Plaud, the world’s leading AI note-taking device brand, announced on the 7th the official launch of Taiwanese (Minnan) voice-to-text functionality in Taiwan. Users can record Taiwanese conversations using devices like Plaud Note Pro and Plaud NotePin S, then directly perform voice-to-text transcription and content organization within the app, converting spoken dialogue into storable and searchable text data. This feature targets use cases including interviews, meetings, medical consultations, fieldwork, long-term care, elder interviews, community exchanges, video creation, and cultural documentation. While Minnan is used frequently in everyday Taiwanese life, spoken Minnan content has traditionally relied on manual transcription, which is time-consuming and prone to missing details. Plaud aims to lower the barrier to converting local language into digital data through AI speech recognition technology.
Plaud launches Taiwanese Hokkien speech-to-text feature in Taiwan
For media workers, video creators, healthcare and caregiving professionals, educators, researchers, and local cultural workers, the Minnan language transcription feature means more local languages can be preserved in their entirety. From the tone and accent of interviewees to elders’ life experiences and everyday conversations within the community, Plaud hopes to ensure that Minnan language voices no longer remain only in the present moment, but instead become content assets that can be reviewed, organized, and shared.
From $1M to $100M ARR in Two Years
At the same time, Pla also delivered an impressive business report, announcing that its subscription business’s Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) has surpassed $100 million (approximately NT$3.25 billion), representing a 100x growth compared to $1 million two years ago (approximately NT$32.5 million). Cumulative device shipments have also exceeded 2 million units, with services covering over 170 countries.
Plaud co-founder and CEO Nathan Xu said: “Most AI companies scale through software behind screens. We took a different path. The conversations that drive things forward don’t happen on keyboards. We built an interface for the post-screen era, and the market has already validated it.”
Plaud’s business model uses hardware devices as the entry point, paired with AI software subscription services. Users who purchase devices receive 300 minutes of free transcription per month, which can be quickly depleted if there are many meetings daily. Users can choose monthly, annual, or add-on plans to get more minutes and advanced features. Nearly 50% of device users upgrade from the basic plan to Pro or Unlimited paid plans, which serves as the primary driver of ARR growth.
Currently, Plaud has not yet launched a standalone software subscription service, meaning that almost all users who purchase paid plans are Plaud device owners. This contrasts sharply with the “software-first” approach most AI SaaS companies take. Plaud locks in users through hardware, then continues to monetize through software subscription services.
From voice recorders to wearables, the product line keeps expanding
Plaud currently offers four main devices. The Plaud Note Pro is the flagship recording card, priced at NT$5,890 in Taiwan, suitable for teams and professionals who need to record meetings in larger spaces. The Plaud Note is priced at NT$5,490, credit card-sized and magnetically attachable to the back of your phone, focused on call and meeting recording for hybrid work scenarios. The Plaud NotePin S is a wearable device launched at CES 2026 earlier this year, coming with four wearing accessories, ideal for users who need hands-free functionality. The Plaud NotePin is an earlier wearable product positioned for lightweight daily use.
None of the four devices have a screen, and the operation logic centers around one-tap recording. Plaud’s design philosophy is that in real-world conversation scenarios, users shouldn’t need to be distracted by operating a screen—the recording device should minimize its sense of intrusion, allowing users to stay focused on the conversation at hand.
On the software side, Plaud also launched a desktop application this year, which can record online meetings through system audio and generate notes—a feature similar to AI meeting note tools like Granola. Additionally, Plaud introduced Plaud Teams for enterprise users, offering a shared memory function that allows team members to access organizational knowledge across meetings, further expanding into the enterprise market.
AI Note-Taking Device Market Competition Heats Up
Plaud’s rapid growth has attracted more competitors to this space. Plaud’s differentiation strategy lies in the fact that most AI note-taking tools are pure software services, relying on users to operate in front of a screen. Plaud, on the other hand, uses a hardware device to capture voice conversations in the real world, then combines AI for subsequent processing. This “hardware entry point + software subscription” model has allowed Plaud to take a different path among the many AI SaaS services.
The launch of this Hokkien transcription feature also demonstrates that while Plaud is pushing for global market expansion, it continues to invest in local language support. For users in Taiwan, Hokkien has long lacked sufficient technical support in the field of AI speech recognition. Most speech-to-text tools on the market only support Mandarin and English, resulting in significantly lower accuracy when encountering scenarios with mixed Hokkien usage. By officially adding Hokkien as a transcription language, Plaud helps address this long-overlooked gap in local language needs.
Information Security Compliance and Company Background
Plaud complies with multiple international information security and privacy protection standards including ISO 27001, ISO 27701, GDPR, SOC 2, HIPAA, and EN 18031. Plaud Inc. is a company registered in Delaware, USA, with headquarters in San Francisco. Since launching its first product in 2023, it has accumulated over 2 million users worldwide. Plaud’s mission is to “extend human intelligence,” with the goal of capturing, organizing, and synthesizing information generated in conversations, enabling people to think more effectively and make decisions faster.
Source: KOCPC Chinese