Keyterm Prompting
Keyterm Prompting allows you to improve Keyword Recall Rate (KRR) for important keyterms or phrases up to 90%.
keyterm string
Instantly increase accuracy and recognition of up to 100 important terminology, product and company names, industry jargon, phrases and more.
Keyterm Prompting is only available for monolingual transcription using the Nova-3 Model. To boost recognition of keywords using another Deepgram model, use the Keywords feature.
Enable Feature
To enable Keyterm Prompting, add a keyterm parameter in the query string and set it to your chosen key term:
keyterm=KEYTERM
To transcribe audio from a file on your computer, run the following cURL command in a terminal or your favorite API client.
Replace YOUR_DEEPGRAM_API_KEY with your Deepgram API Key.
Keyterm Examples & Best Practices
The following examples demonstrate how keyterms can significantly improve recognition accuracy and confidence scores for industry-specific terminology. These examples show typical improvements you might see across Drive-Thru, IVR, call center, and medical transcription use cases.
The confidence scores below are illustrative examples showing typical improvement patterns. Actual results may vary based on audio quality, accent, and context.
Best Practices for Keyterm Selection
When choosing keyterms, consider the following guidelines to maximize accuracy:
Good Keyterm Examples:
- Industry-specific terminology: Medical terms (
tretinoin,diagnosis), technical jargon (escalation,API) - Product and company names: Brand names, service names, competitor names
- Multi-word phrases: Common phrases in your domain (
account number,customer service) - Proper nouns: Names, brands, titles with appropriate capitalization (
Deepgram,iPhone,Dr. Smith) - Common non-proper nouns: Use lowercase (
algorithm,protocol,refill)
What to Avoid:
- Generic common words: Very common words that are rarely misrecognized (
the,and,is) - Overly broad terms: Words that appear in many contexts without specific meaning
- Excessive keyterms: Stay well under the 500 token limit; focus on the most important 20-50 terms
- Inconsistent formatting: Ensure capitalization matches your desired output
Case Sensitivity and Formatting
Keyterms preserve formatting (including case and punctuation) which can help control how proper nouns, product names, or company names are transcribed. The model will use both the keyterm formatting and the audio context to determine the final transcription format.
Best practices for keyterm formatting:
- For proper nouns (names, brands, titles): Use appropriate capitalization (
Deepgram,iPhone,Dr. Smith) - For non-proper nouns: Use lowercase (
tretinoin,algorithm,protocol)
When smart formatting is applied to the transcript, words that start sentences may be automatically capitalized regardless of keyterm formatting.
Note that while the model was trained with formatted keyterms, the final transcription may not always exactly match the keyterm’s formatting. The model balances the keyterm information with the audio context when determining capitalization and punctuation in the output.
Using Multiple Keyterms
A space must be properly URL-encoded to ensure compatibility. Both %20 and + are valid encodings, but their usage depends on context. In URL paths, spaces must be encoded as %20, while in query parameters, either %20 or + can be used.
You can pass in multiple keywords in your query string in several ways:
Repeat the keyterm parameter for each keyterm to ensure each keyterm is processed individually.
Use an encoded space %20 to separate each keyterm and combine multiple keyterms into a single space-delimited value and boost an entire phrase as a cohesive unit.
Use a plus + to separate each keyterm and combine multiple keyterms into a single space-delimited value and boost an entire phrase as a cohesive unit.
Key Term Limits
Key Terms are limited to 500 tokens per request; anything beyond that will return an error like so:
