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Why are there extra speakers in my transcript?

Understand "phantom speakers" in Marloo transcripts, the environmental causes, and how to fix or escalate them.

Written by Liam McGuire

Sometimes a Marloo transcript shows more speakers than were actually in the meeting. For example, a two-person meeting might show three or four speaker labels. These extra labels are called phantom speakers. Most of the time they have a simple environmental cause and you can fix them yourself.

Common causes

  • Background noise: a TV, radio, or music playing during the meeting.

  • Someone talking nearby. Open-plan offices and shared spaces are the most common source.

  • A participant who joined the call briefly and left.

Marloo's speaker-detection picks up distinct voices from the audio, so any extra voice the microphone heard can become its own labelled speaker.

How to fix it

  1. Open the meeting transcript.

  2. Click on the phantom speaker name in the transcript.

  3. Either rename it to the correct person, or ignore the label. Both options are fine.

When to contact Marloo support

Only escalate if all of the following are true:

  • You've confirmed exactly how many real participants were in the meeting.

  • There's no background audio or nearby conversation that could explain the extra speakers.

  • The phantom labels genuinely don't correspond to anyone who was present.

If you do contact support, please include:

  • The meeting name

  • The actual number of participants vs the number of speakers shown in the transcript

  • Whether it was a virtual meeting (Teams, Zoom, Meet) or an in-person recording

  • Whether you've ruled out background audio sources

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