Plain dictation or AI dictation: what’s the difference?

What plain dictation does

It transcribes your words as they come, in the order you say them: the ums, the “I mean”s, the sentences you restart halfway and the rough punctuation are left for you to fix by hand.

For a short message, that is fine. As soon as you think while you talk, you spend as long rereading and fixing as you would typing.

What AI dictation adds

One more step: once your voice is transcribed, an AI reads the text and cleans it up, the way you would when rereading yourself.

• Hesitations and repetitions disappear.
• When you correct yourself mid-sentence, only the right version stays.
• Punctuation, capitals and spelling are fixed.
• The meaning and the tone of your message are kept.

The same sentence, both ways

First what plain dictation would write, then what Saymila writes.

When it really makes a difference

• Long messages: you tell the story, and no longer reread it sentence by sentence.
• Work messages: a Pro Email or Formal style writes well-worded text from a few sentences said out loud.
• When you are searching for words: hesitate and start over, only the result counts.
• In another language: speak your own, the text comes out translated.

Want your exact words? The Verbatim style stays as close as possible to what you said.

What you should know

The AI clean-up needs an internet connection: it happens on our server, from the transcribed text. That text is never stored there.

Your voice, though, does not leave your device: on iPhone, Mac and Windows, speech recognition happens on the device; on Android too, whenever the phone can do it.

On your phone and on your computer

On iPhone and Android, Saymila is a keyboard: it opens wherever you type, except in password fields. On a Mac and on Windows, there is no keyboard to install: hold a key, talk, and the text is typed wherever your cursor is.