Your meeting transcripts label each speaker by name, based on how they appeared in the meeting. The method differs between the bot recorder and local recorder — and knowing which one captured your meeting explains why a speaker might be mislabeled or missing.
How it works
Bot recorder
The Clarify notetaker reads participant names directly from the meeting platform. Whatever display name someone used when joining — their Zoom profile, Google Meet name, or Teams name — is how they appear in the transcript.
If the platform doesn't return a name for a participant, they're labeled Unknown.
Local recorder (macOS)
The macOS app identifies speakers by reading display names shown on screen during the meeting — the participant panel in Zoom, name labels in Google Meet, and the attendee list in Teams.
Names that match existing contacts in Clarify link automatically. Names with no match create new person records.
ℹ️ If a participant's name doesn't exactly match a contact in Clarify, a new record is created. Check for duplicates in your People list if you notice unfamiliar names appear after a meeting.
Speaker audio timeline
Call recordings include a speaker timeline below the audio player. Each participant appears as a separate row with a waveform showing exactly when they spoke and their percentage of total talk time.
Click any segment in a speaker's row to jump directly to that point in the recording — no scrubbing needed.
Speaker names in the timeline come from the same source as your transcript labels: display names from the meeting platform (bot recorder) or names shown on screen (local recorder). See How it works above for details on how those names are assigned.
Editing participants
Quick Record meetings
For unscheduled meetings captured with Quick Record, you can add or update participants during or after the recording:
Open the recording in Clarify
Click Edit on the participants badge
Enter the participant's email address, click add, then Save
Scheduled meetings
Participant editing isn't available for meetings detected from your calendar. Speaker names are set at record time and can't be changed after the fact.
Limitations
Names depend on display names. If someone joins as "John's iPhone" or uses an alias, that's how they appear in the transcript. There's no way to override names pulled from the meeting platform.
No in-transcript editing. You can't rename a speaker directly in the transcript text. Quick Record allows participant linking, but this doesn't rename the speaker in existing transcript segments.
Scheduled meeting participants can't be edited. Only Quick Record meetings allow post-recording participant changes.
Bot and local recorder can't run on the same meeting. Only one recording method is active per meeting.
Single-speaker meetings skip AI summaries. If only one speaker is detected and the transcript is short, Clarify won't generate a summary.
Troubleshooting
Speaker labeled "Unknown"
The platform didn't return a display name for that participant. Common causes:
Participant joined without a display name configured in their video platform
A connection issue during the meeting interrupted participant data
There's no retroactive fix for the transcript. For future meetings, ask participants to set a display name in Zoom, Google Meet, or Teams before joining.
Wrong name on a speaker
The name shown is exactly what the participant used in the meeting platform. To correct it for future meetings, the participant needs to update their display name in their video platform settings. Clarify has no way to override what the platform reported.
All speech attributed to one speaker
Audio quality issues — background noise, static, crosstalk, or unstable connections — can confuse speaker separation. If this happens consistently:
Check that the meeting audio was clean (a recording with heavy background noise may only diarize partially)
Contact support if the issue is persistent — it may point to a recording configuration problem on your account