SurveyCTO Unveils AI Translation and Transcription to Scale Audio and Multilingual Data Collection

Reduce time-intensive burden associated with manual translation and transcription and accelerate AI-powered workflows post-data collection.

MA, UNITED STATES, October 13, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- SurveyCTO, the data collection software used for high-stakes data collection and research, releases new AI-powered translation and transcription functionality to greatly reduce time and costs associated with translation and transcription work. The features also empower organizations to more effectively leverage the analytical strengths of AI when data is in a text format.

44% Of Data Collection Professionals Spend 5+ Hours Performing Manual Transcription or Translation
A September 2026 survey of 79 SurveyCTO users who transcribe or translate survey responses revealed that 44% of them spent over 5 hours manually doing so.

Historically, audio recordings had to be manually listened to to extract learnings or discover errors. If teams wanted to systematically analyze that data, they had to further transcribe those recordings into text. With multilingual data collection, teams had to enlist help from third party translation services or software.

“This time investment into manual processes is precisely why we developed this functionality.” says Lawrence Li, CEO of SurveyCTO. “With the advancements in artificial intelligence today, organizations should be able to use their time to perform activities that meaningfully drive their goals forward and take advantage of one of the strengths of AI: text-based transformation and analysis.”

For organizations today where field work and data collection efforts are increasingly widespread across a variety of environments, AI translation and transcription scales that work while consolidating the historical cost centers associated with that work.

“Teams can also use this data that’s been transformed into text to create data analysis or QA workflows,” says Li. “We haven’t been able to take advantage of these workflows before simply because the historical speed and cost made them an unattractive investment for organizations. No longer.”

Keeping Experts In The Loop
The new AI-powered translation and transcription features are also designed to keep experts within the data collection and post-data collection process.

“Central to our ethos of principled innovation is ensuring that humans—practitioners who know the work deeply—are kept close to this process,” says Li. “We’re making it easier for AI to do what it’s good at without taking experts out of the equation. You cannot and should not design functionality that removes too much friction from the process. Humans, particularly in rigorous fields like research, are essential.”

Manual review, intentional checkpoints, and in-product flags are interspersed throughout the translation and transcription process to ensure human oversight.

“This release also marks the first step in us bringing the power of AI into post-data collection processing,” says Li. “We’re fast following this release with even more AI functionality to allow our users to leverage AI in workflows downstream of data collection.”

The features are available now for all paid users of SurveyCTO. Start taking advantage of AI translation and transcription for your organization and learn more at https://www.surveycto.com/plans/.

About SurveyCTO
SurveyCTO is a data collection software platform used by over 15,000 organizations around the world to securely and reliably capture data in the field or on the web. Nonprofits, international development organizations, governmental agencies, healthcare providers, and academic and market research institutions rely on SurveyCTO to measure impact, monitor performance, track longitudinal projects, and capture sensitive data.

SurveyCTO is the flagship product of Dobility, Inc., and its mission is to drive better data-driven decision making via accessible and flexible technology.

Shirley Sweeney
SurveyCTO
marketing@surveycto.com
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Transcribe & Translate Survey Responses in SurveyCTO with AI - Scale Audio and Multilingual Projects