Akkadu AI Subtitles

Akkadu AI Subtitles is a live caption tool that sits on your desktop and captures your computer's audio, then turns speech into text in real time. Unlike caption features that only work inside one app, Akkadu runs at the system level, so it follows the sound rather than the platform. That's the whole reason it exists: a meeting might jump between Zoom breakout rooms and a browser tab, and Akkadu keeps captioning through it.

It covers 90+ languages and handles two jobs at once. It transcribes what's spoken, and it translates that speech into another language. That's the point of multilingual meeting captions: everyone reads in their own language. The company says its captions run at around 95% accuracy. You can nudge that higher by picking your preferred translation engine, setting the speaker's accent, and uploading a glossary of names and jargon it should get right.

The limits are worth knowing up front. It's a desktop tool, so there's no phone version, and the free tier is only 10 minutes. Translation quality leans on whichever engine you choose. Niche terms still slip through unless you feed it a glossary. So who is it for? For big multilingual events, the paid plans and custom setup are where the product is really aimed.

Getting Started

1. Download and install the Akkadu app on your Windows or Mac computer from the official site.
2. Open the app and give it permission to capture your computer's audio.
3. Select "Computer Audio" as the source, so Akkadu listens to whatever is playing, whether that's a call, a stream, or a video.
4. Choose your spoken language and the language you want captions translated into, then pick a translation engine.
5. Hit START and captions appear once people begin talking.