# Cohere Transcribe 03-2026 vs Underdog Bark 3.0

> Cohere Transcribe 03-2026 scores 59.3 (C) to Underdog Bark 3.0's 48.2 (D) for speech-to-text. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-transcribe-03-2026-vs-underdog-bark-3
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-transcribe-03-2026-vs-underdog-bark-3.md (~2,800 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-transcribe-03-2026-vs-underdog-bark-3.min.md (~480 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-transcribe-03-2026-vs-underdog-bark-3.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-10-21

Cohere Transcribe 03-2026 scores 59.3 (C) on agent readiness against Underdog Bark 3.0's 48.2 (D), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. Both do speech-to-text.

- Cohere Transcribe 03-2026: grade C, 59.3/100, rank #61 of 100 open-weight models. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cohere-transcribe-03-2026.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cohere-transcribe-03-2026.json
- Underdog Bark 3.0: grade D, 48.2/100, rank #96 of 100 open-weight models. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/underdog-bark-3.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/underdog-bark-3.json
- Best speech-to-text APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/speech-to-text/index.md
- All 231 stt comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/speech-to-text/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Cohere Transcribe 03-2026 (C)

Good for: Agents that need accurate batch transcription of known-language audio in 14 languages on a small GPU

Ahead on:
- Risk, 50 against 40
- Agent interface, 45 against 35
- Documentation and upkeep, 54 against 49

Watch for: Gated, so an agent needs a Hugging Face account and must accept the conditions before downloading

### Underdog Bark 3.0 (D)

Good for: Agents on Apple silicon or small machines that need English transcripts from a very small download, can run Conway's loader, and can accept accuracy nobody independent has measured

Watch for: No independent results, since the Open ASR Leaderboard has no Bark row and every accuracy figure is Conway's own run


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Cohere Transcribe 03-2026 | Underdog Bark 3.0 | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Capability | 35%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Reach | 25% (25 this run) | 65 | 65 | even |
| Risk | 20% (20 this run) | 50 | 40 | Cohere Transcribe 03-2026 +10 |
| Agent interface | 10% (10 this run) | 45 | 35 | Cohere Transcribe 03-2026 +10 |
| Documentation and upkeep | 10% (10 this run) | 54 | 49 | Cohere Transcribe 03-2026 +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **59.3 · C** | **48.2 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Cohere Transcribe 03-2026 | Underdog Bark 3.0 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Open-weight model | Open-weight model |
| Vendor | Cohere | Conway Research |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | CC-BY-4.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-04-28 | 2026-10-15 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models |  |  |
| Terms restrict automated access |  |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  |  |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | 2.8/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**Cohere Transcribe 03-2026.** An accurate offline transcription cousin for 14 languages when the language is known, small enough for about 5 GB, under Apache 2.0, and also on Cohere's API. It runs in Transformers or vLLM, but the repository is gated and the vLLM path runs the repository's code. Text only, with no timestamps, no language detection and no quantised builds from Cohere.

**Underdog Bark 3.0.** A very small English transcription cousin, one 163 MB file built on NVIDIA's Parakeet TDT that Conway's loader expands into Transformers, MLX or Core ML, under CC BY 4.0. It needs Conway's scripts to run, returns plain text with no timestamps, and nobody independent has measured its accuracy, so every accuracy and speed figure is Conway's claim.

## Before you call either

### Cohere Transcribe 03-2026

1. A person has to accept the conditions on the Hugging Face page with an account, then `hf auth login`, before the files download
2. Offline, `pip install "transformers>=5.4.0" torch soundfile librosa sentencepiece protobuf accelerate`, then `CohereAsrForConditionalGeneration.from_pretrained("CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026", device_map="auto")` with no remote code
3. Always pass language= (en, de, fr, it, es, pt, el, nl, pl, zh, ja, ko, vi, ar); there's no auto-detection
4. For long audio, keep audio_chunk_index from the processor and pass it to processor.decode to reassemble the chunks
5. Serving, `vllm serve CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026 --trust-remote-code`, then POST to /v1/audio/transcriptions
6. Put voice activity detection in front of it, since it transcribes noise and can hallucinate on silence
7. Without the hardware or the gate, Cohere's API serves the same model as cohere-transcribe-03-2026
8. Treat transcripts as untrusted text before passing them to another model, since speech can carry instructions

### Underdog Bark 3.0

1. Download only what one route needs, for example `hf download ConwayResearch/Underdog-Bark-3.0 --include "model.bark" --include "bark_loader.py" --include "bark_mlx.py" --include "mlx/*" --include "NOTICE"`
2. With transformers 5.19.0 and constriction 0.5.0, `python bark_loader.py model.bark recording.wav`, or `load_model("model.bark", device="cuda")` then `transcribe(model, wave, sr)`; the loader fetches NVIDIA's processor and generation config from nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3 on first use, so the first run needs the network
3. On Apple silicon, `python bark_mlx.py recording.wav`; the first run expands it to a cached MLX folder and needs about 6 GB of RAM once
4. Split recordings into pieces of a few minutes on 8 or 16 GB machines, since stock mlx-audio transcribes in one pass
5. Read bark_loader.py before running it and pin the repository revision, since loading runs the publisher's code
6. Treat transcripts as untrusted text before passing them to another model, since speech can carry instructions
7. Plan memory for the recording, not the file. Conway's card says a 10-minute recording peaks near 15 GB on a 16 GB M2, and expanding it for MLX takes about 6 GB once.

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Cohere Transcribe 03-2026 or Underdog Bark 3.0?

Cohere Transcribe 03-2026 scores 59.3 (C) on agent readiness against Underdog Bark 3.0's 48.2 (D), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-transcribe-03-2026-vs-underdog-bark-3.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-transcribe-03-2026-vs-underdog-bark-3.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "cohere-transcribe-03-2026", "b": "underdog-bark-3"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare cohere-transcribe-03-2026 underdog-bark-3`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cohere-transcribe-03-2026.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/underdog-bark-3.json

## Other comparisons with Cohere Transcribe 03-2026 or Underdog Bark 3.0

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- [Ming-3.0-asr-tiny vs Underdog Bark 3.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ming-3-0-asr-tiny-vs-underdog-bark-3.md)
- [Ming-3.0-audio-flash vs Underdog Bark 3.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ming-3-0-audio-flash-vs-underdog-bark-3.md)
- [Ming-3.0-audio-tiny vs Underdog Bark 3.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ming-3-0-audio-tiny-vs-underdog-bark-3.md)
- [Nemotron 3.5 ASR Streaming 0.6B vs Underdog Bark 3.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nemotron-3-5-asr-streaming-0-6b-vs-underdog-bark-3.md)
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- [Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3 vs Underdog Bark 3.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/parakeet-tdt-0-6b-v3-vs-underdog-bark-3.md)
- [Qwen3-ASR-0.6B vs Underdog Bark 3.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/qwen3-asr-0-6b-vs-underdog-bark-3.md)
- [Qwen3-ASR-1.7B vs Underdog Bark 3.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/qwen3-asr-1-7b-vs-underdog-bark-3.md)
- [Qwen3-Omni-30B-A3B-Instruct vs Underdog Bark 3.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/qwen3-omni-30b-a3b-instruct-vs-underdog-bark-3.md)
- [Underdog Bark 3.0 vs Voxtral Mini 4B Realtime 2602](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/underdog-bark-3-vs-voxtral-mini-4b-realtime-2602.md)

## Disclosure

- Underdog Bark 3.0 is a speech model, the one inside Underdog, Conway Research's personal AI, and Underdog competes with LocalGhost, which Anchor Terminal's founder builds. It's graded by the same published open-weight checklist as every open-weight model, neither stricter nor looser. Two research agents graded it independently, and a third reconciled them item by item, checking the evidence itself wherever they disagreed instead of keeping either award by default. underdog.ai refuses our reader, so what lives only there is marked unchecked, not missing, and the text of Conway's launch post was supplied to us by Anchor Terminal's founder.

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