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AI Enhancement

AI Enhancement

How Echo uses AI to clean up, reformat, and improve your transcriptions after they're captured.

AI Enhancement is a post-transcription step that takes your raw spoken words and transforms them into polished, ready-to-use text. It can fix grammar, remove filler words, restructure sentences, format emails, clean up technical speech, or even act as an AI assistant that responds to your voice.

How It Works

When you finish recording, Echo sends your transcription to an AI model along with a prompt that tells it what to do. The AI processes the text and returns an improved version, which is then pasted or copied as your final output.

The pipeline looks like this:

  1. You speak and Echo transcribes your audio
  2. If AI Enhancement is enabled for the active profile, the transcription is sent to your chosen AI provider
  3. The AI applies your selected prompt (cleanup, rewrite, email formatting, etc.)
  4. The enhanced text replaces the raw transcription in your clipboard or paste output

What It Can Do

AI Enhancement is controlled by prompts -- instructions that tell the AI how to handle your text. Echo ships with two built-in prompts and several templates to get you started:

  • Default -- Cleans up grammar, removes filler words ("um", "uh", "like"), fixes self-corrections, formats lists, and converts spoken numbers to digits. Preserves your voice and personality.
  • Assistant -- Treats your speech as a question or request and provides a direct answer, using your screen and clipboard as context.

You can also create custom prompts for specific use cases like email drafting, coding conversations, meeting notes, or creative writing. See Prompts for details.

Setting Up AI Enhancement

AI Enhancement requires two things: an AI provider with an API key, and an Adaptive Awareness profile with enhancement enabled.

Step 1: Connect an AI Provider

  1. Open Echo and go to Settings > Intelligence tab
  2. Under AI Provider Integration, choose a provider and add your API key (see Setup)

Step 2: Enable Enhancement in Your Profile

AI Enhancement is configured through Adaptive Awareness profiles. Your Default profile controls what happens during normal use, and you can create additional profiles for specific apps, websites, or voice triggers.

  1. Open Adaptive Awareness in the sidebar
  2. Select your Default profile (or any profile you want to configure)
  3. In the Intelligent Transformation section, toggle Enable Intelligent Transformation on
  4. Choose your provider, model, and prompt
  5. Optionally enable Screen capture or Clipboard context for richer AI awareness

Once enabled on your Default profile, AI Enhancement runs on every transcription unless a different profile overrides it.

Switching Prompts During Recording

You can change prompts on the fly using keyboard shortcuts while the recorder is visible:

  • Command + E -- Toggle enhancement on or off
  • Command + 1 through Command + 0 -- Switch between your saved prompts by number

Context Sources

AI Enhancement becomes more accurate when it understands what you're working on. Echo can automatically provide context from these sources:

  • Screen capture -- A snapshot of your active window, so the AI knows what you're looking at. Configurable per profile. See Screen Context.
  • Selected text -- Whatever text you've highlighted before recording, giving the AI something specific to reference. Always active when enhancement is enabled. See Selected Text.
  • Clipboard -- The current contents of your clipboard. Configurable per profile.
  • Personal vocabulary -- Your custom dictionary of names, terms, and jargon, so the AI spells them correctly. Always included. See Vocabulary.

Tips

  • AI Enhancement requires an internet connection for cloud providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, etc.). For fully offline enhancement, use Ollama.
  • You can quickly toggle enhancement on or off from the recorder window without opening settings.
  • If a transcription comes back unchanged or odd, check that your selected prompt matches your use case -- the Default prompt will not answer questions, while the Assistant prompt will.
  • Configure your Default profile first. It acts as your baseline, and you only need additional profiles when you want different behavior in specific contexts.

Audio File Transcription

Transcribe existing audio and video files by dragging them into Echo or using the file picker.

Setting Up AI Providers

How to connect Echo to an AI provider for transcription enhancement.

On this page

How It WorksWhat It Can DoSetting Up AI EnhancementStep 1: Connect an AI ProviderStep 2: Enable Enhancement in Your ProfileSwitching Prompts During RecordingContext SourcesTipsRelated