Can ChatGPT Transcribe Audio to Text? Full Guide for 2025

Can ChatGPT now transform audio into text?

As artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT, becomes more intelligent, this question will surface more frequently.

If you find yourself typing ChatGPT transcribe audio to text into Google, you're not alone – the lines between talking and typing are blurring fast.

Let's look at what's actually happening under the hood.

Audio abilities of ChatGPT in 2025

ChatGPT is still mainly a text-based language model even in 2025. It shines at writing, brainstorming, and coding – all text-related activities.

Audio transcription, meanwhile, is another beast. ChatGPT, by default, does not automatically listen to audio files.

You cannot simply upload an MP3 of a podcast and have it produce a transcript. Rather, ChatGPT's spoken-word capabilities arise from a few smart workarounds.

To be clear, ChatGPT itself is not an audio-transcribing tool; OpenAI's ecosystem does provide means to bridge the gap between spoken and written material.

Among the most important components of that puzzle is Whisper, the speech-to-text engine OpenAI has developed.

Whisper can speak 50+ languages and many different accents, thanks to the hundreds of thousands of hours of audio data it was trained on.

Whisper does the bulk of the labor of transforming spoken words into written text when you present an audio file to the OpenAI API.

On the other hand, ChatGPT can take that text and execute all the enjoyable language techniques with it, including summarizing, clarifying, or even translating it into a conversational tone.

Whisper writes; ChatGPT corrects and interprets; therefore, these two AIs collaborate to transcribe audio to text.

For you, the typical user, how does this unfold? If you have access to voice conversations or even the ability to submit files, you probably also have access to ChatGPT Plus or Pro in 2025.

That means you can converse with ChatGPT (it will listen and respond) or upload an audio file that is sent using Whisper.

ChatGPT will next offer a text transcript of that file. Whisper is performing the transcription and feeding the result to ChatGPT under the hood, but you really feel like you're talking or uploading directly.

Voice chats and file uploads

The ChatGPT mobile app, for example, has a voice mode: you press the microphone and start talking.

ChatGPT will convert your words and, at times, even audibly respond.

This makes it quite simple to turn quick thoughts or questions into writing.

You might be dictating an email draft or brainstorming aloud while preparing dinner; voilà, your words show up on the screen.

But keep in mind that this voice option is meant for a casual feature instead of a full transcript service.

It works great for personal notes, but it won't automatically split a lengthy interview or handle difficult editing.

You can also upload audio files to ChatGPT web using a more sophisticated model (such as GPT-4 or newer).

Put an MP3 or WAV file into the conversation. ChatGPT will output the unprocessed chat text from the raw transcript via Whisper.

That's fairly powerful; in minutes, you could theoretically upload a recorded lecture, interview, or conference and have a text version back.

Still, even this approach has unusual aspects. Most of the time, the transcript will just be plain text; there won't be any speaker labels or timestamps.

Even if you have the words, you don't have the clean transcript style that a professional tool would give you.

Artificial intelligence transcription challenges

Let us now go into accuracy, as this is where things start to get intriguing. It is quite challenging to automatically turn spoken words into text.

Good artificial intelligence also makes mistakes. Accents, garbled speech, background noise, and technical terminology can all cause mistakes.

The latest AI engines are amazingly fast, but the draft transcript often still needs editing.

Still here, human transcription companies have an edge. Think Verbalscripts, per se. They are a transcription company that is totally human-powered.

This implies that people, not just AI or ChatGPT, process, review, and proofread every transcript.

Human transcribers grasp nuances artificial intelligence might miss, and they understand sector-specific terminology, names, slang, and even the tone behind a speaker's voice.

Verbalscripts creates transcripts that are neat, accurate, and tailored to your needs—traits you would not find in a fast AI draft.

Let me offer you an actual example. You record a focus group discussion with overlapping chatter. ChatGPT (with Whisper) might do a passable job at capturing the loudest voices, but it'll likely jumble overlapping lines or mix up speakers.

A human transcriber knows how to rewind the audio, listen multiple times, and assign each line to the correct person.

They also make sure the transcript makes sense. If an artificial intelligence heard "well, pink shirts," but the context was "Bill hic shifts," a person would see that and fix it.

The result is an accurate, reliable transcription.

Verbalscripts also gives a framework that most artificial intelligence translations lack. Regular interval timestamps?

Check. Speaker labels, like Speaker 1, Speaker 2, or even real names, can do it. No trouble with specialized formatting or verbatim style instructions (e.g., capturing ums and ahs or clearing them out).

Should your undertaking have privacy or compliance needs, human services can encrypt and handle data securely.

An automated chat-based helper does not distribute these right out of the box.

AI writing with human editing

You might now question: "ChatGPT can transcribe, but people do better." May I apply both? Absolutely.

If you still want to know and try yourself whether ChatGPT transcribe audio to text, a clever method is to have humans refine a primary draft achieved via way of means of ChatGPT.

This is known as proofreading of AI-generated transcripts. One might ask ChatGPT, for example, "Transcribe this audio clearly without punctuation and filler words."

Your preliminary transcript will arrive soon. Following that, companies like Verbalscripts could hone the last, cleaned transcript by fixing mistakes, including timestamps or speaker tags.

This hybrid approach gives you immediate first drafts in minutes, together with a publication-ready transcript after human proofreading. We fix what AI might have missed or did inaccurately.

But remember, ChatGPT only transcribes after the given audio; it is not a live listener.

Furthermore, it won't automatically label a number of speakers or insert timestamps.

For on-demand tasks like file uploading, ChatGPT + Whisper are great, but they cannot by themselves handle real-time meeting captions or massive bulk batch processing.

If your sound is extremely technical or loud, you could head straight to Verbalscripts.

Who should utilize ChatGPT for transcription? If you need quick notes, summaries, or a preliminary draft transcription to spark ideas from, ChatGPT may be helpful.

If you need a transcript for legal, professional, or publishing reasons, consult specialists since under such conditions, accuracy and context-awareness of a human service become rather crucial.

For informal purposes, it is acceptable to experiment with ChatGPT; however, for client deliverables, court records, medical papers, or anything requiring non-negotiable accuracy, rely on real people.

Selecting the right approach

Artificial intelligence is only going to become more intelligent, looking ahead in the future. GPT-5 is here with more features.

But even while artificial intelligence progresses, the basic direction stays the same: AI could speed up operations, but human review is still absolutely vital for correctness.

Many businesses now provide what you could call "AI-assisted transcription," in which an artificial intelligence generates a draft, then a person proofreads it. This is how you get accuracy and speed.

ChatGPT starts by producing the text, then Verbalscripts (or your chosen team of people) steps in to make the text better.

You two create faultless, quick transcripts. For busy teams, this suggests faster turnaround times. Want to experiment with something?

Run your audio through ChatGPT, then email Verbalscripts your transcript. You'll find out how well this team strategy produces results.

Conclusion.

In conclusion, can ChatGPT transcribe audio to text?

Yes, but only to some extent. ChatGPT (with Whisper) can also speak with you via voice, which is quite an amazing technology that converts audio into a draft transcription.

Still, that result is a rough sketch. Read it again and keep working on it.

Use a human-powered tool such as Verbalscripts for significant tasks.