How CPSL helped a Public Administration Institution keep tabs on their live sessions calendar and automate their release thanks to an AI-powered tech solution

Maximizing the advantages of Speech-to-Text technology to streamline the publication of minutes and session journals

Nowadays it is almost impossible to find a sector that doesn’t rely on the power of technology. Robotics and automation are just starting to show us what they can do and where they can get us to as progress continues to happen and make our lives much easier. Now it’s possible to get anything in just a matter of clicks, and in that same way we are able to solve issues that might have seemed extremely complex just a few years, or even months, ago. Technology helps us to use our time more wisely, as we can dedicate it to added value tasks while machines work for us.

Speech technology, conversational artificial intelligence, and automated transcription, combined together, are among the most commonly used tools brought to us by modernization that can help companies streamline the conversion of audio into text, whether that is in the case of meetings, speech sessions, or official talks.

According to Valuates Reports, the global conversational artificial intelligence market was valued at $5.78 billion in 2020 and is forecast to reach $32.62 billion by 2030. Major factors driving the growth of the conversational AI market are an increase in demand for AI-based chatbot solutions and artificial intelligence-powered customer support services. However, this type of technology can also be used to manage high volumes of audio material that have to be quickly converted into publishable texts.

One Public Administration institution (parliamentary assembly) had to manage a huge volume of minutes and sessions that needed to be recorded, transcribed, and published within an extremely tight deadline. This was possible thanks to the solution created by CPSL and customized according to the client’s requirements.

Executive Summary

A Public Administration Institution had the task of transcribing all the audio from minutes and sessions held in order to later publish them in a sessions journal. Transcriptions are part of their commitment to transparency and for this reason they are obliged to facilitate accessibility and make the content of the sessions available to anyone who might be interested.

The main issue the client experienced was the lack of time to turn around the whole transcription process for such a high number of live interventions, in a way that could guarantee the utmost precision and quality of the final format, while adhering to the client’s specific style guide.

The team at CPSL used their own expertise in the field of automatic transcription by integrating the incredible potential offered by artificial intelligence in order to develop a tailor-made solution that was able to combine the advantages offered by automation and the experience of professional project managers and in which transcriptionists post-edited the machine result to make it perfect, fine-tuning the technical workflow of the whole process.

Challenges

The client was extremely short on time and had a demanding public speaking schedule. Live audio sessions were taking place continuously for 8 hours or more and content had to be published on their website within the following 75 minutes in order to maintain transparency. Prior to publication, it was also necessary to review and adapt the transcriptions according to the client’s style guide in order to achieve the desired level of quality. This was only possible due to the use of an automated platform to distribute work, automate deliveries, and make the full process more efficient without compromising on quality.

CPSL was able to create an ad-hoc system to divide speeches into 15-minute units, which would later be worked on by a pool of transcription specialists. These experts had already been rigorously screened, were highly experienced in different text types and were prepared to work to tight deadlines.

How CPSL helped

The client needed a speech-to-text solution to publish texts on their website as soon as possible, and this was provided by CPSL. The solution, CPSL Transcript, is a platform and web application that takes care of the whole workflow from start to finish:

The platform integrates automatic transcription tools that produce text files directly from each of the 15-minute speech units. Every 15 minutes, the server downloads the audio files from the client’s FTP and uploads them to the platform, where they are automatically transcribed and delivered to the transcription specialists.

1. The Project Manager assigns the transcription job to the specialists in advance.
2. The generated text files are automatically adapted according to the client’s own style guide.
3. The system allows transcriptionists to download and upload text files (automated transcription) and download audio files for reference. The corrected transcription is later uploaded back into the system) quickly and easily.
4. Each 15-minute transcription is automatically divided between 2 transcriptionists that review language and style before delivering it by uploading the file back to the platform.

The PM reviews the final files (verifies consistency between the different transcriptions and texts received and performs a final Quality Assessment, marks the project as complete, and uploads the signed-off transcription to the client’s FTP. This is later published on the institution’s website). The platform offers other advantages, such as the possibility of integrating client glossaries, particularly useful in the case of specific or complex terminology, to maintain coherence with previous deliveries, while continuing to manage high volumes within short time periods and avoid human errors.

Our infographic illustrates in even more detail not only how this process works, but also which formats can be worked on and how it is possible to achieve quality and speed in the speech-to-text process.

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Results, Return on Investment and Future Plans

This Client has been able to manage their transcription process and optimize their publishing times thanks to the tailor-made platform provided by CPSL. The full process has been programmed so that individual tasks can run in parallel. With the former manual management, it was not possible to meet the client’s strict deadlines and the required quality level as we could not dedicate as much time as we would have liked to the transcription. All stakeholders have secure access to the same platform as content is protected by cutting-edge IT security processes and the transcription and subsequent editing can be done in an agile manner. The client is now able to publish error-free texts coming from live sessions quickly and effortlessly.

CPSL is your reliable partner for speech-to-text projects, powered by robots or computers and perfected by people. The process and our platform are adaptable to any language, specialized team, and workflow. Contact us to learn more on how automation can change your life.