While video conferencing has existed for more than 60 years, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced it to become an everyday necessity. Companies and educational institutions looking to host virtual meetings and conferences primarily took to Zoom to stay connected using video calls. Zoom’s easy-to-use platform is ideal for individuals who are searching for simple ways to connect online. However, a crucial feature the conferencing platform currently lacks is live captioning..

Live captioning transcribes speech into on-screen text in real-time. It offers accessibility – no matter where a viewer is located – and further provides inclusion to foreign-language speakers and individuals who have hearing impairments. A study also found that 80% of people who use captions in general do not have difficulty hearing, which suggests that it could be beneficial for a large subset of users. Furthermore, 98.6% of higher education students benefited from captions, as it helped with focusing, retaining information, and understanding videos or meetings with poor audio quality.