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What is Azure speech-to-text?

Azure Speech-to-Text, part of Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services, offers cloud-based automatic speech recognition (ASR). It converts spoken language into text using advanced deep learning models—enabling real-time transcription, batch processing, and support for custom model training. It’s designed to handle enterprise-grade workloads with high accuracy and multi-language capabilities.

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Why choose Azure for speech transcription?

Azure offers a variety of features that make it a leading STT solution:
  • Real-Time Streaming & Batch Transcription: Supports both low-latency streaming for live interactions and batch processing for recorded files.
  • Speaker Diarization & Language Identification: Detects speaker turns and identifies languages in multi-party, multilingual scenarios.
  • Noise Reduction: Advanced noise suppression techniques improve transcription accuracy in challenging audio conditions.
  • Secure & Scalable: Fully managed service with options for resource control, webhook callbacks, and deployment across regions.

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How does Bolna integrate with Azure speech-to-text?

Bolna AI integrates Azure’s STT technology to enable real-time, high-accuracy speech transcription for its AI-powered voice agents. Here’s how Bolna leverages Azure:
  • Live Conversation Transcription: Bolna uses Azure’s real-time streaming to convert user speech into text with minimal delay, enabling dynamic agent interaction.
  • Multi-Language, Multi-Speaker Context: With speaker diarization and language detection, Bolna agents accurately follow multilingual or multi-party calls.
  • Speaker Identification and Context Retention: Bolna uses Azure’s speaker diarization capabilities to differentiate between the agent and the caller in conversations. This feature helps in maintaining context and structuring responses effectively.
  • Recording & Post-Call Analysis: Bolna supports batch transcription of stored calls via REST, using callbacks/webhooks to asynchronously retrieve results for insights, compliance, and analytics.

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Keyword biasing

Azure accepts a phrase list, which Bolna sends as your agent’s keywords.
Up to 2,000 phrases. Per-term weights are not supported, so Bolna strips any term:number suffix. Azure has no equivalent of the context field, so that box is shown disabled in the dashboard. See Keywords and context for how to choose terms.

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Next steps

Ready to configure Azure Speech-to-Text for your voice AI agent? Start by setting up your transcriber in Agent Studio or explore our API documentation for programmatic integration. For related integrations: Integrating Azure Speech-to-Text with Bolna empowers voice AI agents to deliver seamless, real-time, and highly accurate transcriptions across diverse languages and speaker scenarios.e.