Live Assist Overview

Live Assist transcribes legal conversations in real time and cross-references what is said against your documents. When a statement contradicts prior testimony, contracts, or other records, Live Assist flags it in a side panel with source citations. If your firm has Live Assist enabled, open it from Live Assist in the sidebar.

This video demonstrates how to use Live Assist for real-time transcription and cross-referencing.

What Live Assist is for

Live Assist helps you catch inconsistencies and key facts while a conversation is still happening, rather than discovering them later during review.

Use it for:

Depositions: Flag contradictions with prior testimony and get suggested follow-up questions while the deposition is underway.
Client calls: Capture commitments and cross-reference against contracts or prior call transcripts.
Witness prep: Identify inconsistencies between statements and prior declarations.
Settlement negotiations: Track positions and compare against earlier agreements.
Internal investigations: Monitor interviews against company policies and email productions.

Before the session

Live Assist can only cross-reference documents you give it, so set them up first.

In the Live Assist sidebar, select the folders that hold your reference documents, or upload files directly. Uploaded files go into a dated Live Assist Uploads folder.
Choose your microphone, and set the Spoken language of the conversation.

Useful reference material includes prior testimony or declarations, contracts or agreements, email productions, company policies, and prior call transcripts.

During the session

Click Start Recording when the conversation begins, and Stop Recording when it ends. While recording, Live Assist:

Transcribes in real time and labels each speaker automatically.
Adds findings to the Facts tab as the conversation goes, each marked as a key fact, contradiction, reference, or suggestion with its source.
Lets you ask questions about the conversation and your documents in the Assistant tab.

After the session

Correct speaker labels before you share or reuse the transcript.

Edit speakers: Rename a speaker, add a new one, or reassign a turn to a different speaker from the transcript.
Download the transcript: From the download menu above the transcript, choose Transcript (.txt) for a plain-text file of each speaker's lines. Findings and citations from the Facts tab aren't included.
Download the audio: From the same menu, choose Audio recording (.mp3).

The trash icon next to the download menu clears the transcript from the session.

Confidentiality and security

Live Assist is built to respect attorney-client privilege and work product protections:

Audio is encrypted in transit using TLS 1.2+.
Audio is logically separated from other customers through August's single-tenant architecture.
Audio and transcripts are never used to train models: August has contractual agreements with all language model providers to not train on or retain user data.
August has no visibility into your inputs, uploads, or outputs.
User profiles are fully siloed unless you proactively share chats or create a shared workspace.

For the full security overview, see Security and Privacy Overview.

Compliance with local recording consent laws is your responsibility. Before using Live Assist, confirm that you have proper consent to record the conversation under applicable rules in your jurisdiction.

When to use Live Assist vs. other features

Use Live Assist when you need real-time cross-referencing during a live conversation. Use other features when the work does not require live transcription:

Use Assistant for research, analysis, and drafting without a live call.
Use Tabular Review when you need a structured comparison table across documents.