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Hourly

Transcribe new recordings in S3

Audio and video added to your bucket is transcribed, and each transcript reaches you by email when it's done.

Runs
Hourly
Apps
AWS
AI
Yes, uses the built-in AI allowance
Access
s3:ListBucket, s3:GetObject, transcribe:StartTranscriptionJob, transcribe:GetTranscriptionJob

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every hour, start an AWS Transcribe job for new audio files in my recordings bucket and email me each transcript with a short summary once it's finished.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

Sales teams, researchers and customer support leads often save call recordings and interviews to S3 because it is cheap and shared. The recordings then sit there. Nobody has the hours to listen, and the few that matter, a cancellation call or a customer's feature request, are only found if someone remembers the date. Insights stay locked inside audio, and compliance reviews that need an exact quote depend on someone replaying thirty minutes of a call.

Every hour, ClickRuntime lists new audio and video files in the bucket and starts an AWS Transcribe job for each. On later runs it checks job status and, as jobs finish, emails the transcript. If you want, ClickRuntime's built-in AI can add a short summary for each recording.

Teams who already store recordings in S3 find it the easiest way to turn them into text without moving anything.

What you get out of it

  • Calls become searchable evidence

    With transcripts in hand, you can search for the moment a customer mentioned a competitor or asked for a refund. Decisions rely on what was said instead of what someone recalls.

  • Recordings stay where they already are

    Files are transcribed in place in your own AWS account. You do not upload customer calls to a separate service or copy them around, which makes data handling simpler to explain.

  • Backlogs of old audio get cleared

    Once the flow is running, every new file is handled without anyone asking. A folder of unreviewed recordings stops growing into a pile that nobody dares touch. The pile of unreviewed recordings stops growing quietly in the background.

  • Summaries let managers sample quickly

    A short summary of each call lets a manager decide in seconds whether the full transcript needs reading. Coaching sessions can use real examples rather than theoretical advice. Coaching can use real examples from last week's calls.

  • Quotes for compliance are easy to find

    When a regulator or a customer disputes what was agreed, an exact transcript with timestamps settles it. You avoid replaying audio and arguing about interpretation. The record is exact, which helps in any dispute.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every hour ClickRuntime checks your S3 bucket for new audio and video files, skipping ones it has already handled.

  2. It sends each new recording to Amazon Transcribe.

  3. On later checks it looks for transcripts that have finished.

  4. Each finished transcript arrives in your inbox, optionally with an AI summary of the key points.

Before it runs live

  • Connect AWS

What you get

RunsHourly
Transcribe new recordings in S3today, 9:00Succeeded
Email · TranscriptsTranscript: calls/northwind-kickoff.m4a - Agreed launch date of 3 November - Acme to send revised pricing by Friday

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.
  • Your own rules

    Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.

  • Any number of apps

    One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.

  • AI where it helps

    Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.

  • On a schedule or on each event

    Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

  • Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
  • Change what the AI looks for, or how it writes the result
  • Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
  • Combine it with other AWS steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.
transcribe_audio_and_video_files_in_s3.pyexample
import json
import boto3
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, notify, state, report_fetched, ai

REGION = "us-east-1"

def aws(service):
    return boto3.client(service, region_name=REGION, aws_access_key_id=credentials.secret("AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID"),
                        aws_secret_access_key=credentials.secret("AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY"))

BUCKET = "acme-recordings"
MEDIA = (".mp3", ".mp4", ".wav", ".m4a")

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    s3, transcribe = aws("s3"), aws("transcribe")
    seen, pending = set(state.get("seen") or []), state.get("pending") or []
    new = [o["Key"] for o in s3.list_objects_v2(Bucket=BUCKET).get("Contents", [])
           if o["Key"].lower().endswith(MEDIA) and o["Key"] not in seen]
    report_fetched(len(new))
    if not new and not pending:
        return {"new": 0}
    for key in new:
        job = "rec-" + "".join(c if c.isalnum() else "-" for c in key)[-180:]
        transcribe.start_transcription_job(TranscriptionJobName=job, Media={"MediaFileUri": f"s3://{BUCKET}/{key}"},
                                           IdentifyLanguage=True, OutputBucketName=BUCKET, OutputKey=f"transcripts/{job}.json")
        pending.append({"job": job, "key": key})
    for p in list(pending):
        status = transcribe.get_transcription_job(TranscriptionJobName=p["job"])["TranscriptionJob"]["TranscriptionJobStatus"]
        if status == "COMPLETED":
            text = json.load(s3.get_object(Bucket=BUCKET, Key=f"transcripts/{p['job']}.json")["Body"])["results"]["transcripts"][0]["transcript"]
            summary = ai.generate(text[:20000], system="Summarise this recording in 3 bullet points.", max_output_tokens=200).text
            notify.email_me(f"Transcript: {p['key']}", f"{summary}\n\n{text}")
        if status in ("COMPLETED", "FAILED"):
            pending.remove(p)
    state.set("seen", list(seen | set(new)))
    state.set("pending", pending)
    return {"started": len(new), "pending": len(pending)}

FAQ

Common questions

Which file types does AWS Transcribe accept?
Transcribe supports common formats including MP3, MP4, WAV, FLAC and M4A, among others, and it needs a supported language to be specified or detected. Files in unusual formats can be skipped or converted first, and the email tells you if a job fails.
Why does the email arrive later than the upload?
Transcription is a batch job, and jobs take from a fraction of the audio length to longer. The flow checks hourly for new files and then for finished jobs, so a transcript usually arrives within a couple of hours of the upload.
Is the AI summary required?
No. The transcript alone is a complete result, and the summary is an optional addition that uses ClickRuntime's built-in AI. You can add it later if you decide you want one, without changing how files are found or transcribed.
What permissions does it need?
s3:ListBucket, s3:GetObject, transcribe:StartTranscriptionJob, transcribe:GetTranscriptionJob. Nothing else in your accounts is used.
Does it need AI?
Yes. It uses ClickRuntime's built-in AI, so you don't need an OpenAI or Anthropic key. Every plan includes a monthly AI allowance.
How many runs does it use?
One run each time it checks. Checks that find nothing new and stop right away aren't counted.
Can I change how it works?
Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

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