Jeff Kofman, is the Founder & CEO of Trint, after a 30-year profession with ABC, CBS and CBC News, Jeff bought bored with hitting the wall of guide transcription and watching each story unnecessarily cease in its tracks. In 2014, Jeff and a workforce of builders leveraged AI to do the heavy lifting, and Trint was born.
Today Trint is an AI-powered SaaS platform that goes past transcription to spice up each stage of the content material creation workflow.
From transcription to editorial instruments, actual time collaboration to export and publishing – making each step simpler for newsrooms, podcasters, native companies and international organizations to share tales quicker and simpler than ever.
You had a distinguished 30-year profession with ABC, CBS and CBC News, what have been a number of the points that you simply encountered with conventional guide transcription?
I lived the ache of guide transcription on daily basis as a journalist. Long earlier than I had the concept of inventing and constructing Trint, I puzzled why there wasn’t a greater approach.
Manual transcription was at all times the bottleneck in my workflow as a TV reporter. I’d do my interviews, take heed to a information convention, learn my analysis, take a look at my footage and THEN… my producer and I’d disappear into the Black Hole of Transcription.
I can’t write my TV information story till I’ve exact transcripts of the quotes or soundbites I wish to use. I have to know what they mentioned and the way lengthy that soundbite runs. That meant sitting in a screening room or at our desks with headphones on, hitting PLAY then PAUSE. Then sort some phrases. Then PLAY. PAUSE. And repeat. It might take hours. So tedious. So important.
Trint launched in 2014, are you able to focus on how the concept was born?
I by no means imagined I’d be a tech man. It was by no means in my life plan. It occurred by likelihood.
I had an off-the-cuff dialog with some software program builders who had accomplished some rudimentary experiments with audio and textual content (not transcription) in 2013.
I innocently requested: why can’t I take advantage of automated speech-to-text to transcribe my interviews.
I keep in mind one of many guys asking me: why would you wish to try this?
I answered: as a result of guide transcription is the ache level in my work as a reporter, I detest it.
We stored in contact and did some experiments. It rapidly turned clear that we had invented the longer term. I left my job as London Correspondent for ABC News a 12 months later and we started constructing Trint.
What have been a number of the challenges of launching a transcription service in these early days?
Automated transcription is a discrete downside. People who don’t stay the workflow of reporters and content material creators don’t know how they create tales. I keep in mind assembly some very rich angel buyers within the early days and so they simply couldn’t grasp why reporters like me want transcripts. It took a variety of explaining to get them to know how a reporter works.
I feel that’s simpler in the present day. We are all content material creators.
What are the totally different machine studying algorithms which might be at the moment used at Trint?
We have an excellent good bunch of engineers and information scientists which might be at all times tinkering with no matter they are often fingers on with and wherever their imaginations can take them. As you’d perceive, our focus is on how automated transcription can pace up workflows for our media prospects, which suggests we at all times work round speech, audio system, languages and acoustics. NLP and speech processing algorithms are a part of our day-to-day, however we’ll examine any inventive methods to make use of AI to assist journalists extract data from movies, audios and pictures. Rich transcription lets us give extra context to their content material, makes all of it extra searchable, and finally lets them discover the moments that basically matter and get them out to their audiences as rapidly as attainable.
What languages are at the moment provided, and are there any variations in transcription high quality between the totally different languages?
We supply about 45 languages which you could transcribe and are at all times including extra. Some are in “beta” and others which might be much more mature, which depends upon the dimensions of coaching information units that assist construct the fashions. We continuously measure the accuracy of our fashions for every language to continuously develop our fashions and to enhance their efficiency.
We are at all times taking a look at what new fashions have gotten accessible to see if we are able to deliver them into our safe ASR processing setting.
But it’s not solely in regards to the languages we transcribe – our prospects can even have that transcript translated into virtually any language.
Outside of transcription, Trint is an AI-powered SaaS platform that’s designed to enhance content material creation workflow, are you able to focus on a number of the different instruments which might be provided?
Although on the coronary heart of Trint is our AI-powered transcription, what we obsess about is why these transcriptions are helpful to our customers, and the way we may also help them get worth as rapidly and simply as attainable. That means having a deep understanding of their workflows, so we are able to try to make each step as seamless as attainable.
Ultimately, we would like them to seize any press convention, interview or occasion anyplace, at any time, in any language and make use of it because it occurs. That means making it straightforward for them or their workforce to confirm and use the stay transcription because it occurs – verifying, sharing and translating key quotes seconds after they’re spoken.
Our cellular app means that may occur even for those who solely have a cellphone on you, and ensures all the things is securely transmitted to your workforce even when the connection is patchy.
Our Story Builder is designed to allow you to discover the important thing moments in all of your content material and switch them into a brand new narrative that may be exported to different key instruments in your content material manufacturing workflow. Whether that’s a tough reduce for video enhancing, a podcast transcript or an article. If it’s good to use the textual content of the audio as captions, our collaborative editor may also help there too.
You even have a podcast that you simply personally host known as StoryTech, which seems at how know-how shapes tales. Could you elaborate on what this podcast is, what listeners ought to count on, and why they need to tune in?
StoryTech is admittedly the intersection of my two careers: a reporter and a tech inventor. It seems at how know-how and innovation form the way in which tales are informed.
The early episodes take a look at how CGI was used to deliver down the ice wall in Game of Thrones, and the way the invention of the 35mm Leica digicam within the Nineteen Twenties led to the unfold of photojournalism and the creation of LIFE journal.
I’m fascinated by the affect of innovation on storytelling. That’s what StoryTech is about.
What is your imaginative and prescient for the way forward for Trint?
That’s the problem each innovator is wrestling with in the present day. How does the quick tempo of innovation open alternatives for my product?
Our prospects desire a product that creates easy, intuitive efficiencies that match seamlessly into their workflow. That means going far past transcription.
Trint will leverage AI to do issues that have been unimaginable just some years in the past: establish voices, faces, sentiment, context, info and falsehoods. This will occur in any language – translating from that language because it’s spoken. The secret is to do that and a lot extra in a approach that integrates into different merchandise to create one painless workflow.
I don’t see Trint changing reporters, writers and content material creators. It is about liberating them from the drudgery of their work and permitting them to focus their time on creativity. It’s thrilling to attempt to think about the longer term. I’m not gonna lie: it’s additionally daunting.
Thank you for the nice interview, readers who want to study extra ought to go to Trint or watch the StoryTech podcast.
