20 Years Later: A Voice-to-Text Solution

I had high hopes for Apple’s Siri (2011) and Amazon’s Alexa (2015). I had been testing voice-to-text solutions since 2005 (Dragon NaturallySpeaking). Unfortunately, despite working hard to tune them, speaking slowly, and manipulating my voice, the results sucked.

At best, I could achieve 95% accuracy, which sounds great. However, I had to continually go back and spend more time fixing errors via the keyboard. I may as well just type.

It's crazy that Siri is still worthless to me in 2025. It invents words that it thought I said, and I can't trust it for a simple brain dump. I've sent texts to my wife while driving that resulted in a "WTF?!" response. Not good.

I'm pleased to report that I found a solution!

For the last two months, I've been using Monologue by Every (not an affiliate link). I've dictated over 60,000 words at a pace of 120 to 200 per minute with 99% accuracy. It's a game-changer.

For the first time since 2005, I'm speaking more than I'm typing!

The best part? I don't need to slow down my speech! I type at 70 words a minute and can speak at 200. That's a game changer for me (3x the speed).

60,000 words is non-trivial. The average non-fiction business book manuscript is about 100,000. I'm almost two-thirds through a book's worth of dictation. At my current pace, I'll dictate two books worth of text by Jan 1st, 2026.

I’m not the only one feeling this euphoria. LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman posted an X thread about his excitement and the ramifications of this behavioral change.

If you’re looking for a dictation solution, now’s a great time to try one.