Otter.ai adds 27 languages and multilingual meeting transcription

Otter.ai announced on November 10 that it is adding 27 languages, its largest language expansion to date, bringing the platform to 31 languages once the rollout is complete. It also previewed a multilingual transcription feature that follows a conversation as speakers switch languages mid-meeting.

Thirteen languages are available now: Mandarin Chinese, Korean, German, Italian, Cantonese, Portuguese, Russian, Indonesian, Malay, Dutch, Turkish, Vietnamese, and Polish. The other 14 are coming soon, including Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Arabic, Hindi, Thai, Hebrew, Norwegian, Greek, Macedonian, Persian, Czech, Hungarian, and Romanian.

The upcoming feature detects language changes automatically and keeps transcribing without users changing settings. A call could move from English to Korean to Portuguese while Otter follows along, which is more useful for multilingual teams than forcing one transcription language per meeting.

Otter says the new languages run on its own speech models. It trained them on publicly available datasets and worked with native-speaking volunteers to review transcripts and check accuracy. How well that holds up across accents, technical vocabulary, and noisy rooms will need real-world validation.

The language push is part of Otter's expansion from transcription into broader workplace AI. The company raised $320 million from General Catalyst and recently introduced Work Mode, which uses meeting history and connected apps to help users prepare for upcoming calls, and Live Assist, which offers real-time coaching during meetings.

For international teams, whether a meeting system can handle language switching helps determine whether it can become a system of record for decisions. Fourteen languages are still pending, and enterprise data-retention and permission details are not addressed in the announcement. Watch the delivery schedule and independent accuracy checks next.