内容来源：https://www.wired.com/story/meetily-lets-you-transcribe-and-summarize-meetings-without-a-subscription-heres-how/

内容总结：

AI会议助手免费时代来临：开源工具Meetily打破付费壁垒

在人工智能浪潮中，语音转文字技术或许是最不张扬却最实用的创新。如今，一款名为Meetily的开源工具正试图将这项技术免费普及，让会议记录变得前所未有的简单。

作为记者，我曾梦想有台电脑能将录音自动转为文字，如今这一愿望早已实现。而更令人惊喜的是，现在有了专门为会议设计的“会议助手”服务，能自动转录并总结会议内容。然而，这类商业服务通常需要每月10至20美元的费用，且存在隐私隐患——用户需将会议录音上传至云端，这对涉及机密信息的项目并不友好。

Meetily的出现打破了这一局面。这款免费开源工具整合了现成的开源AI模型，提供简洁易用的界面，支持Windows和macOS平台，Linux用户也可通过源码自行编译。虽然名称略显随意，但功能毫不含糊。

使用Meetily非常简单：安装后它会自动下载所需AI模型，然后允许同时捕捉麦克风和系统音频，确保记录会议各方发言。其最大优势在于不受视频会议平台限制，无论是Zoom、Google Meet还是Microsoft Teams，甚至线下面对面会议（只要笔记本麦克风能收音），都能轻松应对。

会议结束后，用户可查看实时生成的转录文字，并可要求AI生成摘要，甚至指定关注重点。值得一提的是，其测试版功能还支持导入已录制的音频或视频文件进行转录，方便处理手机录制的线下对话。

当然，免费版存在一些局限，如无法区分发言人（不标注“谁说了什么”），这对某些用户可能较为关键。不过，市面上还有其他替代方案：noScribe可识别发言人但仅支持文件转换；Anarlog界面更现代但设置稍复杂；Quill虽提供免费本地转录但需注册账号。

尽管存在些许不足，但如此多的免费选择无疑令人欣慰。正如语音输入软件的发展轨迹，相信几个月后这一领域将涌现更多优秀工具。免费会议的智能记录时代，已然开启。

中文翻译：

也许这是AI时代最不张扬却最实用的功能：转录。作为一名年轻记者时，我曾梦想有一台能把录音变成文字的电脑。现在这个梦想成真了，而且效果令人惊叹。

这项技术不仅对采访大有帮助——对会议来说更是完美。有一类叫做“会议助手”的服务，承诺帮你转录并总结会议内容。其吸引力显而易见，但这些服务并不便宜，也存在隐私方面的顾虑。一般来说，使用它们意味着要把会议录音上传到某个云端，这对于需要保密的项目来说并不理想。而且这些工具本身的价格通常在每月10到20美元之间。

正如我之前在介绍转录软件时指出的那样，构建类似会议助手所需的技术是开源的，而且可以免费获取。Meetily把这一切整合在一个简单的包里。没错，这个名字不太好听，但它使用开源模型，免费版本很强大，并且支持Windows和macOS（Linux用户可以从源代码自行编译）。

注意有一个每月10美元的Pro版本，但开源社区版完全免费，可从GitHub下载。安装这个应用程序后，它会提示你安装所需的模型。这些才是真正干活的AI工具。

下载完成后，你需要允许Meetily录制你的麦克风声音和系统音频——这样它就能捕捉到你参与的对话的方方面面。

然后，你在任何视频通话中都可以点击录制按钮。直接访问麦克风和系统声音意味着Meetily不受限于特定的视频会议工具——它可以兼容Zoom、Google Meet、Microsoft Teams以及你能遇到的任何其他服务。理论上你甚至可以用它来记录面对面的会议，前提是你的笔记本电脑麦克风能捕捉到房间里每个人的声音。（如果你想要一个单独的设备，可以考虑购买AI记事本设备。）

在会议期间，如果你愿意，可以近乎实时地看着转录进行，或者最小化窗口，专注于会议本身。会议结束后，点击停止按钮，你就会看到一段转录文本。你可以在此基础上要求AI生成总结。你甚至可以提供指令，说明重点关注哪些要点。

不过，和所有AI工具一样，也有一些需要注意的地方。这些系统并不完美，而且它们的优先级可能和你的不一样。我打算自己根据转录文本来写会议纪要，不过在某些情境下，自动生成的会议总结也可能派上用场。

有一个测试版功能允许你使用之前录制的音频来使用Meetily。这意味着你可以拖入一个音频甚至视频文件，就能得到转录文本和总结。比如你用手机录了一场面对面的对话，回到电脑前想得到一份转录文本，这个功能就很有用。

Meetily的免费版有一些让人不太舒服的限制。转录文本无法标明谁说了什么——没有说话人标签——这对很多人来说是无法接受的。不过我找不到一个能稳定做到这一点的免费开源工具。

如果Meetily不适合你，还有其他几个类似的工具可供选择。例如，noScribe是一个完全免费的工具，可以识别说话人，但它无法实时录制会议（只能转换文件）。Anarlog（原名Hyprnote）的界面可以说更简洁美观，支持多种AI模型，但设置比Meetily稍微麻烦一些。Quill提供免费的本地转录，但你需要注册账号才能使用（这违背了离线工具的初衷），而且还有大量推销推广。

有这么多免费选择真是太好了，如果这个领域的发展轨迹和听写软件类似的话，我敢肯定几个月后会有更多的选择。

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英文来源：

It's perhaps the least hyped, and most useful, feature of the AI age: transcription. As a young journalist, I dreamed of a computer that could turn recordings into text. Now we have that, and it's amazing.
This tech isn't just great for interviews—it's perfect for meetings. A variety of services, called meeting assistants, promise to transcribe and summarize your meetings for you. The appeal here is obvious, but these services don't come cheap or without privacy concerns. Generally, using them means uploading a recording of your meeting to some cloud somewhere, which isn't ideal for projects that require confidentiality. And the tools themselves are generally in the $10 to $20 per month range, price-wise.
Now, as I pointed out with transcription software, the tech for building something like a meeting assistant is open source and widely available for free. Meetily brings it all together in a simple package. Yes, the name is awful, but it uses open-source models, has a great free version, and is available on Windows and macOS (Linux users can build it from source).
Note that there is a Pro version for $10 per month, but the open-source community version is completely free to download from GitHub. Install the application and it will offer to install the models needed. These are the AI tools that do the actual work.
Once those have downloaded, you will need to allow Meetily to record both your microphone's sound and the system audio—that way it can capture all sides of any conversation you're in.
Then you can hit the record button any time you're in a video call. Accessing your microphone and system sound directly means Meetily isn't restricted to specific videoconferencing tools—it'll work with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and any other service you might come across. You can even theoretically use this for an in-person meeting, assuming your laptop's microphone is capable of picking up sound from everyone in the room. (You may want to look at an AI notetaker if you want a separate device.)
During the meeting, you can watch the transcription take place nearly in real time if you want, or minimize the window and focus on your meeting. When the meeting is done, you can click the stop button, at which point you will see a transcription. From here, you can ask for an AI summary. You can even provide instructions about which points to focus on.
Now, as with all AI tools, there are caveats. These systems aren't perfect, and they may not have the same priorities as you. I intend to write my own meeting minutes using the transcript as a guide, but the meeting summary could still prove useful in certain contexts.
A beta feature allows you to use Meetily with recordings you made previously. This means you can drag an audio or even video file and get a transcript and summary. This is useful if you recorded an in-person conversation on your phone, for example, and want to get a transcript when you're back at your computer.
The free version of Meetily has a few annoying limitations. The transcript can't tell you who said what—no speaker labels—which will be a deal-breaker for many people. I could not find a free and open-source tool that did this consistently, though.
There are a few other similar tools out there if Meetily doesn't work for you. For example, noScribe is a completely free tool that can identify speakers, though it can't record meetings in real time (it only converts files). Anarlog (formerly known as Hyprnote) has an arguably sleeker user interface and access to many AI models, but setup was a bit fiddly compared to Meetily. Quill offers free local transcriptions, but you'll need to sign up for an account to use it (which defeats the point of an offline tool), and there's a lot of upselling.
It's great there are so many free options, and if this field is anything like dictation software, I'm sure there will be even more in a few months.
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