Unlock Samsung’s hidden Galaxy AI feature to enhance live captions

While not as big of an upgrade as One UI 7, Samsung’s Android 16-based One UI 8 still packs plenty of meaningful improvements. There’s deeper Galaxy AI integration as well for a better experience. Samsung also includes a new Voice captioning feature in One UI 8, enabling real-time speech-to-text translation. While the feature is China-exclusive and not a part of the global One UI 8 build, you can sideload the APK to enable it on your Galaxy phone.

Samsung phones already ship with Live Captions, enabling them to transcribe voice to text in real time. However, the feature does not translate the text into a language you are familiar with.

Voice captioning aims to solve this problem, as it supports “real-time conversion of speech to captions, and it can also provide translations in multiple languages.” Samsung says the feature is best suited for conference calls or speakers (via @GalaxyTechie).

Unlike Live Captions, Voice captioning supports multiple languages, though you must download the language packs for translation beforehand.

Think of Voice captioning like Galaxy AI’s Live Translate feature, which transcribes and translates voice and WhatsApp calls in real-time. Voice captioning extends the same functionality to other apps. You can use the feature with your phone’s audio, microphone audio, or both simultaneously.

The translation appears in a floating, transparent black overlay that you can move and resize to suit your needs. Plus, there’s an option to generate a summary of the translated text at the end. And when you close the overlay window, you’ll get a prompt to save the transcribed text as a Word file.

Sideload the APK to try Voice captioning today

You can try sideloading the APK on your Galaxy phone running One UI 7 or One UI 8 to see if Voice captioning works. Once installed, add the Voice captioning tile to the Quick Settings panel and tap it whenever you want to activate the feature. The feature worked reliably on my Galaxy S23 Ultra running One UI 7 and the July security patch, though your mileage may vary.

Samsung could bundle Voice captioning in the stable One UI 8 build for the Galaxy S25 series and eventually bring it to its newest foldables.