WhatsApp voice transcriptions feature coming soon! Here's how to benefit from it

WhatsApp Voice Transcriptions feature: Earlier this week, WhatsApp rolled out a feature on its platforms, both Android and iOS, that enables users to encrypt their chat backups with the same end-to-end encryption technique that it uses to encrypt all messages, which includes the media files, on its platform. Apart from that, WhatsApp is working on a host of new features, such as Voice Waveforms that are expected to arrive in the coming months. Now, a new report talks about another such feature called that is expected to arrive on the messaging app in the near future. It is called WhatsApp Voice Transcriptions feature.

According to a report by WABetaInfo, the Facebook-owned messaging app is working on a feature called Voice Transcriptions for its platform. There is a significant benefit to be derived from this WhatsApp feature for users. Here we answer 7 questions on this WhatsApp feature:

1. What will WhatsApp Voice Transcriptions feature do for users? What WhatsApp Voice Transcriptions feature allows users to do is to transcribe the contents of a voice message. Yes, you read that right. Simply said, WhatsApp users will be able to turn the content in the voice message into readable format. So, what a friend or family member has shared with the user in a voice message can be shared with others in a text format too.

2. Who will get WhatsApp Voice Transcriptions feature? The blog site says that the WhatsApp Voice Transcriptions feature will be provided on an opt-in basis, which means that only when a user gives WhatsApp the permission to transcribe a message will it be able to provide the service. This permission will be quite similar to the camera and microphone permissions that users give WhatsApp.

3. Who will get to share WhatsApp Voice Transcriptions messages? Furthermore, the blog site says that users’ messages will not be sent to WhatsApp or Facebook’s server for getting the transcription. Instead, Apple will provide the service.

4. What will Apple get out of WhatsApp Voice Transcriptions feature? In return, transcribing WhatsApp users’ voice messages will help Apple to improve its speech recognition technology.

5. Will WhatsApp Voice Transcriptions feature protect users' privacy? One good thing about this arrangement is that these voice transcriptions will not be directly linked to personal identity. Instead, they will be linked to a randomly anonymized ID. This is quite similar to how data, which includes interactions with smart assistants such as Amazon Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant is used by these companies to make their artificial intelligence-based smart assistants better.

6. How does the Apple process work on WhatsApp Voice Transcriptions feature? When a user has given WhatsApp the permission to transcribe its voice messages, WhatsApp will open a new ‘Transcript’ section within the app wherein users will be able to jump to a specific timestamp. “When a message is transcribed for the first time, its transcription is saved locally in the WhatsApp database, so it won’t be needed to transcript it again if you want to see its transcription later,” the blog site wrote.

7. When will the WhatsApp Voice Transcriptions feature be available to users? This feature is being developed for WhatsApp’s iOS-based app and it will be available to beta testers with the text update. There is no word on if and when WhatsApp’s Voice Transcription feature will be made available for the Android app.