Speech Recognition for 1,600+ languages

Meta has published Omnilingual ASR, an open-source multilingual automatic speech recognition (ASR) release covering 1,600+ languages, with an accompanying research publication & official repository.

This is positioned as broadly reusable speech-to-text infrastructure rather than a single product deployment.

This puts upward pressure on the Equality dial. Low-resource and historically unsupported languages get materially better baseline coverage, reducing exclusion driven by “language availability” gaps. Open access enables local organisations (education, civic services, disability support) to adopt ASR without waiting for commercial prioritisation of high-demand markets. Wider language coverage can shift where speech interfaces work reliably, improving access for communities that are typically left out of mainstream speech tech.

“Omnilingual ASR expands coverage to more than 1,600 languages, the largest such effort to date—including over 500 never before served by any ASR system.” - Meta

Open models lower experimentation costs, increasing the likelihood of targeted, community-led adaptations for under-served languages.

> The interface layer is thickening. If you disagree with my interpretation, or you’ve spotted a better signal then reply and tell me.