Zoom, a popular video teleconferencing service, stated Monday that it had delivered on its promise to offer auto-generated closed captions to all free Zoom meetings accounts, making the service more accessible.
Captions are currently only available in English, according to The Verge, but the business says it wants to extend to additional languages in the future.
“It’s critical to us that everyone can connect, interact, and engage successfully using Zoom,” Theresa Larkin, the company’s product marketing manager of meetings and chat, said.
“People with disabilities encounter huge difficulties when using video communication options without the right accessibility features,” Theresa noted.
Zoom had previously confined AI-powered live transcription to its paying accounts, which sparked criticism from accessibility advocates who pointed out that the pandemic’s widespread usage of Zoom calls left deaf individuals with few options.
Zoom conference hosts have to either use a third-party captioning provider or manually add their own captions without the auto-captions.
Over the last year, the firm has introduced more accessibility features, such as support for screen readers and the ability to display multiple videos at once, as well as the ability to keep a sign language interpreter visible at all times, even when another user on the call is speaking.
An account owner or a user with admin capabilities can activate captions in Zoom meetings by logging into the Zoom website and selecting ‘account management from the navigation menu. Then select ‘account settings’ and the ‘meeting’ tab. Toggle the closed captioning option to enable it under ‘in meeting (advanced),’ according to The Verge.