I’m the developer of Transcribe Audio to Text Chrome extension that performs audio-to-text transcription using Whisper AI. I’m currently working on an update where I experimented heavily with streaming transcription and different architectural setups

In my experience, achieving true real-time transcription using Whisper API is not really feasible at the moment — especially when you’re aiming for coherent, context-aware output. Whisper processes chunks holistically, and when forced into a pseudo-streaming mode (e.g., with very short segments), it loses context and the resulting transcription tends to be fragmented or semantically broken

After multiple experiments, I ended up implementing a slight delay between recording and transcription. Instead of true live streaming, I batch short audio chunks, then process them with Whisper. This delay is small enough to feel responsive, but large enough to preserve context and greatly improve output quality.

For mobile or React Native scenarios, you might consider this hybrid model: record short buffered segments, then send them asynchronously for transcription. It won’t be word-by-word real-time, but it offers a much better balance between speed and linguistic quality