AI interview transcription: a practical accuracy checklist
AI gets most of an interview right, but the errors that matter are names, numbers, small negations and who said what. Check those against the audio before you quote anyone. Voqia helps you do it: tap any sentence to replay it, search the transcript and rename the speakers.
For a journalist, a misquote is a correction. For a researcher, a wrong word in a transcript is a wrong data point. An automatic transcript saves hours of typing, but it is a draft until you have checked it. This checklist covers what to verify, why errors happen there, and how to check quickly.
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Why you need a checklist
Speech recognition is good at ordinary sentences and weaker on what makes an interview valuable: unusual names, figures, technical terms and people interrupting each other. A transcript that reads smoothly can still contain a wrong number or a quote attributed to the wrong person.
In the UK, the Editors' Code enforced by IPSO starts with accuracy: the press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information. Whatever your field, the rule of thumb is the same: anything you publish or analyse should have been heard, not just read.
Official sources: IPSO Editors' Code of Practice, clause 1 (Accuracy)
The accuracy checklist
| Check | Why errors happen | How to check it |
|---|---|---|
| Names of people, places and organisations | Rare words and local names are guessed from sound | Search for each name, replay the sentence, correct the spelling everywhere |
| Numbers, dates and amounts | "Fifteen" and "fifty", "1.5" and "15" sound close | Replay every figure you plan to publish or analyse |
| Negations and small words | "Can" and "can't", "would" and "wouldn't" are short and easy to miss | Replay any quote whose meaning depends on them |
| Who said what | Similar voices and interruptions confuse speaker detection | Rename the speakers, then check each change of speaker in heated passages |
| Crosstalk and inaudible passages | Two voices at once, or noise, leave gaps | Mark them [inaudible] or [crosstalk] rather than guessing |
| Jargon and acronyms | Field-specific terms are rarer in everyday speech | Keep a short glossary and search for each term |
| Quotes you will use | A sentence can change meaning out of context | Listen to the whole answer, not just the line you quote |
Step by step with Voqia
- Sign in to voqia.fr with Google (10 free minutes, no credit card), open File mode and leave Speaker detection on.
- Upload the interview: phone recording, recorder file or video call recording (MP3, M4A, WAV, AAC, OGG, FLAC, WebM, MP4 or MOV, up to 500 MB).
- Open Options, then Rename speakers, and replace Speaker 1 and Speaker 2 with Interviewer and Participant A, or the names you will use.
- Work through the checklist: search for names and terms, tap each sentence you want to verify to replay that exact moment, and correct as you go in your own copy.
- Download the transcript as a Word document (.docx) and keep the original audio with it, so every quote can be checked again later.
Before the interview: make the transcript easier to check
- Ask each person to say their name and role at the start: you will know at once who Speaker 1 is.
- Ask for the spelling of names and organisations on the recording.
- Repeat important figures and dates out loud: "so that's 2019, fifteen percent".
- Record in a quiet room, with the phone between you and the interviewee, and try not to talk over their answers.
Accents and local speech
A Glaswegian union rep, a farmer in County Kerry, a fisheries officer in Newfoundland: regional accents, local place names and quick back-and-forth all need a closer check. Voqia does not promise the same accuracy for every accent. The honest test is your own recording: transcribe a few minutes for free and look at where the errors are before you rely on it for a whole project.
Consent and personal data
An interview recording is personal data. In the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office explains that data is personal when it relates to someone who can be identified directly or indirectly. In Canada, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner explains that an organisation recording a call must tell the person, say why, and obtain consent. Researchers should also follow their ethics approval and consent forms. Anonymise names and identifying details yourself before sharing a transcript: Voqia does not do it for you.
Official sources: ICO: What is personal data? · Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada: recording of customer calls
What Voqia does and does not do
- It gives an automatic transcript with timestamps and speaker labels, a search box, sentence-by-sentence replay, an AI summary and a Word export.
- It transcribes English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese and Arabic, plus Russian and Turkish through automatic language detection.
- It is automatic only: there is no human review and no certified transcript. For court or legal use, choose a human transcription service.
- It does not anonymise transcripts, and it does not add full-verbatim notation (pauses, laughter, overlaps): add those while listening if your method requires them.
- It has no shared project space: export each transcript to Word and bring it into your own tools.
Frequently asked questions
How accurate is AI interview transcription?
It depends mostly on the audio: a quiet room and one voice at a time give a much cleaner transcript than a café or a phone call. Rather than trusting a percentage, test a few minutes of your own recording and check the points in the checklist.
Can I quote directly from an AI transcript?
Only after you have replayed the passage. Names, numbers and negations are where automatic transcripts most often go wrong, and a smooth sentence can still be wrong.
Does Voqia separate the interviewer and the interviewee?
Yes. In File mode, Speaker detection attributes each passage to a speaker, and you can rename them, for example Interviewer and Participant A.
Does Voqia anonymise transcripts?
No. Remove or replace names and identifying details yourself before you share or publish a transcript.
Is it free to try?
Yes. The first 10 minutes are free, without a credit card. Then one-time packs start at €4.99 for 1 hour, with no subscription.
Sources
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