Documenting a city council or committee meeting is more than just an administrative task. Accurate, verbatim meeting records are essential for transparency, accountability, and keeping track of public-sector decisions.
For the Mayor’s Office of Budapest (Budapest City Hall), maintaining reliable records is an important part of its daily operations. Committee meetings of the General Assembly of Budapest, along with certain other official discussions, require verbatim transcripts. Preparing these documents used to demand considerable time and staff resources.
This is where Alrite comes in. Our AI-powered speech recognition software helps the office turn meeting recordings into editable transcripts within minutes, making documentation faster and easier to manage.
The challenge: Time-consuming manual transcription
The Municipality of the City of Budapest is responsible for preparing and implementing municipal decisions. Documenting official discussions accurately is an important part of this work.
Previously, staff members manually transcribed meeting recordings, occasionally relying on professional stenographers. Processing lengthy recordings took up valuable working hours, while reviewing and correcting the resulting documents required additional effort.
Preparing verbatim meeting transcripts manually presented several challenges:
- Lengthy audio recordings had to be transcribed accurately.
- Preparing the transcripts required many hours of work.
- Subsequent review and corrections added to the administrative workload, as usable written transcripts were not immediately available after meetings.
Although the Office had established workflows to comply with legal requirements, there was a clear need for a faster, less resource-intensive solution.
Finding the right transcription solution
Mayer’s Office explored the available speech recognition solutions and tested several applications before making its decision.
The most important selection criteria included:
- Transcription accuracy to minimize errors in the generated text.
- Minimal manual correction to reduce the time spent reviewing transcripts.
- Ease of use so staff could work with the software without unnecessary complexity.
- Smooth integration into existing workflows to support everyday administrative tasks.
Following these evaluations, Alrite proved to be the most suitable solution for the office. According to the team’s feedback, Alrite recognized and transcribed spoken content with fewer errors than the competing solutions they tested, reducing the time and effort needed for subsequent corrections.
How does the Municipality of the City of Budapest use Alrite?
The Mayor’s Office currently uses Alrite primarily for its speech-to-text transcription capabilities, converting committee meeting recordings into written transcripts. Once a recording is uploaded, the application automatically converts spoken content into editable text. Staff can then review, correct, and finalize the transcript for official documentation.
This workflow is particularly valuable when information from a meeting is needed shortly after it ends. Rather than starting from scratch and manually typing out the recording, employees can work directly with a searchable transcript.
“One of the advantages of Alrite for us is that it can turn spoken content into a rough yet usable written transcript within minutes, helping us handle tasks that require immediate attention after meetings.”
– Municipality of the City of Budapest
Faster workflows and less administrative work
Compared with previous methods, Alrite has made the transcription process less demanding for staff while helping them complete their work more efficiently.
According to Municipality of the City of Budapest, using Alrite has:
- reduced the time spent on manual transcription,
- lowered the need for staff resources,
- minimized the effort required to review and correct draft transcripts,
- made written, searchable transcripts available sooner,
- simplified administrative and follow-up tasks after meetings.
Although no specific percentage of time saved was reported, feedback from daily use indicates that Alrite has noticeably improved the efficiency of meeting documentation. One of the most valuable benefits is having a usable draft transcript available shortly after a meeting, allowing staff to move forward with their tasks without having to transcribe the entire recording manually.
Why does this matter for public sector organizations?
Accurate documentation is a fundamental requirement in public administration. Records of council and committee meetings must be reliable, accessible and available for subsequent review.
AI-powered transcription does not replace the need for human verification. Instead, it makes the preparation process more efficient. Alrite provides staff with an editable draft transcript, allowing them to focus on reviewing, correcting and finalizing the text rather than manually transcribing the entire recording from scratch.
This approach is particularly valuable for public institutions that regularly prepare verbatim transcripts of lengthy meetings and official discussions, where accuracy and efficient use of resources are equally important.
Product improvements inspired by user feedback
At Alrite, feedback from everyday use plays an important role in how we develop our application. The experience of Municipality of the City of Budapest has also helped us identify opportunities to make reviewing lengthy recordings and editing transcripts more efficient.
One valuable suggestion concerned with the ability to identify words or passages that are difficult to hear or may require further verification. In response, we introduced improvements that help users identify and review uncertain parts of a transcript, making the correction process more manageable.
Another important consideration was the ability to adjust audio playback speed when reviewing recordings. Being able to slow down fast speech or speed up slower passages helps users work through recordings at a pace that suits their needs.
These improvements reflect our commitment to developing Alrite around real-world workflows, making the application increasingly useful for public institutions and other organizations that rely on accurate transcription.
Try Alrite for your organization’s transcription needs
The experience of Municipality of the City of Budapest demonstrates how automatic transcription can support public sector organizations that regularly prepare verbatim meeting records.
With Alrite, audio recordings can be converted into editable, searchable transcripts within minutes. This reduces manual transcription work and allows staff to focus more on reviewing content, finalizing documentation, and handling other essential tasks.
We also offer tailored solutions for municipalities, government offices and public institutions, helping organizations adopt speech recognition technology in a way that fits their existing workflows and transcription requirements.
Try Alrite or contact our team to request a customized offer for your organization.