What can speech AI be used for in companies?

What works well

Transcription. Recording into text, with speaker separation. In German, it is now reliable, provided the recording quality is good.

Summarizing meetings. Extracting results and tasks from the transcript. Saves more time than the transcript itself.

Dictation for documentation. Especially useful where people are on the go and cannot type.

What remains difficult

• Multiple people speaking simultaneously
• Strong dialects
• Technical terms and proper names without prior documentation
• Poor phone quality
• Background noise in workshops or construction sites

Automatic phone assistants

Technically possible, but tricky in practice: callers usually expect a human, and error recognition is more frustrating than a menu with buttons. Only sensible for simple, clearly defined cases.

Legal framework

Call recording is not permissible without the consent of all parties involved and is additionally relevant under criminal law in the business sector (§ 201 StGB). A notice in the announcement is not consent if there is no real choice.

In meetings, all participants must have the opportunity to object in advance. Where a works council exists, the introduction is subject to co-determination.

Practical advice

Start with summarizing your own meetings. There, consent can be organized in a manageable way, and the benefits are immediately visible.