Technology
Imperial War Museums, Capgemini, and Google Cloud Make 20,000 Hours of Oral Testimonies Accessible with Cutting-Edge AI
Imperial War Museums (IWM), Capgemini, and Google Cloud have today announced a landmark collaboration on the successful AI-powered transcription and translation of more than 20,000 hours from IWM's oral history collection. This transformative project will make invaluable firsthand accounts of 20th-century conflict easily accessible to the public, researchers, and educators globally, using advanced generative AI to transcribe, translate and enable interactive exploration of the archives.
About this update from Capgemini Se
[{"type":"text","content":"Google Gemini-driven solution transcribes, translates, and enables interactive exploration of vast oral history collection, deepening public understanding of 20th-century conflict","length":179,"tagName":"p"},{"type":"text","content":"LONDON, July 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Imperial War Museums (IWM), Capgemini, and Google Cloud have today announced a landmark collaboration on the successful AI-powered transcription and translation of more than 20,000 hours from IWM's oral history collection. This transformative project will make invaluable firsthand accounts of 20th-century conflict easily accessible to the public, researchers, and educators globally, using advanced generative AI to transcribe, translate and enable interactive exploration of the archives.","length":532,"tagName":"p"},{"type":"image","alt":"Google Cloud Logo (PRNewsfoto/Google Cloud)","displaySize":"","headline":null,"caption":"Google Cloud Logo (PRNewsfoto/Google Cloud)","className":"","disableSlideshowImg":false,"size":{"original":{"width":400,"height":71,"url":"https://media.zenfs.com/en/prnewswire.com/97b8f4ec7eeaa88aa1b5cead4dba5032"},"resized":{"url":"https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/KUqxdgjBhqIu25qlAAmiFA--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTcwNTtoPTEyNTtjZj13ZWJw/https://media.zenfs.com/en/prnewswire.com/97b8f4ec7eeaa88aa1b5cead4dba5032","width":400,"height":71}},"href":"https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1032194/Google_Cloud_Logo.html","hrefExternal":true,"rel":"nofollow"},{"type":"text","content":"This is the first time a UK museum has used AI transcription technology at this scale to create a resource available to users to search, explore, and use sound recordings. IWM plans to release this new technology to the public via its website later this year. A new platform will complement the recordings and resources already available, where users can search records for more than two million collection items.","length":418,"tagName":"p"},{"type":"text","content":"A significant portion of IWM's oral histories from 1945 to 2000s—comprising roughly 8,000 interviews with service men and women—were previously only available as audio files. This made accessing them a time-consuming process. These recordings, capturing unique experiences of conflict, presented additional challenges including a wide range of expressions from the time they were recorded, specialised ...