Transcription services market to hit $41.89 billion by 2030
Photo by Gül Işık
A recent trend analysis report by ResearchAndMarkets.com has forecasted that the US transcription services market could be worth $41.89 billion by 2030.
The market was valued at $25.98 billion in 2022. Based on the industry’s current growth, it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.8%.
Transcription is the process of converting speech audio into text. While it includes transcribing live speeches, the majority of the industry revolves around transcribing recorded audio captured through voice notes, recorded phone calls, podcasts, videos and audio field recordings.
The legal and medical sector are two sectors that rely heavily on transcription services. In the legal world, transcription services are typically used to record evidence of conversations in writing. In the medical sector, transcription services are often used to convert voice reports made by physicians into text, which is essential for maintaining accurate medical history of patients while reducing work for physicians themselves. As these industries grow, so will the transcription industry.
The rise of video content across the internet and on TV has also increased the demand for transcription services. Video captions were originally introduced to video content to help those with hearing difficulties (an estimated 20% of the US population), as well as providing subtitles in other languages. However it is no longer just people with hearing difficulties and foreign language speakers who are using captions. A survey of Gen Z adults aged between 18 and 25 found that 80% preferred to watch videos with captions.
This growing love for captions is believed to be the result of how we interact with video content on social media. On Facebook, video content automatically plays while scrolling but is generally automatically muted unless you click on the post. Consequently, 85% of Facebook videos are now viewed on mute, which has made captions necessary on all videos shared via Facebook.
Similar trends are being noticed around the world, including in the UK. There are now a growing number of websites offering UK transcriptions for various types of content. Such transcriptions are often done by freelancers with a 99% accuracy. Sites can connect clients with specialists who may understand the terminology of a specific industry, resulting in more accurate results.
Of course, AI has also helped to speed up transcription work and there are now many AI tools available that can transcribe speech into text with as much accuracy as a human. Transcription services market projections have taken into account the rise of AI, believing that it will aid the growth of the industry rather than harming it.
Human transcription services are already starting to adopt AI to help translate audio more quickly. Both humans and AI can help each other when it comes to providing the most accurate transcription possible – while humans are better at deciphering different accents and picking up neologisms, AI has access to more vocabulary. Human transcribers can also aid the development of AI by identifying areas where it may have trouble interpreting sounds.
