Potok transcribes Russian speech; this site has been translated into English for convenience.
Teams transcribes a recording itself: the Recording and transcription panel has Russian as a recognition language, but you need a Microsoft 365 license and administrator permission. Without it, for guests, or if you need a file and a summary, send the recording to the Potok Telegram bot [@potok_now_bot](https://t.me/potok_now_bot) or the bot's mini app: the text comes to the chat or as a file, 60 minutes per month free.
A Microsoft Teams meeting recording can be transcribed right in Teams itself, if the license and administrator rights allow it. When there is no transcript of its own, or you need a file with a summary and tasks by speaker, the video is sent to another tool.
Where to find the recording after a Teams meeting
A Teams meeting recording is stored not in the chat but in the Microsoft 365 cloud.
- The meeting organizer or co-organizer can start and stop the recording; guests and participants from other organizations do not have access to it.
- The finished video is saved in the organizer's OneDrive for work or school; a recording of a meeting in a channel goes to SharePoint.
- A link to the recording appears in the meeting chat, and the file format is MP4.
For the recording button to work at all, you need a work or school Microsoft 365 account with a suitable license (Office 365 E1, E3, E5, Business and others) and recording turned on by the administrator.
How to transcribe a Microsoft Teams meeting recording to text
Without such a license, for a meeting with outside participants, or when you need the whole file, a summary and lines split by speaker, the recording is sent to the Potok bot.
- Download the recorded video from OneDrive or SharePoint, or open the link from the meeting chat.
- In Telegram, start the bot @potok_now_bot with the Start command (/start).
- Forward the file to the bot directly.
- The bot sends the result: a short recording as a chat message, a long one as a separate file. The buttons Summary, Tasks and deadlines, Ask and Other format appear next to it, and timecodes with speaker labeling ("Speaker 1", "Speaker 2") are turned on in advance in the bot's settings (/settings).
If the meeting video is too large for Telegram, the same file is uploaded to the bot's mini app: the limit is 2 GB, you can sign in by email or through Telegram, and the recordings are synced with the bot.
Teams' own transcriber: when it works
With a work or school Microsoft 365 license and recording turned on by the administrator, its own transcript opens in the meeting panel Recording and transcription, then Start transcription, where you need to choose the language of speech. Russian is among the recognition languages. Live translation of the transcript into another language during the meeting is a separate feature, and it works only with a Teams Premium license. Without a suitable license or administrator rights, this panel may be missing altogether, and then the bot or the Potok web version will do. A broader overview of tools for turning a recording into text is in the comparison of audio-to-text transcription services.
| Service | Platforms | Free | Price | Payment from Russia | Where speech is recognized |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Potok bot and web version | Telegram (@potok_now_bot, mini app inside the bot) | 60 minutes per month | 7 days: 249 ₽, 30 days: 449 ₽, one year: 2 890 ₽; included in the Potok app subscription | Russian bank cards, rubles | cloud, servers in Russia; internet required |
| Otter.ai | Web, iOS, Android, Chrome extension, Desktop (Mac/Windows), integrations with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet | Basic: 300 minutes of transcription per month, up to 30 minutes per meeting, 3 imported files over the whole lifetime of the account, free forever | $16.99/mo (Pro, monthly billing, 1200 min/mo); $8.33/mo (Pro, billed yearly (the full year is charged at once)); $30/mo (Business, monthly billing) | not directly: dollar billing through international payment processors declines cards issued in Russia and Belarus (confirmed by independent Russian-language guides on dtf.ru and vc.ru; no official Otter.ai statement about blocking Russia was found, this follows from general payment system restrictions) | cloud, US servers (the company is registered in the USA); the exact data center is not disclosed on the pricing page |
| Transkriptor | Web | 10 minutes on sign-up, limited to 2 min/day (according to the localized Russian site transkriptor.ru); the international site transkriptor.com states a free trial (up to 90 minutes according to secondary sources; the official pricing page could not be opened directly because it timed out) | 490 ₽/one-time (Start, 150 minutes (transkriptor.ru)); 790 ₽/one-time (Pro, 700 minutes (transkriptor.ru)); 1900 ₽/one-time (Premium, 2100 minutes (transkriptor.ru)) | yes, on the localized site transkriptor.ru: Visa/Mastercard/Mir bank cards with no fee, SBP via QR code with no fee, YooMoney with a 3% fee; payments are one-off (no subscription) and processed by the KASSA service. The international site transkriptor.com presumably bills in dollars; this is not confirmed directly (the pricing page timed out) | not disclosed |
| SaluteSpeech Bot (Sber) | Telegram | free; voice messages, audio and video notes | — | not disclosed | SaluteSpeech cloud (Sber) |
| Voicy (@voicybot) | Telegram | free; on the Wit.ai engine, recordings of up to 50 seconds | — | not disclosed | Wit.ai, Yandex SpeechKit or Google Speech; the user chooses the engine |
| Voicee (@Voicee_AI_Bot) | Telegram, Web | 45 minutes to start | 500 ₽/hour of recording (without a package; cheaper with packages) | rubles | not disclosed |
| KolerskyAI Whisper Bot | Telegram | the first 5 minutes | 69 ₽/15 minutes; 149 ₽/50 minutes; 490 ₽/200 minutes | rubles | not disclosed |
| Transkribator (@gotranscribeai_bot) | Telegram, Max | 3 transcriptions per month | — | not disclosed | not disclosed |
| Voix (@RecogMyAudioBot) | Telegram | voice messages up to 15 minutes, video up to 6 minutes | — | not disclosed | not disclosed |
| Telegram voice message transcription | Telegram | without Premium, a few transcriptions per week; with Premium, no limit on their number | — | not disclosed | Telegram servers |
| Speech2Text.ru | Web | 3 hours on sign-up | — | not disclosed | not disclosed |
| Service | Free | Paid |
|---|---|---|
| Potok bot and web version | 60 minutes per month | 7 days: 249 ₽, 30 days: 449 ₽, one year: 2 890 ₽; included in the Potok app subscription |
| Otter.ai | Basic: 300 minutes of transcription per month, up to 30 minutes per meeting, 3 imported files over the whole lifetime of the account, free forever | $16.99/mo (Pro, monthly billing, 1200 min/mo); $8.33/mo (Pro, billed yearly (the full year is charged at once)); $30/mo (Business, monthly billing) |
| Transkriptor | 10 minutes on sign-up, limited to 2 min/day (according to the localized Russian site transkriptor.ru); the international site transkriptor.com states a free trial (up to 90 minutes according to secondary sources; the official pricing page could not be opened directly because it timed out) | 490 ₽/one-time (Start, 150 minutes (transkriptor.ru)); 790 ₽/one-time (Pro, 700 minutes (transkriptor.ru)); 1900 ₽/one-time (Premium, 2100 minutes (transkriptor.ru)) |
| SaluteSpeech Bot (Sber) | free; voice messages, audio and video notes | — |
| Voicy (@voicybot) | free; on the Wit.ai engine, recordings of up to 50 seconds | — |
| Voicee (@Voicee_AI_Bot) | 45 minutes to start | 500 ₽/hour of recording (without a package; cheaper with packages) |
| KolerskyAI Whisper Bot | the first 5 minutes | 69 ₽/15 minutes; 149 ₽/50 minutes; 490 ₽/200 minutes |
| Task | Characters | Typing (200 chars/min) | Voice (900 chars/min) |
|---|---|---|---|
| chat reply | 300 | 2 min | 0.5 min |
| 1500 | 8 min | 1.7 min | |
| post or meeting minutes | 4000 | 20 min | 4.4 min |
| article | 10000 | 50 min | 11.1 min |
When a Teams recording needs the bot
Note that the Potok bot is a cloud service, processing runs on servers in Russia, and without a network it simply will not start. If the conversation was not in Russian or you need a ready translation into another language, the bot cannot do this. There will be no real names of speakers in the text, only the labels "Speaker 1", "Speaker 2" and so on. And one more thing: the text appears only after the recording has been fully processed, and during the call itself the bot transcribes nothing. You can compare with similar meeting transcription services in the review of Otter.ai for Russian.
Frequently asked questions
No, ordinary transcription is included in a work or school Microsoft 365 license with recording turned on by the administrator. A separate Teams Premium license is needed only for live translation of the transcript into another language during the meeting.
Voice input is real-time dictation into the active text field. Transcription turns an already finished audio or video recording (a lecture, a call, a podcast) into text after the fact, often with diarization (splitting by speaker).
Voice input is real-time dictation: you speak and immediately get text in the active field. Transcription turns an already finished audio or video recording (for example, a meeting recording) into text after the fact. The Potok app handles the first task, live dictation; finished recordings in Russian are transcribed by its Telegram bot @potok_now_bot.
With Potok you can dictate the minutes live, speaking them during or right after the meeting. Transcribing an already recorded audio file of a meeting (a finished Zoom or Telemost recording) is a separate transcription task: such a file can be sent to Potok's Telegram bot @potok_now_bot.
Yes, several platforms have built-in meeting transcription: Zoom for cloud recordings, Microsoft Teams during the meeting, Google Meet on Google Workspace plans. The alternative is to record the sound and process it with a separate transcription service after the call. The Potok app does not do this kind of transcription, it is for live dictation; a call recording can be sent as a file to Potok's Telegram bot @potok_now_bot.
First, 14 days of free full access without linking a card. After that, the free plan (2500 words per week, 1 device) or Pro for 690 ₽/mo (499 ₽/mo when paid yearly): unlimited use, a personal dictionary, snippets, priority support. For business, the price is on request, with on-prem hosting or servers in Russia and support for the 152-FZ personal data law.
Recording to text
Send a recording to Potok's Telegram bot or upload a file of up to 2 GB in the bot's mini app. The first 60 minutes of every month are free.
Open @potok_now_bot in TelegramPrimary sources: yandex.ru · vc.ru · speech2text.ru · audio-2-text.ru
Transcribe a recording in Telegram
Voice messages, video notes, audio and video are transcribed by Potok's Telegram bot @potok_now_bot: forward it a voice message from any chat, or send a file or a YouTube, VK Video or RuTube link. A short recording comes back as text in the chat, a long one as a file; timestamps and speaker labels can be turned on. The buttons give a short summary, tasks and deadlines, an answer to a question about the recording and export to TXT, DOCX, PDF or SRT. Large files, up to 2 GB, are easier to upload in the bot's mini app, via the Upload button next to the input field. The bot recognizes Russian speech; 60 minutes per month are free.