Cohere has launched Transcribe, an automatic speech recognition (ASR) model, now available for download as open source. 

The model, designed for real-world application, is intended to enhance AI-driven tasks such as meeting transcription and speech analytics to support customer support interactions, a press release stated.

"Our objective was straightforward: push the frontier of dedicated ASR model accuracy under practical conditions. The model was trained from scratch with a deliberate focus on minimizing word error rate (WER), while keeping production readiness top-of-mind. In other words, not just a research artifact, but a system designed for everyday use," Cohere stated.

What Does Transcribe Do?

Transcribe supports 14 languages, including English, French and Chinese. The model ranks first for accuracy on Hugging Face’s Open ASR Leaderboard, outperforming other ASR models such as Whisper Large v3 and ElevenLabs Scribe v2, with a WER of just 5.42%.

"We're genuinely impressed with what Cohere has built with Transcribe. The speed is exceptional, turning minutes of audio into usable transcripts in seconds, and it immediately unlocks new possibilities for real-time products and workflows, Paige Dickie, vice president of Radical Ventures, said.

"In our testing, the model handled everyday speech very well and delivered strong, reliable transcription quality. The overall experience has been smooth and easy to work with. We're excited to be partnering with Cohere and to continue exploring what we can build with this technology," she continued.

In the future, Cohere plans to integrate Transcribe more deeply with its AI agent orchestration platform, North, aiming to expand its capabilities beyond transcription. 

The model is available for download on Hugging Face and users can access it via Cohere's API for experimentation or through the Model Vault for production deployment.

What’s Next

Earlier this week, Cohere announced a strategic partnership with Saab to advance artificial intelligence technologies. 

Through this agreement, Saab and Cohere aim to leverage their combined expertise to support high-value industrial cooperation in Canada, marking a significant step forward in AI integration within the aerospace sector.

Last month, Cohere announced that the company was expanding its platform with SAP to deliver full-stack sovereign AI solutions worldwide, starting in Canada. This collaboration builds on their previous integration of Cohere’s AI models into SAP’s EU AI Cloud, aiming to provide secure and scalable AI solutions tailored for global enterprises.

Cohere was founded in 2019 in Toronto and specializes in Large Language Models (LLMs) and generative AI with a specific focus on serving the enterprise market. The company builds AI technology tailored for businesses, focusing on security, data privacy and customizability.