AssemblyAI vs Google
AssemblyAI Universal-3 Pro vs Google Gemini 3 Flash for transcription. WER: 3.1% vs 2.9% — edge Google Computed from public benchmarks with dated sources; updated 2026-08-20.
Head to head
| Axis | AssemblyAI Universal-3 Pro | Google Gemini 3 Flash | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $3.5 per 1000 min | $1.92 per 1000 min* | — |
| WER | 3.1% | 2.9% | |
| Langs | 99 | — | — |
| Latency | 150 ms | — | — |
| diarization | ✓ | — | — |
| timestamps | ✓ | — | — |
| vocab | ✓ | — | — |
* token-/credit-priced — the headline understates real per-unit cost, so no price edge is awarded.
Strengths & caveats
AssemblyAICheapest of the directly-comparable dedicated APIs ($3.50/1000 min) with the widest language coverage (99) and full diarization, timestamps and custom vocabulary; ~150 ms P50 streaming. Accuracy (3.1% WER) trails the leaders; the cheaper legacy Universal-2 tier is less accurate still. AssemblyAI now lists Universal-3.5 Pro as its flagship at the same $3.50/1000 min, but no independent leaderboard score exists for it yet, so the WER here still refers to Universal-3 Pro.GoogleStrong accuracy (2.9% WER) and broad multilingual coverage as part of a multimodal model. Speech-to-text is a feature of a general LLM, not a dedicated transcription API: no native diarization, word-timestamps or custom vocabulary. The $1.92/1000 min is input-audio tokens only (output transcript billed separately), so it is not directly comparable to per-minute STT pricing.
Sources
- Artificial Analysis — Speech to Text2026-08-20
- Open ASR Leaderboard2026-06-19