Gemini 3.5 Transcribe measured: 2.6% WER, and a live variant at 0.40s

Google has released Gemini 3.5 Transcribe, ranking #5 on AA-WER at 2.6%, alongside Gemini 3.5 Transcribe Live, achieving 4.0% AA-WER Streaming at 0.40s after speech end @GoogleAI's Gemini 3.5 Transcribe release comprises two API offerings: Gemini 3.5 Transcribe Live for continuous streaming through the Live API, and Gemini 3.5 Transcribe for pre-recorded audio through the Interactions API. Both support 85+ languages, custom vocabulary and automatic text formatting, while the pre-recorded API adds timestamped multi-speaker identification for up to three speakers, with support beyond three currently experimental. Key takeaways ➤ Non-streaming transcription: Gemini 3.5 Transcribe achieves 2.6% AA-WER, ranking #5 overall, and processes audio at approximately 84× realtime. ➤ First Final Transcription: Gemini 3.5 Transcribe Live achieves 4.0% WER, with its first final-denoted transcript arriving 0.40s after VAD-detected end of speech. ➤ First Partial Transcription: Gemini 3.5 Transcribe Live achieves 5.8% WER, with its first transcript-bearing event arriving 0.25s after detected end of speech. ➤ Price: Gemini 3.5 Transcribe costs approximately $5 per 1,000 minutes and Transcribe Live $9, assuming 25 audio tokens per second and 175 text tokens per minute at their respective API rates ($2 per 1M audio input tokens and $12 per 1M text output tokens for Transcribe; $3.50 and $21, respectively, for Live). See more details below ⬇️

Gemini 3.5 Transcribe processes approximately 84 seconds of audio per second and costs approximately $5 per 1,000 minutes. Among other models in the top five for non-streaming accuracy, it is faster than ElevenLabs Scribe v2 at 55× realtime, although slower than Microsoft MAI-Transcribe-1.5 at 191× and Smallest AI Pulse Pro at 275×. It is less expensive than MAI-Transcribe-1.5 at $6 per 1,000 minutes, but more expensive than Scribe v2 at $3.67 and Smallest AI Pulse Pro at $4.

On First Partial Transcription, Gemini 3.5 Transcribe Live achieves 5.8% WER at 0.25s after detected end of speech. GPT Live Transcribe achieves 6.3% WER at 0.26s, making Gemini slightly faster and more accurate at this measurement point.

Gemini 3.5 Transcribe Live costs approximately $9 per 1,000 minutes, based on Google’s estimate of 25 audio input tokens per second and 175 text output tokens per minute, with API pricing of $3.50 per 1M input tokens and $21 per 1M output tokens. This is higher than Cartesia Ink-2 at $4, Deepgram Nova-3 Realtime at $4.80 and ElevenLabs Scribe v2 Realtime at $6.50.