In some methods, 2025 was when AI dictation apps actually took off. Dictation apps have been round for years, however prior to now they’ve proved gradual and inaccurate — until you communicate with explicit accents and enunciate clearly.
However advances in giant language fashions (LLMs) and speech-to-text fashions have helped enhance the methods that may decipher speech higher whereas retaining the context to format the textual content. And builders have in-built options to mechanically format textual content, take away filler phrases, and ignore fumbles to output textual content that would wish fewer edits.
However with the hovering reputation of every little thing AI, there’s dozens of such apps available on the market. So we’ve collated our choose of the perfect and most helpful dictation apps his yr.
Wispr Movement is a well-funded AI dictation app that allows you to add customized phrases and directions for dictation. It has native apps for MacOS, Home windows and iOS, and an Android model is within the works.
The app enables you to customise how its system transcribes your notes by letting you select from “formal,” “informal,” and “very informal” types for various sorts of writing, comparable to private messaging, work, and electronic mail. And should you use it with vibe coding instruments like Cursor, you possibly can activate a characteristic to mechanically acknowledge variables or tag information within the chat.
The app enables you to be aware down as much as 2,000 phrases per thirty days without cost on any of the desktop variations, and 1,000 phrases per thirty days on iOS. Its subscription plans provide limitless transcription, and begin at $15 per thirty days.
Willow advertises itself as an enormous time-saver for individuals who don’t prefer to sort. Alongside widespread options like automated enhancing and formatting, the app has a characteristic that faucets giant language fashions to generate a full chunk of textual content from only a few dictated phrases.
Willow additionally takes a extra privacy-focused stab at AI-assisted note-taking by storing all transcripts regionally in your gadget, and allows you to decide out of mannequin coaching as effectively. It additionally enables you to add customized vocabulary to the app to assist it adapt to your business’s parlance, or your native dialect.
Willow enables you to dictate 2,000 phrases per thirty days on its desktop app without cost. Particular person subscription plans begin at $15 per thirty days, supplying you with limitless dictation and enabling the app to recollect your writing fashion.
If you’re targeted on privateness, Monologue enables you to obtain its mannequin so you possibly can run it in your gadget for transcriptions and keep away from sending knowledge to the cloud. What’s extra, the app enables you to customise its tone of voice in accordance with the apps you utilize it with.
Monologue enables you to jot down 1,000 phrases per thirty days without cost, and its subscription prices $10 per thirty days, or $100 per yr. And if you find yourself changing into one of many app’s high customers, the corporate will even ship you this funky Monokey to make use of with the app.
Superwhisper is primarily a dictation app, however it will possibly additionally transcribe from audio or video information. The app offers you the liberty to decide on and obtain AI fashions, together with its personal fashions which have totally different speeds and accuracy, together with NVIDIA’s Parakeet speech recognition fashions.
The app additionally enables you to write customized prompts to steer the output. You may simply see each processed and unprocessed transcripts which are built-in with the system keyboard.
The essential voice-to-text characteristic is free to make use of, and also you get quarter-hour to check out Professional options comparable to translation and transcription. The paid tier enables you to use your individual AI API keys and plug in cloud and native fashions with none caps.
The month-to-month plan prices $8.49 per thirty days, the annual plan prices $84.99 per thirty days, or you possibly can pay $249.99 for a lifetime subscription.
This app takes an offline-first, no-subscription method, letting you utilize native fashions for transcription. There’s additionally a GitHub repository for individuals who wish to host and run the open-source model themselves. VoiceTypr helps over 99 languages and works on each Mac and Home windows.
VoiceTypr is on the market to attempt for 3 days without cost, and after that it’ll assist you to purchase a lifetime license. The app prices $35 for one gadget, $56 for 2, and $98 for 4 units.
Aqua is one other Y-Combinator-backed voice typing consumer for Home windows and MacOS that claims to be one of many quickest instruments within the class by way of latency.
Moreover dealing with grammar and punctuation, Aqua additionally enables you to autofill textual content by saying phrases — you possibly can say “my tackle” and have Aqua sort in your tackle, for instance.
The app additionally provides its personal speech-to-text API for different apps.
The free tier will get you 1,000 phrases per thirty days. The paid plans begin from $8 per thirty days (annual billing), and unlock limitless phrases and 800 customized dictionary values.
Helpful is an open-source and free transcription instrument that may run on Mac, Home windows, and Linux. The appliance is fairly fundamental and doesn’t provide a whole lot of customization, however if you’re attempting to get began with utilizing your voice extra and don’t wish to pay, it’s a good possibility.
The app has a fundamental settings menu that allows you to toggle push-to-talk, and alter the hotkey to activate the transcription.
Typeless is one other app on this class with a excessive free phrase depend. The corporate claims that it doesn’t retain any knowledge or use it to coach fashions. Typeless additionally suggests a greater model of the sentence should you may need fumbled a line.
The app enables you to dictate as much as 4,000 phrases per week (roughly 16,000 phrases per thirty days) on its free tier. You may pay $12 per thirty days (billed yearly) to unlock limitless phrases and get entry to new options. Typeless is on the market for Home windows and MacOS solely.
