What is Speech-to-Text? (STT / ASR / Automatic Speech Recognition)
2 min read · Bolcho
The technology that converts spoken audio into written text, so a language model can understand what the caller said.
Speech-to-Text explained
Speech-to-text (also called ASR) is the 'ears' of a voice agent. Its accuracy — measured as word error rate — decides whether the agent understood the caller, and it's much harder for accented, code-switched Indian speech than for clean English.
Bolcho uses Indic-tuned STT (like Sarvam and Deepgram) with failover, so a Hinglish caller in Jaipur is transcribed correctly even over a noisy line.
Why it matters for voice AI in India
Understanding speech-to-text helps you build voice agents that actually work for Indian callers, genuine languages, low latency, and near-cost pricing. Bolcho is built around exactly these fundamentals.
See it in a real agent
Bolcho handles this for you end-to-end. Start a voice or chat agent free.
Frequently asked questions
What does Speech-to-Text mean?
The technology that converts spoken audio into written text, so a language model can understand what the caller said.
Why does speech-to-text matter in voice AI?
Bolcho uses Indic-tuned STT (like Sarvam and Deepgram) with failover, so a Hinglish caller in Jaipur is transcribed correctly even over a noisy line.