of beta users in certain countries who have downloaded the latest WhatsApp beta update for Android from the Google Play Store.

Users who have access to this feature can enable it for both inbound and outbound voice messages by downloading a voice data pack. This ensures that voice notes remain private as the transcription process occurs locally on the user’s device. Currently, English, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian and Hindi are supported, with additional languages ​​possible in the future.

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For the hearing impaired, this feature greatly improves accessibility by allowing them to participate in conversations with voice notes. It is also convenient as users can quickly skim the transcription of long voice messages instead of listening to them, making it easier to understand the content.

According to WA Beta Info, users will be prompted to download about 150MB of additional app data. The feature is enabled by default, but in some cases, users may need to enable it. According to the screenshots shared by the publication, when users enable the transcription feature, they will receive a notification prompting them to “Read voice messages with transcripts,” indicating the availability of transcribed message content.

The report further added that the transcripts are generated on the device, which means no one else can hear the voice notes or read the transcripts of the users. Therefore, WhatsApp also seems to be mindful of user privacy while rolling out the new feature.

The report further added that the feature is currently in the testing phase and is available to a limited number of beta users, but WhatsApp intends to roll out the feature to more users soon.