MAI-Transcribe 1.5 transcription online

What is MAI-Transcribe 1.5?

MAI-Transcribe 1.5 is Microsoft's latest automatic speech recognition model, ranked #3 on the Artificial Analysis Word Error Rate (AA-WER) leaderboard with a 2.4% word error rate. It is designed for production workloads that need high accuracy, low latency, and the ability to guide the model towards domain-specific vocabulary before a transcription run begins.

2.4% WER is a published benchmark figure from Microsoft's June 2026 announcement, not our own measurement, and reflects the AA-WER leaderboard's test conditions rather than the real-world figure quoted for Whisper elsewhere on this site.

The key feature that sets it apart from general-purpose ASR models is entity biasing: you can supply up to 200 words or phrases — names, product terms, medical terminology, legal concepts — that the model should expect to encounter. The decoder is biased towards these candidates when audio is phonetically ambiguous, which substantially reduces first-pass errors on proper nouns and specialist vocabulary.

Speed is also a distinguishing characteristic. MAI-Transcribe 1.5 processes audio at under 15 seconds per hour of recording, compared to 60–90 seconds per hour for Whisper. For a 60-minute interview, the practical difference is receiving your transcript in under 8 seconds rather than waiting a minute or more.

MAI-Transcribe 1.5 vs. Whisper vs. Gemini 3.5 Transcribe

All three models cost €0.02/min. Full comparison →

All three models' transcripts can also be translated afterward into any supported language using the dashboard's Translate action — the row above only covers Whisper's free, single-pass translation option at upload time.

MAI-Transcribe 1.5's figure comes from the Artificial Analysis Word Error Rate (AA-WER) leaderboard; Whisper's comes from published clean-benchmark and real-world comparisons; Gemini 3.5 Transcribe's is a vendor-published average. Different benchmarks, different conditions — not a strict apples-to-apples comparison.

Frequently asked questions

What is MAI-Transcribe 1.5?

MAI-Transcribe 1.5 is Microsoft's latest automatic speech recognition model, ranked #3 on the Artificial Analysis Word Error Rate (AA-WER) leaderboard with a 2.4% word error rate. It is designed for high-accuracy, low-latency transcription and supports up to 200 entity-biasing phrases — proper nouns, domain terms, or names that should be transcribed exactly. convert.express offers it as a premium model option alongside OpenAI Whisper.

How accurate is MAI-Transcribe 1.5 compared to Whisper?

MAI-Transcribe 1.5 achieves 2.4% word error rate on the Artificial Analysis (AA-WER) leaderboard. Whisper is published at roughly 2.7% WER on clean benchmark English, rising to roughly 8% on real-world recordings — a different benchmark, so the two numbers are not a strict apples-to-apples comparison. The practical difference is most visible on proper nouns, entity-heavy content (names, places, organisations), and material where entity biasing has been pre-loaded. On low-resource or niche languages, Whisper may be more reliable since it covers 57 languages vs. 43 for MAI.

What is entity biasing and how do I use it?

Entity biasing (also called vocabulary hints) lets you supply a list of words and phrases — up to 200 — that the model should expect to encounter. This primes the ASR decoder to prefer these candidates when the audio is ambiguous. Use it for: interviewee names, organisation names, product names, technical terminology, or any proper noun that a general-purpose model might mis-transcribe. Enter the phrases in the transcription settings before uploading your file.

How fast is MAI-Transcribe 1.5?

MAI-Transcribe 1.5 processes audio at under 15 seconds per hour — substantially faster than Whisper's 60–90 seconds per hour. A 60-minute podcast episode typically finishes in 3–8 seconds, which is the kind of turnaround you actually need for live-event or same-day workflows.

What does "Public Preview" mean?

MAI-Transcribe 1.5 is in public preview on convert.express (as is Gemini 3.5 Transcribe), which means it is available but carries no uptime SLA. If you pick a model explicitly, that is the model your job runs on — convert.express never silently transcribes with a different one, so if your chosen model is unavailable the job fails and tells you why. Jobs left on the default model do fall back: Whisper runs first, and MAI-Transcribe 1.5 picks the job up if Whisper cannot take it. If your workflow depends on guaranteed availability, choose Whisper as the explicit model. Preview status also means the model may be updated at any time, which could change output format or accuracy characteristics.

When should I choose MAI-Transcribe 1.5 over Whisper or Gemini 3.5 Transcribe?

Choose MAI-Transcribe 1.5 when: speed is important (interviews, live-event transcription); you can provide up to 200 entity biasing phrases to improve accuracy on proper nouns; and the language you need is in its 43-language set. Choose Whisper when you need a language outside MAI's coverage, want a free single-pass English translation at upload time, or prefer a generally-available model with formal SLA guarantees. Choose Gemini 3.5 Transcribe when you need in-model speaker diarization (up to 8 speakers), a much larger biasing vocabulary (up to 1,000 terms), or the widest language coverage of the three. Either way, once a job finishes you can translate its transcript into English or any other supported language from your dashboard — that option isn't limited to Whisper.