Transcribing Dutch with AI: which route keeps your data in the EU?

In short

• If your team meets in Microsoft Teams, you already have Dutch transcription: Teams supports Dutch (Netherlands) and Dutch (Belgium). Google Meet does not transcribe Dutch, and neither does Otter.
• The main condition is knowing where the audio and the transcript end up, and making sure participants know beforehand that you are recording.
• For client calls, intakes or interviews outside your meeting tool, the route is a standalone tool or your own integration with a speech API such as Mistral Voxtral 3, processed in the EU.

Can you transcribe Dutch audio with AI without the data leaving the EU? Yes, but the right route depends on where your conversations happen. If you meet in Microsoft Teams, you switch on the built-in transcription and set Dutch as the spoken language. The transcript is then stored in the organiser's OneDrive. If you meet in Google Meet, the built-in feature will not help: transcripts and "Take notes for me" work in eight languages, and Dutch is not one of them.

For conversations that do not take place in a meeting tool, such as a phone intake, an interview on a recorder or a client meeting on site, you need a standalone tool or an integration of your own. Since October 2026, Mistral's Voxtral 3 offers speech models through an API hosted in Europe, and they can also run on your own infrastructure. Below you will find, per route, what it does, where the data lives and when it fits.

This comparison is based on the providers' documentation, read on 27 October 2026. We have not measured the accuracy of these tools side by side ourselves.

Which audio transcription tools support Dutch?

How does transcription work in Teams?

Teams can transcribe a meeting live. Its list of spoken languages includes Dutch (Netherlands) and Dutch (Belgium). When you start, you confirm the language everyone is speaking; if Teams detects a different language, the organiser is prompted to change the setting. Each line of the transcript carries the speaker's name and a timestamp, and the file is saved in the organiser's OneDrive for Business (Microsoft Support).

There are limits. Only people in the organiser's organisation can start transcription; guests from another organisation can follow along but cannot open or download the transcript afterwards. For a summary and action items from Copilot you need an add-on Copilot licence, or Teams Premium for the recap after the meeting. Copilot does not work in meetings hosted by another organisation, nor in end-to-end encrypted meetings (Microsoft Learn).

Where is the data? Microsoft has committed to storing and processing Microsoft 365 customer data within the EU Data Boundary if your tenant was signed up in an EU or EFTA country. Microsoft itself lists a number of limited cases in which data still leaves that boundary, and tenants with Multi-Geo are out of scope (Microsoft Learn). Ask your IT administrator to check what applies to your tenant.

Why Google Meet and Otter do not work for Dutch

Google Meet produces transcripts in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish (Google Meet Help). "Take notes for me" has the same list, and only one language works per meeting (Google Meet Help). So a meeting held in Dutch in Meet cannot be written up with the built-in feature.

Otter, a well-known standalone note-taking tool, supports English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Simplified Chinese according to its help centre, and transcribes one language at a time (Otter Help, updated 6 May 2026). Dutch is not on that list either.

Some standalone tools do handle Dutch. Amberscript, based in the Netherlands, states on its website that files are stored in Europe and that the platform is GDPR compliant and ISO 27001 certified (Amberscript). Those are the provider's own statements. For any standalone tool, ask for the data processing agreement and the list of sub-processors before you upload client conversations.

What can your own integration with Voxtral 3 do?

Your own integration means sending recordings through an API, a programming interface, to a speech-to-text model, and writing the transcript back to where your team works: the client file, the CRM or a shared folder. You decide where the audio goes and how long it is kept.

Mistral, a French AI company, released Voxtral 3 in October 2026. According to the announcement (Mistral AI):

• Languages. Transcription in 50 languages, including the 24 official languages of the EU. Dutch is one of them.
• Who said what. Voxtral Small Transcribe 3 recognises and labels speakers (diarisation).
• Specialist terms. With context biasing you provide a list of terms or a passage of text in advance, such as product or client names, so the model spells them correctly.
• Hosting. The models are available through Mistral's API hosted in Europe, or on your own infrastructure. To run the full stack on premises or in a private cloud, you contact Mistral.
• Price. Batch transcription with Voxtral Mini Transcribe 3 costs $0.0035 per minute, Voxtral Small Transcribe 3 $0.0040 per minute, and real-time transcription $0.008 per minute.

Mistral also reports that Voxtral Small outperforms Whisper, Scribe v2 and Gemini 3.5 Transcribe on the public FLEURS benchmark. That is the provider's own measurement, so test it with your own recordings.

On retention: Mistral offers zero data retention, in which inputs and outputs are kept no longer than needed to return the response. This covers the transcription endpoint too, but only on pay-as-you-go and after an approved request. Batch files are excluded (Mistral Help Center).

Suppose your team records twenty hours of intake calls a month. That is 1,200 minutes, and with Voxtral Mini Transcribe 3 the transcription costs $4.20 a month. Building the integration, storage and maintenance come on top, and those costs are larger than the usage.

Which route should you choose?

Decide on three questions: where does the conversation take place, which language is spoken, and where does the transcript need to land?

1. Teams meetings held in Dutch. Use the built-in transcription. If you then turn the transcript into minutes, read Meeting notes with ChatGPT.
2. Google Meet meetings held in Dutch. The built-in feature does not work. Choose a standalone tool that supports Dutch and whose data processing agreement you have read, or build your own integration.
3. Conversations outside the meeting tool, such as intakes, interviews or client calls you record yourself. A standalone tool will do for a handful of conversations a month. Build your own integration if the transcript must land in a file or CRM automatically, if specialist terms need to be spelled correctly, or if you want to decide where the audio is processed.

Whatever the route, agree the same things: who starts the recording, that participants know beforehand, who checks the transcript and how long it is kept. In Google Meet an administrator can require participants to consent to recording and transcription, but that setting is off by default. For an overview of which tool to use for which task, see AI tools for your business.

When do you not need to build anything?

If your team meets in Teams and the conversations are internal, you already have what you need. Your own integration adds little. For a few interviews a quarter, a standalone tool is also quicker than building something.

And do not record every conversation. For conversations about staff, health or a dispute, a recording is often not appropriate. For formal minutes, such as those of a supervisory board, the exact wording matters; a transcript is then an aid and the minute-taker writes the final version. AI also makes mistakes in names, figures and who said what, even with speaker recognition. Someone who was in the conversation reads the transcript before it goes into a file.

Sources

• Mistral AI (October 2026). Voxtral 3, accessed 27 October 2026.
• Mistral Help Center. Can I activate Zero Data Retention (ZDR)?, accessed 27 October 2026.
• Microsoft Support. View live transcription in Microsoft Teams meetings, accessed 27 October 2026.
• Microsoft Learn. Manage Microsoft Copilot in Teams meetings and events, 11 August 2026.
• Microsoft Learn. What is the EU Data Boundary?, 21 July 2026.
• Google Meet Help. Use Transcripts with Google Meet, accessed 27 October 2026.
• Google Meet Help. "Take notes for me" in Google Meet, accessed 27 October 2026.
• Otter Help. Supported languages, 6 May 2026.
• Amberscript. Transcription, accessed 27 October 2026.