Meetings where everybody speaks their own language
Each person speaks theirs and hears the others in theirs. No compromise English, no half the team following at half strength.
In a company with teams in several countries the meeting always ends up in the same place: it happens in English, and whoever is not fluent contributes half of what they could. It is not a translation problem, it is a problem of who stays quiet.
Where the audio comes from
From the computer itself. In Microsoft Teams there is an app that is added to the meeting and nothing gets installed; for a boardroom with ceiling microphones, the room system's output is connected the same way as at a congress.
How it is set up
- 1
In Teams, the app is added to the meeting once.
- 2
Each person picks which language to hear in, and which voice others hear them in.
- 3
People talk normally. The original audio stays quietly underneath, so the tone is not lost.
- 4
Afterwards the transcript downloads with who said what.
Why it fits a company
Inside Teams, nothing installed
It is added to the meeting and uses the Microsoft account they already have. IT approves it once and there is no software on the laptops.
Guests from outside too
A meeting your company hosts covers everybody in it, including people from another company with nothing of their own.
Who said what stays
The transcript marks each person. For minutes, that is half the work already done.
Nobody has to announce anything
Whoever does not need it never notices it is on. There are no booths and no third party sitting in on the meeting.
When this is not for you
In a meeting of three people who already share a language, this is in the way. And in a legal negotiation where the shade of one word is the agreement, you still need somebody who answers for the translation with their name on it.
Questions people ask
- Does it work in Zoom or Google Meet?
- The integration that exists today is Microsoft Teams. For the rest, the route is the same as a physical room: take the meeting's audio into a room of ours.
- Can anybody see my subtitles?
- No. Each person has their own session: their language, their subtitles, their audio. Nobody else sees which language you are listening in.
- What about confidentiality?
- The audio is processed to translate it and not kept afterwards, nor used to train anything. The transcript is yours to download or delete.
- How many people can listen at once?
- As many as your Teams licence covers, counted per person rather than per connection. Outside Teams, a room of ours has no listener limit.