Microsoft released MAI-Transcribe-2, a speech recognition model that claims to outperform competitors like OpenAI's Whisper and Google's Gemini on speed, accuracy, and cost. It handles 60 languages, includes speaker identification and word-level timestamps, and costs $0.10 per hour.

• 10x faster than GPT-Transcribe, 7x faster than Scribe v2, and 5x faster than Gemini 3.5 while maintaining higher accuracy across benchmarks
• Supports 60 languages with 5.2% average word-error rate on FLEURS benchmark, plus features like speaker diarization, keyword biasing, and code-switching for mixed-language conversations
• Priced at $0.10/hour as a limited-time launch offer, undercutting competitor pricing while maintaining competitive performance

FreeFlow is a free, open source dictation app for Mac that uses AI transcription and context-aware cleanup to turn speech into text, replacing paid alternatives like Whisper Flow and Superwhisper. You bring your own API key (Groq or compatible), so there's no subscription or data retention on FreeFlow's servers.

• Hold Fn to dictate or use customizable keyboard shortcuts; Edit Mode lets you highlight text and transform it with voice commands like "make this shorter"
• Context-aware cleanup reads your current app to spell names and terms correctly, with support for custom vocabulary and simpler post-processing if you prefer
• Works with any OpenAI-compatible provider (Groq, Ollama, LM Studio) and supports local models with configurable timeouts for slower hardware

FreeFlow is a free, open-source dictation app for Mac that transcribes speech and cleans up the output using AI, then pastes it directly into any text field. It works with Groq's API by default but lets you plug in any compatible transcription or LLM service.

• Transcription completes in under 1 second using Groq, with optional local model support despite higher latency
• Cleans up filler words and uses app context to spell names and technical terms correctly, with customizable vocabulary lists
• Fully open source under MIT license with no server component—all API calls stay between your Mac and your chosen provider
• Supports both hold-to-talk (Fn key) and tap-to-toggle (Command-Fn) modes, plus custom text-paste commands

A powerful CLI tool and browser extension that generates fast summaries from URLs, files, and media, including YouTube videos and podcasts. It features a Chrome Side Panel and Firefox Sidebar, supports various media types, and provides advanced functionalities like OCR and transcript extraction. The tool can be installed via npm or Homebrew, with options for local and paid model endpoints.

• Summarize is a CLI + Chrome/Firefox extension that turns any URL, file, YouTube video, or podcast into a fast summary, with a Chrome Side Panel for chat/history.
• Version 0.10.0 adds transcript-first media handling (using published transcripts or falling back to Whisper), OCR, and timestamped slide extraction from videos.
• A background daemon service offloads heavy extraction work so the browser stays fast and unburdened.
• Installable via npm or Homebrew, with configurable output (Markdown/JSON), summary length, and support for local or paid model endpoints.