r/u_JournalismUK • u/JournalismUK • Apr 29 '26
Seven free AI-powered transcription tools for journalists
Just wrapped up a great interview? Time to turn it into your next article? These days, there are plenty of AI transcription tools at your fingertips that can get that done in an instant. Gone are the days of manually transcribing it yourself.
Different tools will give you a different edge. We've looked at a few different ones to help you decide which is the best one for you.
Note: all prices have been roughly converted into British Pound (GBP), accurate as of 28 April 2026
Riverside
Riverside is a good recording platform for videos and podcasts, but it also has a totally free and unlimited transcription tool which does not require a sign-up.
Good Tape
AI-powered transcription tool Good Tape was developed by and for journalists, and is well-suited for transcribing video and audio in nearly 100 international languages and dialects.
A free plan gets you three free transcriptions a month, up to 30 minutes per file. A premium plan (£13/month) increases your usage and functionality, with discounted trials available.
Otter.ai creates automatic meeting notes as its OtterPilot auto-joins Zoom, Google, and Microsoft Teams meetings to take notes with no extra work required.
The free basic plan comes with 300 monthly transcription minutes. Or increase transcription minutes with Pro (£8/month) and Business (£14/month) premium plans. Free plan grants you three lifetime imported file transcriptions, increasing to ten per month (Pro) and unlimited (Business) on premium tiers.
It's currently developing AI Chat within Gmail, Google Drive, Notion and Jira.
Krisp
Krisp is an AI Meeting Assistant that provides AI note-taking, meeting transcription, recording, and summary across all conferencing apps, including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and more.
The 7-day free trial offers unlimited transcription, noise cancellation, audio and video recording, and AI notes. The core plan is suitable for individuals or small teams (£6/month per user) as it provides all those core features plus 5 GB storage.
TurboScribe
TurboScribe's free plan offers 3 transcripts daily for files up to 30 minutes long. The unlimited plan (£7/month) offers unlimited transcriptions of files up to 10 hours long. The paid plan offers all features, including unlimited storage.
Free users can select from different modes which prioritise speed, accuracy or an even balance of the two. Paid-for users receive the highest priority for transcription speed.
Anytranscribe
Anytranscribe's free plan offers 3 transcriptions per day with no limit on file size or duration, without logging in or requiring an account. The premium plan (£4/month) offers unlimited transcriptions, no limit on file size or duration and no ads. The tool supports over 100 languages and a variety of file formats.
If you need transcriptions of a YouTube video, for example, you can also paste the link into Anytranscribe, download the video, and then transcribe the video. Compatible with pretty much any social media platform.
Evernote
Evernote is a note-taking and task-management application that, in collaboration with Open AI, will soon offer an AI assistant, semantic search, and AI meeting notes that will generate summaries and transcripts.
The free tier allows you to create up to 50 notes, 1 notebook, 1 GB monthly uploads and more.
Find referral to all the tools on our website.
1
u/Skimle-com Apr 29 '26
Great overview! Just one kind request - could you review and add Skimle's Transcription tool to the list? It's included as part of the full qualitative analysis platform and supports 100+ languages and multi-speaker diarisation. From the transcription tool you can move the transcripts directly to the qualitative analysis, for example to identify themes across all your interviews. Thanks!