Audio Transcription - quickstart
About the Audio Transcriptions API
Section titled “About the Audio Transcriptions API”The Audio Transcriptions API provides a dedicated speech-to-text endpoint for uploaded audio files. It features:
- Performant audio transcription with low word error rate (WER)
- A simple multipart upload flow
- Multilingual support
Prerequisites
- Free trial key saved under a
TRIAL_KEYenvironment variable
- Free trial key saved under a
Setting up the audio file
The Audio Transcriptions endpoint accepts FLAC, MP3, MPEG, MPGA, OGG, and WAV files of 25MB or less. For this quickstart, we'll use the following WAV example.
If you don't have an audio file already, download the example to follow along.
Passing the audio file
Use the following code to pass the audio file to the Audio Transcription endpoint.
curl curl -X POST "https://api.cohere.com/v2/audio/transcriptions" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRIAL_KEY" \ -F "model=cohere-transcribe-03-2026" \ -F "language=en" \ -F "file=@./transcribe-model-sample-derrida-mashup.wav" \For Cohere Transcribe Arabic, use the following snippet. Note: the sample audio in this quickstart is in English, so
languageis set toen. For audio files in which the predominant language is Arabic, make sure to setlanguagetoar.curl curl -X POST "https://api.cohere.com/v2/audio/transcriptions" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRIAL_KEY" \ -F "model=cohere-transcribe-arabic-07-2026" \ -F "language=en" \ -F "file=@./transcribe-model-sample-derrida-mashup.wav" \Install the latest Cohere SDK.
Bash pip -U install cohereImport the
ClientV2class, instantiate it, and then use itscreatemethod to pass the audio file.Python from cohere import ClientV2 import os api_key = os.environ["TRIAL_KEY"] client = ClientV2(api_key) with open("transcribe-model-sample-derrida-mashup.wav", "rb") as f: response = client.audio.transcriptions.create( model="cohere-transcribe-03-2026", language="en", file=f ) print(response)For those using Cohere Transcribe Arabic, this step becomes the following. Note: the sample audio in this quickstart is in English, so
languageis set toen. For audio files in which the predominant language is Arabic, make sure to setlanguagetoar.Python from cohere import ClientV2 import os api_key = os.environ["TRIAL_KEY"] client = ClientV2(api_key) with open("transcribe-model-sample-derrida-mashup.wav", "rb") as f: response = client.audio.transcriptions.create( model="cohere-transcribe-arabic-07-2026", language="en", file=f, ) print(response)Receiving the response
It should return a response similar to the following.
Bash {"text":"I speak only one language, and it's not my own, but the poet is a man of metaphor."}Bash text="I speak only one language, and it's not my own, but the poet is a man of metaphor."