Using Akume with Microsoft Teams

On Microsoft Teams, Akume joins an ordinary meeting as a participant. There is no Teams app to install: you paste the meeting link, somebody in the call lets the translator out of the lobby, and from that moment every speaker is translated as they talk. The translator speaks the translation aloud right in the call, captions appear on its tile, and anyone can also follow along on a listener link in their browser.

Use the right link

Akume needs the join link from the invitation. Teams uses two addresses: teams.microsoft.com for work and school accounts, and teams.live.com for personal ones. Either works. Paste whichever the invitation gives you, complete and including everything after the question mark: that part identifies the meeting, and a link trimmed back to the address alone cannot be joined.

Start the call, then send the translator in

1. Start the meeting, or have the organizer start it. A meeting that has not begun has nobody to admit a participant.
2. Paste the Teams link into Akume, list the languages that will be spoken in the call (from 2 to 10, see Languages and how they are chosen), and start the session.
3. Watch the participant list. The translator appears there like any guest, usually within a few seconds.
4. Admit it from the lobby. Guests wait in the lobby until somebody running the meeting admits them, and the translator waits there like anybody else. One click on the usual prompt brings it in.
5. Share the listener link with anyone who also wants captions, or a language of their own, in a browser tab: everyone in the call already hears the translation spoken aloud. As soon as the translator is in the call it posts the link in the Teams chat itself (a short message in English, pinned), and Akume copies it to your clipboard as the session starts in case you need to paste it. Listeners choose a language; if the status line asks them to press play, one tap on Play starts the audio, and the same button pauses.

Worth checking

• The lobby is the usual reason for a wait. Depending on how the meeting is set up, guests either walk straight in or wait to be admitted. Nothing needs changing; just be ready to admit the translator in the first seconds, or ask a colleague in the call to watch for it.
• Copy the invitation link, not a forwarded fragment. The link people paste into chat is sometimes cut short; take it from the calendar entry to be sure it is whole.
• The language list is fixed at the start. Adding a language later means stopping the session and starting a new one, which also produces a new listener link.
• Headphones if you are following along. Anyone who opens the listener link while sitting in the meeting should listen through headphones: translated speech coming out of laptop speakers goes back into everyone else’s call through the microphone.

Meeting somewhere else? The flow is the same in Google Meet and Zoom, and Your first meeting with Akume walks through the whole thing from signing up.