DeepL Voice can instantly provide translated captions for live or virtual conversations
DeepL, the German startup focused on AI-powered specialist translation services, recently announced it is taking its first steps towards diversifying its offerings by launching DeepL Voice. This real-time translated captioning service powers two solutions tailored for virtual meetings and one-on-one live conversations: DeepL Voice for Meetings, and DeepL Voice for Conversations. Both services process audio in real-time to deliver translated text for the participants to follow, mainly because text is faster to process and output than audio or video. However, founder and CEO Jarek Kutylowski has publicly stated that DeepL Voice is the startup's first attempt at voice translation, but certainly won't be the last.
Both solutions support English, German, Japanese, Korean, Swedish, Dutch, French, Turkish, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Italian as languages the tools can hear and translate. DeepL Voice for Meetings is a Microsoft Teams integrated solution that provides real-time captioning in the preferred language of each participant in a multilingual meeting. The choice of a Microsoft Teams integration was surely a strategic decision, and currently, there is no information on whether support for other video conferencing platforms is upcoming.
On the other hand, DeepL for Conversations is intended to work via an iOS or Android mobile device placed at a spot where it can pick up both speakers' voices and allow both participants to follow the conversation by reading the translated captions. The app features a side-by-side and a face-to-face view that changes the placement of the captions according to the speakers' positions with respect to each other. Following DeepL's B2B business model, the company is working on bringing these solutions directly to its customers, thus, prospective users need to contact DeepL's sales team.