WhatsApp tests new feature that turns speech into text

Typing a message while walking, driving, or juggling a dozen other things is about to get easier on WhatsApp. The company is developing a voice-to-text feature for Android that lets users speak a message instead of typing it, then sends it as plain text rather than an audio clip.

The tool has appeared in WhatsApp's Android beta version 2.26.37.8 in the Google Play Store.

Unlike the current voice message transcriptions on WhatsApp, this tool functions in a completely reverse way.

Instead of allowing users to read voice messages that are received as text, the new tool will allow users to convert their voice messages into text before sending.

In this regard, there will be a special button added right into the chat bar.

After first use, WhatsApp will display a brief introductory page and ask users to select a language. After this, pressing the button, users can switch to the "Listening" mode and just dictate the message.

The new feature operates in one-to-one chats, group chats, and channels, and there is no sign at all for the recipients to know that the message was created using voice.

It relies on the same local language packs that are used by WhatsApp in transcribing messages from voice, and the offline capability has been deliberately designed this way. Processing the audio locally instead of uploading it to a server makes the feature consistent with the end-to-end encryption, as the audio message never leaves the user's phone before getting transcribed.

Users have to download only once the necessary language pack, after which the dictation can be performed without requiring any internet access. Recently, WhatsApp added support for German, French, Italian, Japanese, and extra versions of English within this language-pack framework for transcriptions.