Which Real-Time AI Transcription Tool Wins? A Hands‑On Comparison of Tongyi Qianwen, Tencent Ima, Alibaba Tingwu, and iFlytek

Problem Statement

During the GOSIM HANGZHOU 2025 conference multiple AI talks ran in parallel, making it difficult to capture complete notes with traditional pen‑and‑paper or manual transcription. The requirement was a real‑time speech‑to‑text solution that (1) supports Chinese, English and Japanese, (2) offers optional translation, (3) works on mobile devices, and (4) produces output that can be fed directly into downstream AI workflows such as summarisation or Q&A.

Tool Evaluation

Tongyi Qianwen – Comprehensive Strength

Official site: https://www.tongyi.com/discover

Usage flow:

Select the “Real‑time Record” feature in the “Discovery” module.

Choose the source language – Chinese, English, Japanese, Cantonese, or “Free‑talk” for mixed language.

Optionally enable real‑time translation to English or Japanese.

Tap “Start Recording” to begin capture; the engine behind the scenes is “Tongyi Tingwu”.

Strengths:

No visible time or storage caps in the free tier.

Supports five source languages and two target languages for translation.

Weaknesses:

When Chinese and English are mixed and “Free‑talk” is not selected, English segments are frequently mis‑recognised as Chinese.

Transcripts are exported manually; there is no built‑in API to pipe the output directly into an LLM for summarisation.

Tencent Ima Knowledge Base – “I’m a Copilot”

Official site: https://ima.qq.com/download

Core architecture: built on Tencent Mixed‑Model and DeepSeek R1, providing search, knowledge‑graph organisation, writing assistance and Q&A across devices.

Recent mobile update adds a “Recording Summary” function:

Open the mobile app, choose “Recording Summary”.

Record audio or upload an existing file.

The service generates a transcript and stores it in a personal knowledge base.

Users can query the transcript via conversational UI.

Strengths:

Generous free quota of 50 GB per month, sufficient for heavy conference usage.

Mobile‑first design enables on‑site capture without a laptop.

Weaknesses:

Desktop workflow requires manual import of the transcript; no native web‑based recorder.

Free quota may still be exhausted for multi‑day events.

Alibaba Tongyi Tingwu – Enterprise Version

Official site: https://tingwu.aliyun.com/home

Workflow for real‑time transcription:

Grant microphone permission to the web app.

Select the source language and optionally enable cross‑language translation.

Click “Start Recording”.

During the session the system performs speaker diarisation, displays live subtitles, and stores the raw transcript.

Additional features:

Automatic summarisation after the session.

Secondary editing interface for correcting diarisation errors.

Export to common formats (TXT, JSON) for downstream AI pipelines.

Strengths:

Speaker diarisation distinguishes multiple speakers, useful for meetings with designated note‑takers.

20 GB of free transcription storage; no explicit time limit for the enterprise tier.

Weaknesses:

No dedicated mobile app; the web interface is less convenient on smartphones.

iFlytek Listening – Veteran with Strong Paid Features

Official site: https://www.iflyrec.com/zhuanwenzi.html

Key capabilities:

Supports the widest range of languages and dialects among the four tools.

Integrates AI‑assisted summarisation directly into the transcript view.

Free‑tier limits (as of the conference date):

20 minutes of real‑time transcription per session.

1 GB cloud storage for uploaded audio.

No high‑precision models, no voice translation, and a maximum single‑recording length of two hours.

During the conference the 20‑minute free window was insufficient, so a one‑month membership was purchased to unlock unlimited minutes.

Conclusion and Recommendation

Ranking by overall value for conference‑scale real‑time capture:

Tongyi Qianwen – strongest overall capability, free tier without apparent limits, but requires manual export for AI post‑processing.

Tencent Ima Knowledge Base – unique mobile‑first recorder and a very high 50 GB free quota; desktop workflow is less smooth.

Alibaba Tongyi Tingwu – professional‑grade diarisation and summarisation; lack of a native mobile app makes on‑site use clunky.

iFlytek Listening – technically advanced language coverage and built‑in AI summarisation; free tier constraints force a paid upgrade for extended sessions.

For critical meetings, start with Tongyi Qianwen for unrestricted capture, fall back to Ima Knowledge Base when mobile recording is essential, and consider Tingwu or iFlytek when speaker diarisation or dialect support is a priority.