In some methods, 2025 was when AI dictation apps actually took off. Dictation apps have been round for years, however up to now they’ve proved gradual and inaccurate — except you converse with explicit accents and enunciate clearly.
However advances in massive language fashions (LLMs) and speech-to-text fashions have helped enhance the programs that may decipher speech higher whereas retaining the context to format the textual content. And builders have in-built options to robotically format textual content, take away filler phrases, and ignore fumbles to output textual content that would wish fewer edits.
However with the hovering recognition of every little thing AI, there’s dozens of such apps available on the market. So we’ve collated our choose of the most effective and most helpful dictation apps his 12 months.
Wispr Move 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 helps you to customise how its system transcribes your notes by letting you select from “formal,” “informal,” and “very informal” kinds for various sorts of writing, similar to private messaging, work, and e mail. And should you use it with vibe coding instruments like Cursor, you possibly can activate a characteristic to robotically acknowledge variables or tag recordsdata within the chat.
The app helps you to be aware down as much as 2,000 phrases per 30 days free of charge on any of the desktop variations, and 1,000 phrases per 30 days on iOS. Its subscription plans supply limitless transcription, and begin at $15 per 30 days.
Willow advertises itself as an enormous time-saver for individuals who don’t prefer to kind. Alongside widespread options like computerized enhancing and formatting, the app has a characteristic that faucets massive language fashions to generate a full chunk of textual content from just some 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 choose out of mannequin coaching as effectively. It additionally helps you to add customized vocabulary to the app to assist it adapt to your business’s parlance, or your native dialect.
Willow helps you to dictate 2,000 phrases per 30 days on its desktop app free of charge. Particular person subscription plans begin at $15 per 30 days, supplying you with limitless dictation and enabling the app to recollect your writing model.
In case you are centered on privateness, Monologue helps 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 helps you to customise its tone of voice in response to the apps you utilize it with.
Monologue helps you to jot down 1,000 phrases per 30 days free of charge, and its subscription prices $10 per 30 days, or $100 per 12 months. And if you find yourself changing into one of many app’s high customers, the corporate may also ship you this funky Monokey to make use of with the app.
Superwhisper is primarily a dictation app, however it will probably additionally transcribe from audio or video recordsdata. 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 helps you to write customized prompts to steer the output. You may simply see each processed and unprocessed transcripts which can be built-in with the system keyboard.
The fundamental voice-to-text characteristic is free to make use of, and also you get quarter-hour to check out Professional options similar to translation and transcription. The paid tier helps 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 30 days, the annual plan prices $84.99 per 30 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 need to host and run the open-source model themselves. VoiceTypr helps over 99 languages and works on each Mac and Home windows.
VoiceTypr is offered to attempt for 3 days free of charge, and after that it’ll can help you purchase a lifetime license. The app prices $35 for one gadget, $56 for 2, and $98 for 4 gadgets.
Aqua is one other Y-Combinator-backed voice typing shopper for Home windows and MacOS that claims to be one of many quickest instruments within the class by way of latency.
Apart from dealing with grammar and punctuation, Aqua additionally helps you to autofill textual content by saying phrases — you possibly can say “my deal with” and have Aqua kind in your deal with, 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 30 days. The paid plans begin from $8 per 30 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 applying is fairly primary and doesn’t supply numerous customization, however if you’re making an attempt to get began with utilizing your voice extra and don’t need to pay, it’s a good possibility.
The app has a primary 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 might need fumbled a line.
The app helps you to dictate as much as 4,000 phrases per week (roughly 16,000 phrases per 30 days) on its free tier. You may pay $12 per 30 days (billed yearly) to unlock limitless phrases and get entry to new options. Typeless is offered for Home windows and MacOS solely.
