American video teleconferencing software company Zoom has added auto-generated closed captions to all free Zoom meetings accounts to make its service more accessible, the company announced Monday.
As per ANI, captions are only available in English, but the company says it plans to expand to other languages in the future.
“It’s important to us that everyone can successfully connect, communicate, and participate using Zoom,” said Theresa Larkin, the company’s product marketing manager of meetings and chat.
“Without the proper accessibility tools, people with disabilities face tremendous barriers when using video communication solutions,” Theresa added.
Zoom had previously offered AI-powered live transcription only for its paid accounts, which drew criticism from accessibility advocates who noted the ubiquity of Zoom calls during the pandemic left deaf users with limited options.
Without the auto-captions, Zoom meeting hosts had to either use a third-party captioning service or manually add their captions.
The company has added more accessibility options over the past year, including support for screen readers and allowing multiple videos to be visible at the same time, allowing a sign language interpreter to be visible at all times, even when another user on the call is speaking.