OpenAI's new GPT Transcribe is cheaper — but it still trails Mistral and ElevenLabs
openai launched gpt transcribe and gpt live transcribe, lowering prices by 25% and cutting error rates to 3.31%. despite gains, it still lags behind elevenlabs, google, and mistral on the aa-wer benchmark.
openai introduced two new speech recognition models, gpt transcribe for pre-recorded audio and gpt live transcribe for streaming. pricing dropped 25% to $0.0045 per minute, and word error rate improved by 0.7 percentage points to 3.31%. however, the artificial analysis benchmark shows openai still trails elevenlabs scribe v2 (2.3%), google gemini 3 pro (2.9%), and mistral voxtral small (3%). mistral's recent aggressive pricing at $0.003 per minute further pressures the market. this release signals that openai is responding to commoditization in audio intelligence but has not yet reclaimed top performance.