This review is part of a larger series of LinkedIn newsletters titled AI in Market Research: Reviews of AI tools, platforms, and solutions that market researchers should use today.
A transcript is one of the core building blocks for any qualitative market research effort. Yet, it has historically been challenging to identify a clean, clear, and error-free transcription solution that didn’t have the lag of human-based transcription—until the advent of AI-based transcription.
The Transcript Challenge
Unfortunately, the biggest lie that AI-based meeting recording solutions share is this: “OUR TRANSCRIPTS ARE AMAZING.” Sorry, that was the vendor’s CAPS, not mine.
The reality is, from a market researcher’s perspective, that most auto-generated transcripts suck. Truly. Whether you are using Zoom or Microsoft Teams, or for the few of you still on WebEx, the quality of automated transcription is poor. This inability to trust the transcript’s clarity and accuracy is especially true if you’re targeting a specialized, niche market space with your research efforts.
By contrast, if you are asking a broad consumer population people about their buying preferences at Home Depot, most transcript-generating APIs can figure out the difference between a nail and a screw. Not a lot of trouble there.
However, if you’re asking someone about how they are using LLMs, Vector Databases, and how they are applying that knowledge to drive changes in healthcare organizations, and the target of your conversation is a data scientist, well…most transcript software is, let’s say, deficient.
Fathom’s Strengths
Fortunately, Fathom tackles these challenges and meets our needs on many levels.
First, while not 100% perfect, Fathom’s transcripts are pretty robust, even when targeting niche topics and respondents.
Second, Fathom has a stellar client-side app that makes it easy to tag portions of conversations that interest you at the moment they happen.
Third, Fathom has rich summary support.
Beyond a standard summary that includes crucial topics, takeaways, etc., all of which have links to the relevant portions of the transcript, Fathom also provides several different ways to generate a summary of a conversation.
These examples include templates for 1:1s, Demos, Customer Success, Project Kickoffs, Candidate Interviews, Q&A, and Sales calls. Fathom also intends to let users create custom templates for summarization, a
Also, it is easy to copy and paste these summaries along with the included hyperlinks into emails and calendar invites, import them into various Market Research platforms via Zapier, etc.
But again, the big thing…GREAT TRANSCRIPTS. Those CAPS are mine. So here’s my review:
- Usability = Five Stars
- Power = Five Stars
- Flexibility = Four Stars
- While I love Fathom’s automated summaries, I’m looking forward to the increased flexibility that custom templates will provide.
- Cost = Five Stars