Google's free on-device app Eloquent transcribes and polishes speech locally, making paid cloud transcription subscriptions unnecessary.
Free local transcription replaces a paid subscriptionEloquent is a free download that runs 100% on the Mac, with no cloud and no monthly fee.
English only at launchFrench, Polish and Greek dictation all came back wrong or blank; only English worked.
Fast even on a loaded M1 MacA one-hour file transcribed at roughly ten minutes per hour while OBS was saturating the CPU and GPU.
Executive SummaryAI
Mike Russell opens a live stream arguing that Google's quietly launched free app Eloquent, out this week on macOS and iOS, makes paid cloud transcription subscriptions pointless.
Setup means granting microphone and accessibility access and downloading just under three gigabytes of Gemma weights, after which everything runs on the machine with no internet and nothing leaving the desktop.
His first dictation test transcribes with correct punctuation, scrubs out the ums and ahs, and reports 24 words spoken at 103 words per minute.
Feeding it an hour-long live stream file, he measures transcription at about one hour of audio every ten minutes while his GPU sits at 99% and CPU at 57% from streaming 4K60 to YouTube and restreaming to X and LinkedIn.
Tests in French, Polish and Greek all fail, so the app is English only for now, and while the macOS download works worldwide the iOS one is region locked and refused to install on his phone in Cyprus.
Key Quote
“Well, Google just made all of that completely pointless and it's an app called Eloquent.”