Use Otter.ai to Transcribe SME Interviews Automatically

What This Does

Otter.ai automatically transcribes your subject matter expert meetings and interviews in real time, producing a searchable, exportable text document. You can focus on asking good questions instead of furiously taking notes.

Before You Start

• Free Otter.ai account at otter.ai (free tier: 300 minutes/month)
• Otter.ai browser extension installed (for automatic Zoom/Teams integration)
• You have a scheduled SME meeting or a recording to upload
• Time needed: 10 minutes to set up; transcription runs automatically during the meeting
• Cost: Free (300 min/month) / $17/mo (Pro, 1200 min/month)

Steps

1. Connect Otter.ai to your calendar

Go to otter.ai → click your profile icon → "Account Settings" → "Integrations." Connect your Google Calendar or Outlook calendar. Otter.ai will automatically detect upcoming meetings with video links and offer to join as a "note-taker bot."

What you should see: Your upcoming meetings appear in the Otter.ai home screen under "Upcoming."

2. Set up automatic recording for your SME meeting

Go to your meeting listing → click the toggle next to "Auto-join meetings." Otter will automatically start transcribing when your Zoom/Teams meeting begins.

Alternatively: For an in-person meeting, open the Otter.ai mobile app and tap the microphone button to start a live recording.

What you should see: A "Recording" indicator appears during the meeting. Transcription happens in real time.

Troubleshooting: If Otter doesn't auto-join, open otter.ai in your browser during the meeting and click "Start recording" manually.

3. Run your SME interview (let Otter work)

Conduct your normal SME content extraction interview. Ask your questions, let the expert talk. You don't need to take notes. If the SME shares their screen to show you a system or document, describe it aloud so Otter captures the context in the transcript.

Tip: At the start of the meeting, say "[SME Name] is explaining [topic area] for [course name]" to give yourself a searchable anchor point when you review the transcript later.

4. Review and search the transcript

After the meeting, go to otter.ai → click the conversation to open it. The full transcript appears with timestamps and speaker labels. Use the search bar at the top to find specific topics (e.g., "exception process" or "escalation steps").

What you should see: Every instance of your search term highlighted in the transcript, with surrounding context. Click any timestamp to jump to that moment in the recording.

5. Export for course development

Click Export → choose TXT or DOCX. Paste sections into your course outline or storyboard as your content source. Alternatively, copy the full transcript and paste it into Claude or ChatGPT with the prompt: "Extract the 8 most important things a new employee needs to know from this SME interview. Format as learning points."

Real Example

Scenario: You're designing a 45-minute onboarding course for new sales reps and need to extract the key steps of your company's sales process from a 60-minute interview with your VP of Sales.

What you do: Otter joins the Zoom meeting automatically. You interview the VP for 60 minutes. Afterward, you search the transcript for "step," "process," and "mistake." You copy the relevant sections into Claude and ask it to extract and sequence the key process steps. You have a structured course outline in under an hour.

What you get: A complete, sourced content extraction without a single page of manual notes, plus a recording you can re-reference if something is unclear.

Tips

• Always identify speakers at the start of the meeting ("Hi, I'm [Name] and I'm the training lead"). Otter labels speakers, and accuracy improves when it hears names.
• Use the Highlights feature to flag important quotes during the meeting. Tap the star icon when the SME says something particularly important.
• Export to DOCX and use "Find & Replace" to clean up any transcription errors in proper nouns or company terminology before sharing with others

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