Steno vs Threadeo: how they compare in 2026
A litigation team that books depositions and a court reporting firm that produces them will reach different answers here. Steno is a reporting agency. It staffs court reporters, videographers and interpreters, runs remote depositions inside Zoom, and gives its clients Transcript Genius at no extra charge. Firms question one deposition or many in plain English, get summaries and contradictions cited to page and line, and jump to the synced video at the cited moment. Threadeo sells software rather than reporting. Court reporting firms use Threadeo Sync to align video with certified transcripts and generate load files for trial software, many jobs at a time in the browser. Lawyers order Threadeo Summaries per transcript, which layer chronologies, admissions, impeachment points and cross examination questions onto the testimony. Its cross deposition reports merge several witnesses into one chronology and list where they contradict or corroborate each other. A firm choosing a deposition vendor will look at Steno. A reporting firm, or a lawyer holding transcripts from any reporter, will look at Threadeo, which turns finished testimony into synced video and structured analysis.
At a glance
All 15 axes, side by side
The same grid applied to every vendor in the index, graded from public sources. Hover a grade to see what the letter means on that axis.
AI Centrality
How much of the product is actually AI. Whether the machine learning is the mechanism the buyer is paying for or a feature layered onto conventional software, and whether the vendor is specific about which is which.
Transcript Genius is included with no extra charge and no usage limit, and the home page markets it as free with all Steno depositions. Customers pay for the services underneath: court reporting, videography, interpreters, remote and hybrid depositions, equipment rental, conference rooms and DelayPay. Without the AI, all of those remain, along with Steno Connect for Zoom and the Firm Dashboard. The terms reserve the right to change Transcript Genius's price or limit a person's use of it at Steno's sole discretion. The deposition business runs without the AI.
The Summaries product reads a deposition transcript and returns an event timeline, key topics, major admissions, contradictions, impeachment points and suggested cross examination questions. Arbitration and trial versions cover openings and closings, evidence, witnesses, objections, rulings and grounds for appeal, and multiday proceedings get consolidated summaries. A trial day's summary typically arrives in under 30 minutes. Deposition summaries launched in mid 2024, and arbitration, trial and consolidated summaries followed in January 2025. Across witnesses, a cross deposition analysis builds one combined chronology with separate inconsistency and corroboration reports. A four layer chat answers questions about a transcript with a direct answer, an analysis, a strategic note and page and line links. Alongside the summaries, Threadeo Sync aligns video to certified transcripts and links exhibits automatically, and the Depo Viewer shows exhibit summaries offline. CloudReview gives law firms annotation, issue codes and clip export on synced transcripts.
Citation Accuracy and Hallucination Disclosure
Whether the vendor publishes measured accuracy on citations and assertions, grounds output to primary sources, and says plainly what its system does when it does not know. Legal has a documented public record of fabricated citations reaching filed briefs, so an untested claim of accuracy is not evidence.
Every Transcript Genius answer carries a clickable page and line citation into the transcript, shown side by side with the source, and Steno's FAQ says human verification is a simple click away. Summaries carry the same linked citations. Where a firm has ordered Text to Video Sync, a citation opens the deposition video at that moment, so a user can hear the tone of the testimony as well as read it. Lookups combine exact wording and meaning across the firm's transcripts. No accuracy figure, test set, evaluation, error rate or comparison is published, despite a marketing claim of unparalleled accuracy. The agreement says AI is not perfect and may make mistakes, and disclaims any warranty of accuracy, completeness, truthfulness, timeliness or suitability for outputs. Checks against legal authority do not apply, since the tool reads deposition transcripts, not law.
Each insight in a Threadeo summary cites a page and line of the source transcript. Reports come as DOCX and PDF files and as a web view that shows transcript and summary side by side, so a reader can jump from a statement to the testimony behind it. Chat answers end with clickable page and line links. Summaries are said to draw only on the uploaded transcript and to be engineered for zero hallucinations. Arbitration summaries are described as neutral and objective, and trial summaries track objections and evidentiary rulings as they appear in the record. No accuracy measure for the summaries is published.
Autonomy and Oversight Model
What the system decides on its own, what a lawyer must approve, and whether the vendor documents where the review point sits. A tool that drafts under review and a tool that files without one are different products and different risks.
The terms say Transcript Genius uses AI with no human oversight to question transcripts and other case documents. Its outputs are research aids, not legal advice, attorney work product, or a substitute for reviewing the record. No one at Steno checks an answer before it appears, and the user must check it against the record. The product supports that check with page and line citations on every answer, a side by side transcript view, and video sync to the cited moment. Customers must switch AI features on in the Dashboard. Only final ordered transcripts can be questioned, not drafts. The tool shows no sign of uncertainty and offers no way to report a wrong answer.
In Sync, the platform aligns video and links exhibits, and the court reporting firm reviews the finished job in its own account before it requests load files or delivers to clients. Customer dashboards put the median review at 22 seconds a job. UltraSync, the rush service for law firms, adds a manual check of the uploaded files by Threadeo's team. Summaries come with a side by side view in which a lawyer can check each insight against the transcript and add annotations. A summary returns to the customer as soon as the model finishes. No review step before delivery is described for it, and no limit on how its strategic recommendations may be used.
Operational and Outcome Evidence
Named, dated evidence that the product works in production at real firms or legal departments. Case studies with figures and identified customers count. Unattributed testimonials and launch announcements do not.
Five quotes carry a name, title and firm. They come from a partner at Panish Shea Ravipudi, a director at Ivie Mcneill Wyatt Purcell & Diggs, a paralegal at Citron & Citron, an attorney at Gamliel Law and an attorney at Burneikis Law. The Burneikis Law attorney is also the subject of a Transcript Genius customer story, which describes time saved without saying how much. No quote has a number or date. Trade coverage of the beta reported an average saving of two to four hours per case, a figure Steno does not state itself.
On customer dashboards that Threadeo publishes, one Sync client runs more than 1,300 jobs a month. A set of 26 video hours needed 14 QC points against 150 on legacy software, and six minutes of work instead of 50. Every job in that set was delivered within 60 minutes, with a median near 10 minutes. Across jobs, median QC time is 22 seconds and 75 percent of jobs need no QC point. Summaries carry quotes from an unnamed injury firm owner, a litigation partner, a senior attorney at an employment firm and a senior public defender. A production manager at a court reporting firm describes Sync work falling from two hours for one job to five minutes across several. No customer is named.
Privilege and Confidentiality Posture
How client confidences are handled: attorney client privilege and work product treatment, segregation of one client matter from another, whether client data trains any model, and what the vendor commits to in writing rather than in marketing.
Content is not accessed or viewed except as the customer authorizes, as needed to perform, as the agreement and privacy policy provide, or as law requires. Steno commits to physical and technical safeguards consistent with SOC 2. The customer keeps copyright in its Content and grants only a revocable license to provide the Services, plus a carve out for aggregated, deidentified use to improve them. Data shared with Steno's model providers is not used as broader training data, and the product page adds that transcripts and conversations never train the AI and that AI partners keep nothing after a session. Backups may cover entire proceedings, including parts considered off the record, which in a deposition can include exchanges counsel treat as privileged. A backup will not be shared without a valid subpoena that is not objected to, or a court order. Nothing describes a wall between matters, and the Dashboard is built to query all of a firm's depositions at once.
Section 3.6 of the terms says Threadeo does not use customer data to train AI models, including large language models. It uses only third party services that do not train on the data it passes them. Section 3.1 treats uploads, and the output generated from them, as the customer's confidential information. Section 3.3 gives the customer ownership of that data. The privacy policy names Threadeo as processor of service data under a master service agreement and a data processing addendum, neither of which is published. It states that service data is used only to produce that client's summaries and syncs. Privilege and work product are not addressed, and nothing says how long an outside AI service may hold the data it receives.
UPL and Professional Responsibility Posture
Whether the vendor is clear that it supplies a tool rather than legal advice, who its audience is, and how it addresses unauthorized practice of law, competence and supervision duties, and jurisdiction limits. ABA Formal Opinion 512 is the reference point. Where the advice line is not the duty a product raises, the axis is read through the nearest professional duty it does raise: judicial conduct rules and the reviewing duty for products sold only to courts, and the duty to bill for time actually spent for products that draft time entries.
The AI section of Steno's terms says AI tools are research aids and are not legal advice, attorney work product, or a substitute for reviewing the underlying record. The general disclaimer adds that content is informational only and is not advice of any kind; it does not replace professional advice, including legal advice, and users must get independent advice before acting. Users must be eighteen or older and represent they are competent. No bar or ethics authority, including ABA Formal Opinion 512, is named on any product or policy page, and no jurisdiction limit is stated. Steno's blog has an item titled as covering ABA and state ethics guidance on AI.
The terms state that nothing in the service is legal, financial or medical advice and that a customer who needs advice should consult a professional. Users must be 18 or older. Threadeo describes its summaries as clearing the path to legal judgment rather than replacing it. The product pages sell strategic recommendations, impeachment points, cross examination strategy and analysis of how laws and precedents apply to the facts. The arbitration page lists witnesses and experts among its readers, and CloudReview Teams is offered to HR teams as well as legal ones. No jurisdiction limit or supervision guidance is stated.
AI Governance and Bias Disclosure
Published governance over model behavior: who owns it inside the vendor, what is tested before release, and what is disclosed about disparate output across matter types, parties, or populations.
The terms say Transcript Genius runs without human oversight and that its model providers do not train on the data. They also disclose internal AI use for drafting messages, support triage, software development and routine work, under agreements that bar those providers from training on the data. The trust center publishes bias disclosures for BrightHire and Criteria, two tools used in hiring, and notes AI features in Rippling recruiting; none of them covers Transcript Genius. No responsible AI principles, accountable owner, testing regime or model documentation exists for the product, and the terms let Steno change the AI platform behind Transcript Genius at any time at its sole discretion. How the tool handles accents, dialects and interpreted testimony is not described, though it analyzes spoken testimony and Steno also books interpreters.
The CEO's November 2025 announcement sets out four commitments on trust, namely the SOC 2 Type 2 examination, HIPAA compliance, the trust center and a public status page. Risk assessment and treatment and vendor risk management appear among the trust center's controls. The CEO's posts set out a six part test for summary quality, covering length, clarity, accuracy, coherence, objectivity and focus. A summary passes when a reader grasps the deposition and the next step in under three minutes. A February 2025 post describes AI as strong at some tasks and weak at many others, and says Threadeo will add capabilities in measured steps aligned with how attorneys work. No testing method or result for the summaries is published.
AI Safety and Data Stewardship
Retention, deletion, access control, and what happens to prompts and documents after they are processed. Whether the vendor states its subprocessors and its incident practice, or leaves the buyer to assume.
Retention is in the customer's hands: uploaded documents, recordings and other materials are kept until the customer tells Steno to delete them. On the model side, AI partners do not keep data after a Transcript Genius session. The conversation thread is kept only to give follow up questions context, is not shared, and can be deleted by the user. Steno commits not to access or view Content outside four named cases. It holds a SOC 2 Type II report and a HIPAA addendum, and publishes a data processing addendum (DPA) that applies where law requires. The DPA commits Steno to notify the customer promptly once a security breach is confirmed, to keep a current subprocessor list available on request, and to give notice of new subprocessors where privacy law requires. The terms name Stripe and Bill.com for payments but not the model providers. Steno publishes its controls for encryption, access, background checks, penetration testing and disaster recovery testing.
Under the terms, Threadeo keeps customer data as long as the service needs it and deletes it on request. After termination, data stays available for retrieval for 30 days and is then deleted. Sync includes indefinite cloud hosting of every job. Breach notice reaches the customer within 72 hours, with the nature of the breach, the data affected and the steps taken. Access is role based with multifactor authentication and user access reviews. Data is encrypted with TLS in transit and 256 bit AES at rest, and platform activity is logged and monitored. Threadeo tests its disaster recovery and incident response plans and runs penetration tests and vulnerability scans. The privacy policy describes its subprocessors, such as the cloud host, as vetted and contractually bound, without listing them.
AI Liability and Recourse
What the vendor stands behind contractually when its output is wrong. Indemnities, caps, carve outs, insurance, and whether any of it is published or only reachable through a negotiated agreement.
The terms cap Steno's liability for any damages related to the agreement, for any cause, at $100, and more than one claim does not raise the limit. No exception to the cap is named. Indirect, consequential, exemplary, incidental, special and punitive damages are excluded, suppliers carry no liability, and the customer gives Steno a broad release with a California Civil Code 1542 waiver. Disputes go to mandatory individual arbitration before the AAA in Los Angeles, with a class action waiver and a thirty day opt out. An AI disclaimer provides outputs as is and with all faults, with no warranty of accuracy, completeness, truthfulness, timeliness or suitability, and the customer bears all risk of using them. The only indemnity runs from the customer to Steno, and no insurance is mentioned.
The terms of December 2024 cap Threadeo's total liability at the fees paid in the 12 months before the claim, with a carve out for bodily injury or death caused by its negligence. Indirect and consequential damages, lost data and business losses are excluded. The terms also exclude liability for the accuracy or reliability of AI generated summaries or output. Against third party claims that the software infringes a United States patent or copyright or misappropriates a trade secret, Threadeo indemnifies customers. Six exclusions apply, and Threadeo may modify the software, license it or refund prepaid fees. A service level agreement guarantees 99 percent uptime with service credits, outside a Sunday maintenance window. Disputes go to the California courts under California law. A separate subscription agreement for monthly plans disclaims all warranties and releases Threadeo from claims arising from use of the platform.
Practice Systems Integration Depth
How deeply the product reaches into the systems legal work already lives in: document management such as iManage and NetDocuments, Word and Outlook, contract lifecycle management, matter management, e-billing, and court filing systems.
Clio and Litify integrations have their own pages, listed in the main navigation under Technology and Integrations. Steno Connect for Zoom runs the deposition inside Zoom, with exhibits uploaded, shared, numbered and annotated in the meeting. The terms add linking of Google and Microsoft accounts and a general provision on exporting information to connected third party services. What the Clio and Litify integrations move, and what a firm must set up, is not described. No API or developer documentation is offered, and no document management, electronic billing or court filing system is named.
Sync produces the load files that trial presentation and case review tools read, including DVT, CMS, MDB, PTF, PTS and XML, with LEF and PTZ on request. Named targets are TrialDirector 360 and older TrialDirector versions, OnCue, CaseNotebook, LexisNexis TextMap, LiveNote, Sanction, Summation, Timaro and TrialPro. Video and transcripts can be pulled in from Box or Dropbox, and Concierge Video stitches multiple files and encodes them inside the Sync account. The offline Depo Viewer, at version 1.1.0 since 10 September 2026, opens synced jobs with clips and exhibit links on Windows 10 and 11 and macOS 12 or later. A court reporting firm on Sync can deliver jobs straight into a law firm's CloudReview account, which supports single sign on and two factor authentication. CloudReview also takes a list of designations and counter designations and applies them to a transcript. An API with key and token management is open to account holders, and Enterprise customers can commission custom integrations at discounted development rates. No connector to a case management or document management system is described.
Deployment Model and Data Residency
Where the software runs and where the data sits. Multi tenant cloud, single tenant, private deployment, on premises, and whether region of residence is a published option or an enterprise conversation.
Where data is held is not stated. The product is a browser dashboard with a Zoom app, and the terms say materials are stored on Steno's systems under its security protocols. No cloud provider, region or tenancy model is named. Content does pass to outside model providers for Transcript Genius, and those providers do not keep it after a session. The privacy policy, updated 9 October 2026, says Steno is headquartered in the United States, uses service providers in other countries, and may move personal information across borders. The DPA allows cross border processing of personal information only where privacy law is met and a lawful transfer mechanism is in place.
Section 3.5 of the terms names a single AWS region in the United States as the host for Threadeo's services and customer data. The platform runs in the browser with no desktop install, and the Depo Viewer is a separate offline application for Windows and macOS. Enterprise customers can white label the platform on their own domain with their own SSL certificate and email. A public status page reports uptime and performance for every Threadeo system. The security page cites ISO 27001, ISO 9001, SOC 2 and PCI DSS compliant data centers. Where the third party AI services behind the summaries process data is not stated.
Security Certifications and Trust Center
Independent attestation a buyer can pull without a sales call: SOC 2, ISO 27001, penetration test summaries, a trust center with current reports and named scope rather than a badge image.
The trust center offers a SOC 2 Type II report for the control period 1 February 2025 to 31 January 2026 and a HIPAA addendum dated 31 January 2026, both through a request access form. According to the Transcript Genius page, SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA standards cover all data in the platform, and Steno's AI partners meet them too. The terms commit to safeguards in line with SOC 2 policies. Controls across infrastructure, organizational and product security are shown, including encryption, background checks and penetration testing, along with a responsible disclosure policy. No auditor is named on the public pages.
A SOC 2 Type 2 examination by Prescient Assurance is complete. The trust center, run on Scytale, lists the report dated 30 October 2025 and a letter of attestation dated 31 October 2025, alongside a 2025 HIPAA completion letter from Scytale. It also shows 40 controls across data, product, access, continuity, organizational and endpoint security. The CEO's announcement of November 2025 names Scytale as the compliance partner. The report and letters sit behind the trust center's request access flow.
Model Supply Chain Disclosure
Which models sit underneath, whose they are, where they run, and whether the vendor commits to telling customers when that changes. A legal buyer inherits every dependency it cannot see.
The terms of use, effective 10 September 2026, say Transcript Genius is built mainly on large language models from outside providers that Steno has vetted and holds under contract. Data shared with those providers is not used as broader training data. The trust center adds that customer data is not stored with the AI provider, and the beta terms describe zero data retention agreements with Steno's model vendors. No provider or model is named, and the trust center's subprocessor page lists none. Steno may change the AI platform behind Transcript Genius at any time at its sole discretion, with no promise to notify. A separate paragraph says Steno's internal AI use runs under agreements that bar providers from training on data.
The summaries are described as AI combined with proprietary analysis, and older transcription pages describe leading speech to text engines combined with proprietary algorithms. The terms say Threadeo uses only third party AI services that do not train on customer data passed to them. Sync's alignment and clip tools are described as proprietary technology, and UltraSync runs on the same engine. No model or provider is named.
Commercial Transparency
Whether a buyer can learn what this costs without entering a sales process: published rates, the unit being charged, what sits behind an enterprise tier, and what implementation adds.
Transcript Genius has no extra charge and no usage limit, though Steno may change that at its sole discretion. Canceling a court reporter or videographer after 4pm on the business day before a job can cost up to $400. Interpreter cancellation runs from 48 hours to 30 days ahead depending on dialect, and the fee may be the interpreter's full charge. Invoices more than 30 days late accrue interest at the lesser of 1.5 percent a month or the legal maximum. DelayPay defers case costs until settlement. Reporting and video rates come from a rate card sent on request, and a firm can negotiate them. Any quote is a nonbinding estimate, and the firm is liable if the invoice is higher. Rates for reporting work are not listed.
CloudReview Teams costs $199 a month for up to 10 users, plus processing at $0.10 per certified transcript page, $0.25 per minute of synced deposition video and $0.25 per minute of exported clips. It includes a custom subdomain, unlimited collaborators and annotations, caption files in SRT, VTT and SMI, usage reports and priority email support. Enterprise, typically for 50 or more users, is quoted and adds white labeling, phone support, two hours of consulting a month and custom integrations. Sync and Summaries are sold per job and per transcript with no subscription, seats or contracts. Their rates are given on request, and the Depo Viewer is included with every synced deposition at no charge.
Firm and Practice Coverage
Who the product is actually built for. AmLaw, midlaw, small firm and solo, in house departments, government and courts, and which practice areas are supported rather than merely claimed.
The buyer is litigation teams at law firms, with deferred payment aimed at contingency and plaintiff practices, and the terms expect firm administrators to manage users such as legal assistants and paralegals. Transcript Genius accepts third party transcripts in text and PDF as well as Steno's own, so a firm can analyze depositions taken by opposing counsel. Steno claims to handle anything from single depositions to complex matters with many parties. No list of states or jurisdictions where Steno can staff a proceeding is published on the product pages or in the terms. The only geographic signs are a navigation entry for California litigation support and a Nevada firm registration in the footer. No practice area is named as served or excluded.
Sync is built for court reporting firms, court reporters and videographers, from solo practitioners to high volume production teams. Summaries serve the same firms, which can offer them to their own clients, and the lawyers who read them. Pages address plaintiff and defense attorneys, public defenders, district attorneys, arbitrators and in house counsel, and CloudReview Teams is offered to court reporting, legal and HR teams. Summaries cover depositions, arbitrations and trials. Sync handles video and audio only proceedings in MP4, MOV, MPEG 1, MPEG 2, WMV, MP3, AAC, FLAC and WAV, including interpreter jobs. No jurisdiction or practice area limit is stated.
The 12 legal signals, side by side
Recorded rather than graded. These are the questions a practitioner has to answer before a tool touches a client matter, and the answers are taken from public material only.
Client Data in Training
Can material a lawyer puts into this product be used to train a model?
The AI section of the terms of use, effective 10 September 2026, says data shared with outside model providers through Steno is not used as broader training data. A separate paragraph on internal AI use says Steno's agreements with model providers ensure they do not train on data given to them. The product page says transcripts and conversations are never used to train the AI, and the privacy policy, updated 9 October 2026, says Steno does not use information to train AI models. The Content license also lets Steno use customer Content on an aggregated, deidentified basis to improve the Services.
Section 3.6 of Threadeo's terms, last updated December 2024, states that it does not use customer data to train AI models, including large language models. It adds that Threadeo uses only third party services that do not train their models on customer data it passes to them. The privacy policy of September 2025 repeats that service data trains no AI model and is used only for that client's work. The trust page adds that transcripts are not used to train public models.
The policy defines service data as the video, audio, transcripts and documents a client uploads, and says that data belongs to the client. A separate subscription agreement for monthly plans lets Threadeo keep and share usage information in anonymous or aggregate form for business purposes.
Prompt and Output Retention
How long does the product keep what a lawyer typed, and can that be set to zero?
Retention sits with the customer. Materials uploaded through the Dashboard, Steno Connect for Zoom or a third party integration are stored until the customer asks for deletion. On the model side, AI partners keep no data after a Transcript Genius session. A conversation is saved in a thread so follow up questions have context; the thread is not shared, and the user can delete it. No period is set for threads the user keeps.
The terms keep customer data for as long as the service requires and guarantee deletion when the customer asks. After termination, data stays available for retrieval for 30 days, export options are offered on request, and the data is then deleted. Sync hosts every job indefinitely by default, as part of the service, with each job viewable at any time from any device. Load file packages and the Depo Viewer package are downloaded to the customer's own systems.
When a monthly plan ends, the subscription agreement requires users to erase anything they downloaded from the platform. Threadeo tests its data backups and restoration. The privacy policy refers to a record retention policy that is not published.
Ethical Walls and Matter Segregation
Does retrieval respect the firm’s ethical walls, or can the model read across them?
Transcript Genius is marketed on questioning all the depositions in a firm's Dashboard at once. Filters by case, attorney or witness narrow the results but do not restrict who can see what. Access control works at firm level. A designated Administrator keeps the list of End Users and removes people who should no longer have access, and Steno disclaims liability if that list is wrong. Matter level permissions, and whether the AI would respect them, are not described.
CloudReview keeps its own sharing model. A firm invites partners, associates and paralegals to a transcript, grants edit rights, shares single clips by email and sets who can see each page and line annotation. Each Teams customer works on its own subdomain, and Enterprise customers get a white labeled platform. Role based access control and user access reviews appear among the trust center's controls. Collaborators are notified when an annotation is added and can discuss it in a thread.
Jobs move from a court reporting firm's Sync account to a law firm's CloudReview account rather than by emailed links. Law firms receiving those jobs get free CloudReview accounts with single sign on and two factor authentication.
Third Party Request and Subpoena Notice
If someone subpoenas the vendor for a firm’s data, does the firm hear about it first?
In certain jurisdictions the terms let Steno record remote depositions for backup, including portions considered off the record. Such a recording is not shared without a valid subpoena to which no party objects, or a valid court order. Nothing commits Steno to telling the customer that a demand has arrived or to resisting it. For Content generally, the terms allow access as required by law, with no notice attached. No transparency report is offered.
Neither the terms, the monthly subscription agreement nor the privacy policy addresses requests from courts, law enforcement or other third parties for customer data. Section 3.1 of the terms treats customer data and the output generated from it as confidential information that Threadeo may disclose to no third party except in providing the service. The privacy policy says service data is shared only with vetted subprocessors bound by contract to protect it, and is never sold or used for marketing.
Requests from people named in a deposition go to the client that controls the data. The monthly subscription agreement lets Threadeo suspend access for legal or regulatory reasons or action by authorities, without saying whether the customer is told.
Primary Law Corpus Provenance
Where does the law in this product come from, and does the vendor have the right to use it?
Transcript Genius works on the deposition transcripts of the customer's own matters, whether made by Steno's reporters or uploaded by the firm. No body of law or licensed content sits behind it. The customer keeps copyright and other rights in the Content it submits, and Steno takes only a revocable license to provide the Services. Only final, ordered transcripts can be questioned, not drafts or unordered ones; Steno says this protects the court reporters' work, and it means the text analyzed is a certified record.
Summaries draw on the transcript the customer uploads. Trial and arbitration summaries include analysis of how laws and precedents apply to the facts, and the source of that law is not named. Arbitration summaries identify the governing law and how it may apply. Sync works only from the certified transcript, video and exhibits the firm supplies. The cross deposition analysis compares the transcripts uploaded for one case. Exhibit summaries in Sync and the Depo Viewer draw on the exhibits a firm links to the transcript.
Good Law Verification
Does the product tell you when the authority it just cited has been overruled?
Transcript Genius reads deposition testimony, not legal authority, so there is no point of law to check for later history, and no citator is claimed. The check that does apply is whether an answer or summary matches the transcript, which Steno handles through design, with every answer cited to a page and line and shown beside the source. No measure of how often answers are correct is published.
Citations in Threadeo's output point to a page and line of the uploaded transcript. Where trial and arbitration summaries discuss laws and precedents, they show no check of how later courts treated those authorities. Trial summaries flag the objections and evidentiary rulings that appear in the transcript. Arbitration summaries set out grounds for enforcement, appeal or setting aside, and consolidated trial summaries support appeal preparation across several days.
Refusal and Uncertainty Behavior
What does the product do when the answer is not in the corpus?
Nothing on the Transcript Genius page, the home page or in the terms of use describes what the tool does when the transcript does not support the question. No way of declining to answer, confidence indicator, threshold, or behavior for ambiguous testimony or a contradiction that does not exist is published. The terms admit the risk in general. They say AI is not perfect and may make mistakes, give outputs no warranty of accuracy or completeness, and state that the tool runs with no human oversight.
Every answer is cited to a page and line with the transcript alongside, so a user can check any claim, but is not told which claims the system was least sure of.
Summaries are said to be engineered for zero hallucinations, with every statement tied to the uploaded transcript and every chat answer ending in page and line links. No behavior is described for a question that the transcript cannot answer. In Sync, the platform flags QC points for the reporter to review, and UltraSync's team contacts the customer at once if uploaded files have problems.
Fabricated Citation Record
Does a public court record exist addressing fabricated or hallucinated legal citations in output from this product?
The AI Hallucination Cases database maintained by Damien Charlotin, which records court decisions worldwide that address hallucinated AI content and the tool involved where known, has no entry naming Steno or Transcript Genius. Transcript Genius answers questions about deposition testimony with page and line citations into transcripts the customer already holds, not citations to legal authority.
The AI Hallucination Cases database maintained by Damien Charlotin, which records court decisions worldwide that address hallucinated AI content and the tool involved where known, has no entry naming Threadeo. Threadeo's products sync deposition video and summarize deposition, arbitration and trial transcripts for court reporting firms and lawyers.
Bar Guidance Alignment
Has the vendor engaged in public with the ethics opinions its buyers are bound by?
Brief, Steno's blog, carries a post dated 1 April 2025 titled Legal AI: ABA & State Legal Ethics Guidance on Artificial Intelligence. It discusses ABA Formal Opinion 512, Texas State Bar Opinion No. 705 of February 2025 and Kentucky Bar Association opinion KBA E-457, and lists the guidance state by state. The Transcript Genius page, the home page and the terms of use cite no professional conduct authority. The terms take a professional position without citing a source: AI outputs are research aids, not legal advice, attorney work product, or a substitute for reviewing the record.
No bar rule or ethics opinion appears in the terms, product material or blog. The Litigator's Edge podcast interviews trial lawyers about practice and technology, with guests such as Steven Molo and Bob Christie. Threadeo sponsors the podcast, and its CEO hosts it. The CEO's posts discuss the profession's caution about new technology and how AI should fit the way attorneys already work.
Billing and Fee Posture
Does the vendor address what happens to the bill when the work takes an hour instead of six?
Time savings run through the product pages: hours of transcript review reduced to minutes, summaries generated in minutes instead of hours, and hours saved on every case. No per matter record of AI assisted work for fee purposes is offered, and no guidance covers how a firm should treat or disclose AI assisted analysis when billing a client. Transcript Genius carries no additional charge, so there is no separate technology cost to pass through. DelayPay defers court reporting costs until settlement.
Summaries are claimed to cut the time to analysis of a deposition by 80 percent or more, free partner hours for strategy and let a firm take on more cases. Court reporting firms are told they can offer summaries to their clients as a new service. Sync is pitched to those firms as protecting revenue, at direct cost parity with legacy desktop software, and is priced per job so a firm's cost follows its volume. Summaries carry no subscription, so a firm pays only for the transcripts it analyzes. No guidance on billing or client disclosure is published.
Outside Counsel Guideline Readiness
Can a firm get this vendor through a client’s AI clause without a bespoke negotiation?
The data processing addendum, effective 3 March 2025, commits Steno to keep an up to date list of subprocessors available on request and to give notice of new ones where privacy law requires. The trust center's subprocessor page lists none. The terms of use name Stripe and Bill.com as payment processors and describe the model providers behind Transcript Genius only as vetted third parties under contract. The SOC 2 Type II report and HIPAA addendum come through the trust center's request access form, while the DPA, the privacy policy and the terms are public.
Policies on availability, privacy, confidentiality and disaster recovery are offered to customers on demand. The SOC 2 Type 2 report, letter of attestation and HIPAA completion letter come through the trust center's request access flow. Subprocessors are described as vetted and bound by contract, without a list. Anyone can view the trust center's 40 controls and their status, vendor risk management among them. Threadeo's team shares documentation and answers security questions in a consultation.
A designated privacy officer handles data questions, and Threadeo helps clients answer access and deletion requests under its DPA.
Court Disclosure Support
If a judge’s standing order requires an AI disclosure, can the product produce one?
Every Transcript Genius answer cites a transcript page and line, is shown beside the source, and can open the synced video at the cited moment. Nothing says questions, answers or the acceptance of an answer are logged for export. No export exists for an AI use disclosure or a certification of verification, and no template or guidance is published for a court's standing order. The terms do not name the models behind Transcript Genius and let Steno change the AI platform at any time, so the model behind an earlier answer may not be knowable later.
Each summary insight cites a page and line, and the side by side view links summary and transcript. Platform activity is logged, and Sync records the QC points on each job. CloudReview exports page and line reports filtered by deponent or issue code to PDF, and any annotation on a synced transcript can become a captioned clip. Summaries come in several styles as DOCX and PDF files. The chat labels each answer's direct reply, analysis, strategic note and citations as separate parts. No per summary record of how it was produced is exported.
The questions both sides leave open
Derived from the records above rather than written, so it cannot favor either vendor. Take these into both conversations and ask each side the same question.
- Primary Law Corpus Provenance
- Good Law Verification
- Refusal and Uncertainty Behavior
Which one fits
Choose Steno if
- You need the deposition itself staffed. Steno books court reporters, videographers and interpreters, runs remote and hybrid depositions, and rents equipment and conference rooms.
- You want AI analysis included with the transcript. Transcript Genius comes with Steno depositions at no extra charge and no usage limit, and also accepts transcripts from other reporters in text or PDF.
- You run contingency cases and want case costs deferred. DelayPay lets a firm hold Steno's charges until the case settles.
Choose Threadeo if
- You run a court reporting firm. Threadeo Sync aligns video and transcripts in the browser, runs many jobs at once and generates load files for TrialDirector, OnCue and other trial software.
- You want analysis built for cross examination. Threadeo Summaries adds impeachment points, admissions and pointed cross examination questions to a chronology of the testimony, downloadable as PDF or Word.
- Your depositions come from many reporters. Threadeo works on any certified transcript, and its cross deposition reports weave several witnesses into one chronology with inconsistency and corroboration reports.
In summary
Steno
Steno is a deposition and litigation support company in Los Angeles that pairs court reporting, videography and interpreters with software for the firms that book them. Steno Connect for Zoom runs remote depositions, the Firm Dashboard holds a firm's transcripts with Clio and Litify integrations, and DelayPay defers case costs until settlement. According to the AI Legal Index, Steno's Transcript Genius answers questions across depositions with page and line citations and synced video, and runs mainly on outside language models under contract. Its security rests on a SOC 2 Type II report, with a HIPAA addendum for medical records.
Threadeo
Threadeo is a San Francisco company selling cloud software to court reporting and litigation support firms and to the lawyers they serve. Threadeo Sync aligns deposition video with certified transcripts and produces the load files that trial software reads. Threadeo Summaries turns deposition, arbitration and trial transcripts into structured analysis cited to page and line, with cross deposition reports and a chat over the testimony. Threadeo reports SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA attestations with encryption in transit and at rest, and according to the AI Legal Index its terms rule out training on customer data.
Questions buyers ask
Is Steno a software vendor or a court reporting agency?
Steno is an agency that also ships software. It staffs court reporters, videographers and interpreters and sells those services, with Transcript Genius and the Firm Dashboard included for its clients. Threadeo sells software and per job services to reporting firms and lawyers, and does not staff proceedings. From the AI Legal Index, based on each vendor's own published materials as of October 12, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Can either one analyze transcripts from another reporter?
Yes. Transcript Genius accepts uploaded transcripts in text or PDF from any source, though only final, ordered transcripts can be questioned. Threadeo Summaries works on transcripts from any reporter, and Threadeo Sync is built for reporting firms' own jobs. From the AI Legal Index, based on each vendor's own published materials as of October 12, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How does each one show where an answer came from?
Transcript Genius links every answer to the transcript page and line, shown side by side, and can open the synced video at that moment. Threadeo cites each summary insight to page and line in a side by side view, and its deposition chat returns answers with linked citations. From the AI Legal Index, based on each vendor's own published materials as of October 12, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
What does each charge for the AI?
Steno includes Transcript Genius at no additional charge for its clients and keeps its reporting rates on a rate card provided on request. Threadeo prices Sync and Summaries per job, ordered through its site. From the AI Legal Index, based on each vendor's own published materials as of October 12, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Which one fits a court reporting firm?
Threadeo. Its Sync product is sold to court reporting and litigation support firms so they can deliver synced video and load files to their clients. Steno is itself a reporting agency, so its software serves the law firms that book Steno. From the AI Legal Index, based on each vendor's own published materials as of October 12, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Neither vendor paid for inclusion, placement or a grade, and neither reviewed this page before it published. Everything on it comes from public material on the dates shown. How the index grades.
Steno Agency, Inc. is based in Los Angeles and states no parent company. Threadeo Inc. is a Delaware corporation based in San Francisco and states no parent or investor. Steno's terms cap its liability at $100 and let it change the AI platform behind Transcript Genius at its sole discretion. Neither vendor reviewed this page.