Intent to Ship: Web Speech API: Unspoken Punctuation

[Chromestatus]

Contact emails

ev...@google.com

Explainer

https://github.com/WebAudio/web-speech-api/blob/main/explainers/unspoken-punctuation.md

Specification

https://webaudio.github.io/web-speech-api

Summary

Adds the unspokenPunctuation boolean attribute to the SpeechRecognition interface of the Web Speech API. When enabled (true), this attribute directs the speech recognition engine to automatically infer and insert punctuation marks (such as periods, commas, and question marks) based on the user's natural pauses, grammatical structure, and prosody, without requiring explicit spoken punctuation commands.

Blink component

Blink>Speech

Web Feature ID

speech-recognition

Motivation

Currently, developers building voice-enabled web applications—such as casual dictation tools, automated transcription services, or conversational assistants—receive raw, unpunctuated text streams from the Web Speech API. To make this text readable and polished, developers are often forced to implement and maintain complex downstream NLP models to infer basic formatting. Additionally, from an end-user perspective, having to explicitly dictate punctuation (e.g., stopping to say "comma" or "period") disrupts the natural flow of continuous speech and significantly increases cognitive load. Introducing the unspokenPunctuation attribute solves this by moving automatic, prosody-aware punctuation directly into the browser's speech recognition engine. This provides an intuitive, conversational voice typing experience for users out-of-the-box, while dramatically lowering the barrier to entry for developers building voice-driven web apps.

Initial public proposal

No information provided

TAG review

No information provided

TAG review status

Not applicable

Goals for experimentation

None

Risks

Interoperability and Compatibility

No information provided

Gecko: Positive (https://github.com/WebAudio/web-speech-api/issues/187#issuecomment-4479796822)

WebKit: No signal

Web developers: No signals

Other signals:

Ergonomics

N/A

Activation

N/A

Security

N/A

WebView application risks

Does this intent deprecate or change behavior of existing APIs, such that it has potentially high risk for Android WebView-based applications?

N/A, Not supported on Android

Debuggability

None required.

Will this feature be supported on all six Blink platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, ChromeOS, Android, and Android WebView)?

No
On-device Web Speech is only supported on Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests?

Yes

Flag name on about://flags

No information provided

Finch feature name

WebSpeechUnspokenPunctuation

Rollout plan

Will ship enabled for all users

Requires code in //chrome?

True

Tracking bug

https://bugs.chromium.org/b/514764702

Measurement

N/A

Adoption expectation

Feature is used by specific partner (Google Meet) to provide functionality within 12 months of launch in Chrome.

Estimated milestones

Shipping on desktop	151
DevTrial on desktop	150

Anticipated spec changes

Open questions about a feature may be a source of future web compat or interop issues. Please list open issues (e.g. links to known github issues in the project for the feature specification) whose resolution may introduce web compat/interop risk (e.g., changing to naming or structure of the API in a non-backward-compatible way).

https://github.com/WebAudio/web-speech-api/pull/188/changes#diff-5e793325cd2bfc452e268a4aa2f02b4024dd9584bd1db3c2595f61f1ecf7b985

Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status

https://chromestatus.com/feature/4785284026859520?gate=4835184634626048

This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status.