How to Get Live Translated Captions in Microsoft Teams (With or Without Teams Premium)
Anyone can turn on Teams live captions, but translated captions need the meeting organizer to hold a Teams Premium or Microsoft 365 Copilot license before attendees can choose a translation language. If the organizer does not have one, use Avoce: join the Teams meeting on the web in Chrome, click the extension, and get bilingual captions for yourself, with no license and no IT ticket.
Teams built-in captions vs. translation: what’s free and what isn’t
According to Microsoft’s help page, Teams live captions are generated by Microsoft speech recognition, any attendee can turn them on under More actions › Language and speech › Show live captions, and they are not saved after the meeting. Translated captions are part of the Teams Premium and Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on licenses: if the meeting organizer holds one, every attendee can pick a translation language without needing their own license.
- Live captions (original language): free, turned on by you.
- Translated captions: the organizer needs Teams Premium or a Microsoft 365 Copilot license; if they have it, everyone in the meeting can use it.
- Around 50 spoken languages are detected, with 28 translation targets including Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Thai.
- Accuracy drops when several people speak at once; captions are not saved, so turn on transcription separately if you need a record.
Turn on Avoce captions
- Install the Avoce extension from the Chrome Web Store and sign in once at avoce.ai.
- Open the Teams meeting link and choose “Continue on this browser” on the page that offers to open the app.
- Once in the meeting, click the Avoce icon in the toolbar, pick the source language (or auto-detect) and the target language, and start translating the tab.
- Bilingual captions float over Teams on the web; drag them or resize the text. You still hear the original audio.
- After the meeting, export the transcript (txt, Markdown, SRT).
Built-in captions or Avoce?
| Teams built-in translated captions | Avoce extension | |
|---|---|---|
| License required | Organizer needs Teams Premium or Microsoft 365 Copilot for translation | No license check; any Teams meeting works |
| Who turns it on | The organizer’s license decides; attendees then pick a language | You install and start it; no IT ticket |
| Which client | Desktop app, web, or mobile | Web only (the extension captures tab audio) |
| Who sees the captions | Only you | Only you |
| Beyond meetings | Teams only | Meet, Zoom web, Webex, YouTube, live streams |
| Cost | Included in the organizer’s add-on license | Per-minute points, 1 point = 1 minute, 20 free minutes for new accounts |
Platform-specific notes
The Avoce extension captures the browser tab’s audio: what others say becomes captions, while your own microphone is not part of the tab audio. Captions appear only on your screen and are never sent into the meeting or video, and nothing has to join the call.
- Use Teams on the web: desktop-app audio is not in a browser tab. If your work laptop always opens the app, type teams.microsoft.com into Chrome’s address bar and join from there.
- Teams’ free original-language captions can stay on alongside Avoce: one for the original, one for the translation.
- To caption your own speech as well, open avoce.ai/live with the microphone.
- If your company’s device policy restricts extensions, check that Chrome can install them before the meeting.
A one-hour meeting ≈ 60 points, about US$3.7 on the $10.99 / 180-point pack. Transcript-only mode costs a quarter of that (1 point = 4 minutes).
Frequently asked questions
I do not have Teams Premium. Can I see translated captions?
If the meeting organizer holds a Teams Premium or Microsoft 365 Copilot license, you can pick a translation language. If they do not, Teams only offers original-language captions. Avoce ignores licensing and works in any Teams meeting.
Why does it have to be Teams on the web?
The extension captures browser-tab audio. The desktop app is a separate program whose audio never passes through a tab, so there is nothing to capture.
Will company IT know? Could it violate policy?
Avoce processes, inside your browser, audio you already hear. It does not join the meeting or change any Teams settings, and audio is processed in real time without being stored on Avoce’s servers. Whether that fits your company’s data policy is for your company’s rules to decide.
Are Teams live captions saved?
According to Microsoft, captions are not saved after the meeting; turn on transcription if you need a record. Avoce keeps the transcript in your browser and exports it as txt, Markdown, or SRT.