How to Test Meeting AI Accuracy
What changes the result, and how to test it on your own audio.
No independent test ranks today's AI transcription tools on the same audio, and we ran none of our own. Results depend most on your audio: microphones, noise, accents and people talking over each other. To compare tools, run one of your own recordings through each.
Checked November 2026 on each tool's own site. We ran no tests of our own.
What affects accuracy
- • Microphone quality and background noise
- • People talking over each other
- • Strong accents and mixed languages
- • Technical terms and names the tool has not seen
- • Live transcripts, compared with processing a file afterward
How to test accuracy yourself
- Pick one real recording of 10 to 15 minutes, with your usual speakers and microphones.
- Write a correct transcript of a few minutes by hand.
- Run the same file through each tool you are considering.
- Count the wrong, missing and added words against your transcript, and divide by its word count.
- Check names, numbers and product terms by eye, because those errors cost the most.
What is word error rate?
Word error rate, or WER, is the share of words that a transcript gets wrong, leaves out or adds. A lower number is better. Compare WER only on the same audio, because the audio changes the result more than most tools do.
How can I get a more accurate transcript?
Use a good microphone, keep background noise down, and let one person speak at a time. If the tool allows it, add a custom vocabulary with your names and product terms.
Can I trust the accuracy figures tools publish?
Treat them as claims. Vendors test on their own audio, usually clean audio, and few publish their method. They rarely match your meetings, so a short test of your own tells you more.
When do I need a human transcript?
When a transcript must be exact, such as for legal or medical records. Rev says its human service reaches 99% accuracy or better, at $1.99 a minute.