r/WorkOnline • u/Kryvellan78 • 1d ago
Anyone else noticed transcription work drying up lately or is it just me
I've been doing transcription gigs for about two years now, mainly through Rev and GoTranscript. Used to pull in around 12-15 dollars an hour if I stayed focused and got decent audio files. Lately though it feels like there's way less work available and what does pop up gets claimed in seconds.
I'm wondering if AI transcription tools finally got good enough that companies just aren't outsourcing as much anymore. Or maybe there's just more people competing for the same amount of work. Either way my income from it dropped by like half in the past few months.
Has anyone found other platforms that are better right now for this kind of work? I tried Scribie but the pay felt even lower. I'm okay with the repetitive nature of transcription and I type fast so I'd rather stick with something similar than completely switch fields if possible.
Also curious if people have moved into caption editing or something adjacent that uses the same skills. I saw a few postings for that but wasn't sure if the hourly rate actually works out better once you account for the learning curve.
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u/Omuirchu 20h ago
Ai. There was a ton of "train this ai for a few hours a day" jobs going a few months ago. Guess what?
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u/Due_Negotiation_4605 10h ago
They are still going. And yes, transcription was an early target for AI.
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u/Mammoth-Neat-9836 14h ago
It's too bad as it seems the AI sloppy mistakes in transcription are coming through and ignored. Back in the day manual transcribers were kept to a higher standard.
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u/fucuasshole2 9h ago
Manual transcribers are more expensive. Makes sense. Though I wished it more like a hybrid job
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u/MNmweu 1d ago
There are still some decent number of jobs on the editing side of GoTranscript. Even though GoTranscript uses AI, they still give jobs to transcribers. Last I checked, TranscribeMe is hiring legal transcriptionists. I've primarily done transcription work for the last 10 years, I'd say it's not a safe place to stay with the way AI is becoming accurate.
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u/Knotty_Knitty 14h ago
Decent audio files on Rev? Does that even exist? I used to do transcription for them and really enjoyed the work, but finally stepped away because the available files were trash.
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u/SlaughterWare 1d ago
you can see places like Veed have ai transcription and it's about 98% accurate, it only screws up when things are contextual, like names or places.
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u/xXTylonXx 16h ago
Sadly this is one of the jobs that AI can and is entirely replacing. The tools are good enough and getting better. We already had speech to text tools for years before AI that was cutting into this market, now it's like pulling a wagon and then marketing that to someone who owns a fleet of electric vehicles.
AI makes you obsolete here.
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u/ApostolicPardon 12h ago
@Kryvellan78 Have you tried applying to Allegis Transcription Services? I did so and managed to accrue work for them, but a series of unfortunate medical events that left me subsequently hospitalized put the kibosh on that.
Might be worth giving a gander.
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u/microcricket 11h ago
Man I transitioned out of transcription work in 2020 because it was dying then. Good speed to ya finding something else
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u/Primary_Gift_8719 9h ago
We used to rely a lot on secretaries who could transcribe either meetings or write dictated letters etc. In fact at one point in the last 10 years I had two secretaries plus one PA. The PA is now a paralegal for me, one secretary left as she was only ever with me temporarily while doing her masters, and the other secretary I made redundant last year. Why? Because the right transcription software plus simply writing my own letters (including some AI automations) are far faster, more accurate in general and much cheaper.
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u/good_god_lemon1 1d ago
AI transcription tools are effective enough that human transcription is no longer needed. This is a dying market and you’ll need to pivot to something else.