Microsoft Teams: Meeting organizers can automatically start transcription without recording

Introduction

Meeting organizers can now select Transcribe only as an automatic meeting option in Microsoft Teams. This setting starts transcription automatically when the meeting begins—without creating a recording—providing more granular control in meetings where recording is restricted due to compliance or privacy policies while still supporting accessibility, Microsoft Copilot, and Intelligent Recap.

This message applies to Teams for Windows desktop, Teams for Mac desktop, and Teams for the web.

Screenshot: Updated meeting options showing Off, Record and transcribe, and Transcribe only:

When this will happen:

• Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out in late April 2026 and expect to complete by late April 2026.
• General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out in early May 2026 and expect to complete by mid-May 2026.

How this affects your organization:

Who is affected:

• Microsoft Teams meeting organizers with transcription enabled through meeting policies
• Admins managing Teams meeting and recording policies

What will happen:

• Previously, the Record and transcribe automatically meeting option was a single on/off toggle that always started both recording and transcription together.  This option will be replaced with a list of automatic meeting settings when scheduling a meeting:
  • Off: No automatic recording or transcription (default)
  • Record and transcribe: Both recording and transcription start automatically (same as previous automatic recording behavior)
  • Transcribe only: Only transcription starts automatically; no recording is created
• When Transcribe only is selected, the meeting transcript is generated and available after the meeting without any recording artifact being stored.
• The meeting policy AllowTranscription must be set to On for the organizer to see the Transcribe only option.
• If the Who can record and transcribe meeting option is set to No one, all automatic transcription options (including Transcribe only) are forced Off.
• Standard Teams transcription (included in Microsoft 365 E3/E5) is sufficient for the Transcribe only option. No additional license is required.

What you can do to prepare:

• No administrative action is required before the rollout.
• Review your organization's meeting policies to ensure AllowTranscription is enabled for users who require this capability.
• Update internal documentation or training materials to reflect the new meeting option.
• Notify meeting organizers about the availability of the Transcribe only setting.

Learn more: Manage meeting transcription and captions in Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

Compliance considerations: