Azure AI Speech review

Azure AI Speech bundles speech to text, text to speech and translation in one Azure service. For transcription you can pick real-time, fast or batch modes, train a custom speech model on your own audio and vocabulary, and caption audio in more than 100 languages. Continuous language identification, diarization and pronunciation assessment are enhanced add-ons billed per feature. Embedded speech runs recognition on devices, and connected containers let you host models in your own environment under commitment tiers. Microsoft provides SDKs in C#, C++, Java and other languages. The free F0 tier includes 5 audio hours of standard real-time transcription a month and 5 hours of custom real-time transcription, which is generous for testing. Billing is per second. The pricing page loaded its rates with a script from our location and showed no USD figures, so we marked the price as pending. Expect more setup than a single-vendor API, since you create Azure resources and choose regions.

Who it is for

Companies already on Azure that need custom speech models, embedded speech or a free monthly tier.

Price

See vendor pricing (USD check pending).

US price check pending. See the vendor pricing page.

Key features

• Real-time, fast and batch transcription billed per second
• Custom speech models trained on your own data
• Captioning in more than 100 languages and speech translation
• Embedded speech for on-device use and connected containers
• SDKs in C#, C++, Java and other languages

Strengths and weaknesses

• Strength: Free tier with 5 audio hours of real-time transcription a month
• Strength: Commitment tiers for large monthly volumes
• Strength: Fits into existing Azure security and billing
• Weakness: Pricing page did not show rates in USD from our location
• Weakness: Setup runs through Azure resources and regions
• Weakness: Add-ons such as diarization and language identification are billed per feature

Key facts

• Free tier: 5 audio hours of real-time transcription a month
• Languages: More than 100 for captioning
• Billing: Per second

Where it ranks

Azure AI Speech is No. 8 in our Best Speech-to-Text APIs verdict and No. 7 in Best Text-to-Speech APIs.