Having worked on it for nearly a year, Google is now rolling out its tremendously useful real-time captions feature to all current versions of the Chrome browser on the desktop.
How to Enable Live Captions in Chrome
This new capability requires Chrome 89 or later.
Off by default, the feature can be toggled on in Chrome Settings > Advanced > Accessibility. From there, enable the option labeled Live Caption. "Automatically creates captions for English audio and video," according to the description in Chrome.
If you're on Chrome 89 but don't see the toggle, try restarting the browser. If that doesn't help, however, try again in a few days as this seems to be a staggered rollout so not all Chrome 89 users may necessarily get the feature at the same time.
Turning the feature on for the first time will prompt Chrome to download speech recognition data. This allows the browser to provide real-time captions without sending anything to the cloud. "Audio and captions never leave your device," Google explains.
To see your Chrome version in Windows, click the Chrome menu near the upper-right corner of the window, then choose Help > About Google Chrome.
In Chrome for Mac, click the Chrome menu and choose About Google Chrome.
How Live Captions Work
With the feature turned on in your Chrome settings, any audio playing in the browser---whether it be a YouTube music video, a podcast show, or any other audio for that matter---will be transcribed in real-time, even if the audio is muted!
"This comes really handy if you have a hearing impairment or want to watch a video with audio turned off," noted XDA-Developers, which first spotted the feature. Captions are presented to the user as text in an expandable pop-up window at the video's bottom.
You will also notice a new toggle for Live Caption in the Chrome toolbar inviting you to "Get captions for your audio and video." The convenient button appears upon toggling on Live Captions for the first time, making it a cinch to turn the feature on or off with a quick click.
Is This Available on Other Devices?
This useful accessibility feature has been available on certain Android smartphones for some time now following its preview at Google I/0 2019. Aside from launching on Google's Pixel line, real-time captions have subsequently arrived on Samsung's Galaxy S20 series, the OnePlus 8 lineup, and other devices (on phones, the feature even works with calls).
Real-time captions are currently limited to English-only audio, but Google will hopefully expand language support over time.