Aidan Gomez, CEO of Cohere, has just announced the release of the Cohere Transcribe model under the Apache 2.0 license. This decision was strongly driven by the engineering team, particularly Nick, after numerous internal discussions.
Background
Cohere Transcribe is Cohere's high-quality speech-to-text model. Previously, Cohere's models typically came with certain usage restrictions. Transitioning to Apache 2.0—a highly permissive open-source license—allows anyone to use, modify, and distribute the model free of royalties.
Why it matters
This move allows Cohere to compete directly with OpenAI's Whisper models in the open-source segment. For startups and developers in Vietnam, having access to another high-quality Transcribe model under the Apache 2.0 license means they can integrate it directly into commercial products without worrying about legal issues or licensing costs, while leveraging Cohere's diverse language processing capabilities.