Evaluating live captions and recordings

Treat captions and recordings as separate needs. Live captions help someone follow speech during a meeting; a recording lets someone revisit what was captured. Neither automatically provides a searchable transcript or a clear record of decisions.

Identify what must be available

Decide whether people need readable speech during the call, a replay, a text transcript or a brief written outcome. If the need is the approved decision, assign someone to record it in the team's maintained location. A long video leaves absent colleagues to interpret the discussion.

For captions, check the spoken language, changes of speaker, technical terms and background noise in a representative sample. Ask participants who rely on captions whether the words, timing and display are usable. Automated captions can be inaccurate, so the presence of a caption control is not enough.

Compare the capture routes

Microsoft Teams offers live captions, but does not save them. Meeting transcription is a separate option for a downloadable text record. Recording depends on an eligible licence, administrator policy and meeting options; guests and people from other organisations cannot start one.

Teams recordings capture audio, video and screen sharing but omit whiteboards, annotations and some other content. External attendees need explicit sharing to view the recording. Check those limits if a guest or a visual contribution matters.

Google Meet offers live captions. Check current product settings and help for recording eligibility and what a recording captures. If captions or a transcript are needed later, verify the available output in a sample meeting rather than assuming live captions are saved.

Zoom supports automated, manual and integrated third-party captions when the relevant option is enabled. Host or administrator settings may restrict who can turn captions on; participants may need to request them.

Basic and paid accounts can make a computer recording through the desktop app when the host records or grants permission. Computer recordings do not support audio transcription. Check the available cloud-transcription options in the account before relying on them.

Check the result from a participant's view

Use a sample meeting with a short presentation, a speaker change and a decision. Check the live captions with someone who needs them. If recording is required, inspect the output as someone who missed the call: can they open it, follow the presentation and use any promised captions or transcript? Note content that was not captured.

Before recording a real meeting, tell participants what will be captured and assign someone to start and stop it. Decide who needs access afterwards. Keep the agreed decision and actions in readable text so people can use the outcome without replaying the whole call.