Read call transcripts
Turn on transcription for calls your team answers, then read what was said without replaying the recording.
Signals can turn a recorded call into text you can read and search. Finding the one sentence that mattered stops meaning replaying the whole call.
Transcription is included at no extra cost.
Two different switches
These are separate, and mixing them up is the usual source of confusion:
| Switch | Covers | Default |
|---|---|---|
| voicemail transcription | messages callers leave | On |
| Call Transcription | calls a person on your team answered | Off |
Calls the AI receptionist answers are transcribed by the assistant itself, so they arrive with a transcript whether or not Call Transcription is on.
Turn on Call Transcription
You need to be a manager or an admin. Agents can read transcripts but cannot change the setting.
- Go to Call Routing
- Find Call Transcription under Missed Call Handling
- Switch it on
The change saves on its own. It applies to calls from that point forward. Signals does not go back and transcribe calls that already happened.
The switch sits under Missed Call Handling even though it covers answered calls too. We know it reads oddly there and intend to move it.
Read a transcript
Open any call from the Work Queue, a conversation, or Call History, then expand Transcript.
Transcripts show who spoke and what they said, with an offset from the start of the call. Where the assistant took an action mid-call, that appears as an action rather than as speech.
When there is no transcript
A call can be missing one for reasons worth telling apart:
- Still being written. A transcript usually lands a few minutes after the call ends.
- Not kept for this account. Your account is set not to hold what was said on a call.
- No speech captured. The call connected but nothing was recorded.
- Speakers could not be told apart. The recording kept both sides on one track, so there is no record of who said what.
Signals says which of these applies rather than showing an empty panel.
Call summaries are a separate choice
Call Summaries lets a model read a stored transcript and write a short summary onto the call. It is off by default and asked separately, because keeping your own copy of a call and having software read it are different decisions.
Turn it on in the same place, under Call Summaries.
Privacy
Transcripts are stored under your account's own encryption key and follow your retention settings.
Recording consent is a separate setting from transcription, and laws differ by state. Transcription turns an existing recording into text; it does not change who is recorded or what they are told.