The UCI Disability Services Center (DSC) allowed its license for the transcription software Otter AI to expire, and has transitioned to Genio Notes as its sole supported transcription platform on Jan. 30. This decision comes amid broader uncertainty surrounding funding for the Disabled Students’ Programs (DSP), which is set to expire across UC campuses this spring.
Otter AI is a transcription and notetaker program that creates “AI-generated summaries” from online meetings to audio recordings. One of its most valued features among students is its ability to label individual speakers during the live transcription, allowing users to follow who is speaking at any given moment.
Genio Notes – formerly known as Glean – by contrast, functions primarily as a note-taking tool that records audio and generates transcripts only after a lecture ends. While Genio offers features such as AI-generated outlines and study tools, it does not generate real-time transcripts.
Previously, both services were available to disabled students through DSC. However, an email sent out to users on Nov. 5 announced, “With all the robust features of Genio Notes (e.g. Live Captions, AI Generated outlines and Quiz me features, etc.), the DSC will transition to offering only Genio as of winter 2026.”
For some students, however, the transition raised accessibility concerns.
Alyson Yin, a second-year informatics PhD student, who received accommodations through the DSC for the past four to five years, described the shift as abrupt and harmful.
According to Yin, Otter AI’s real-time transcription and speaker labeling were essential parts of her educational experience at UCI. The soon-to-be phased-out program has features that Genio Notes does not replicate.
“[With Genio], there’s no way to distinguish the speaker,” Yin said. “Everything runs together, and there’s not even punctuation,”
Yin emphasized that speaker labeling is not a minor feature.
“For people who are hard of hearing…the labelled speaker might be the only way for them to recognize who’s speaking.”
Speaker labeling identifies who is speaking in transcripts, allowing readers to follow conversations more easily and accurately. Without it, lectures and discussions with multiple speakers can become unclear, creating significant accessibility barriers for students who rely on transcripts to understand course content.
According to Yin, Genio’s transcription window is also fixed in size and cannot be resized, making it difficult for visually-impaired students to use.
“I won’t even call it a transcription app,” Yin said. “[It’s] supplementary and barely usable.”
The absence of real-time transcription is significant for students who rely on live captions to follow fast-paced discussions or multi-speaker lectures. As noted on the DSC’s own website, Genio’s transcript “is not created in real time,” meaning students must wait until after class to access a written record.
“It’s just like an awful transition, I can’t even imagine myself using this in the future,” Yin said.
Beyond the technical limitations of Genio, students also feel excluded from decision-making processes that directly affect their accommodations.
“Whenever [the DSC] need to make a change to the accommodations they’re providing or some structural changes,” Yin said. “I wish they could get some opinion from the students it’s serving.”
In an email with New University, Somphone Eno, the Assistive Technology Manager at DSC, noted her surprise about the concerns raised as the DSC was not aware of any such response by students. Eno also described the decision to transition to Genio as “fiscally responsible.”
“As of about September last year, Genio has made many platform enhancements – including caption scrolling and speaker diarization,” Eno said. “At this point with all of the enhancements that Genio has made – including slide annotations, multiple file uploads, equation input and STEM support – we feel that Genio offers a superior product over Otter.”
The purported speaker diarization and caption scrolling features were not evident in a live demonstration of Genio Notes provided to New University by Yin.
The software shift comes as disability services across the UC system face significant uncertainty over federal and state funding cuts.
On Nov.18, Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) Disabled Community Senator Jada Yang wrote a statement addressed to the University of California, Berkeley stating that “temporary funding for Disabled Students Programs (DSPs) across UC campuses… is set to expire in Spring 2026.”
Her statement highlighted the “estimated 30,000 disabled undergraduate and graduate enrolled across the UC system,” who will be impacted by this funding freeze.
This announcement has been the latest development in a year marked by budgetary strain across the UC system.
In March 2025, the UC campuses instituted a system-wide hiring freeze and “cost-saving measures” in response to the federal government’s “executive orders and proposed policy changes,” which were causing funding disruptions and rising costs.
UC Irvine’s Fiscal Year (FY) plan for 2025-26 assumed a deficit of $31 million for the core funds operating the budget “predominately due to the state budget reduction.”
According to this plan, reduced funding to federal agencies is expected to result in fewer grants and contracts, with projections estimating a 20% loss in indirect cost recovery by Fiscal Year 2027.
In recent months, the UC campuses have worked with the California government to approve additional state funding for the coming year.
In a statement thanking Gov. Gavin Newsom for the 2026-2027 state budget, which includes a 7% budget increase, UC President James B. Milliken acknowledged ongoing challenges, stating that the university continues to face “tremendous financial pressures stemming from rising costs and unprecedented federal actions.”
In an email to New University regarding a request for a comment, Kerry Cass, director of the UCI disability services center, stated that the DSC is “grateful for the additional funding” provided by President Milliken.
“As this UC systemwide funding is set to expire in Spring 2026, UC Irvine is carefully evaluating how to sustain essential services,” Cass told New University. “From the outset, this allocation was understood to be temporary, and therefore campus leadership is actively advocating for additional funding and ongoing permanent resources to preserve core operations and continue enhancing access for disabled students.”
In light of these financial challenges, student services across the UC system have been impacted and are currently implementing cost-saving measures.
The disability services at UCI are funded through a hybrid model, including the compulsory Anteater Express Fee – just over $160 per year – and a federally funded TRIO program. Despite this model, federal funding cuts have had visible impacts.
Currently, the DSC does not have an assistant director or an administrative coordinator, roles central to managing accommodations and student communication.
Areesha Hasan is a news intern for the winter 2026 quarter. She can be reached at hasanaf@uci.edu.
Edited by Joshua Gonzales
Editor’s Note: This article was corrected on February 24, 2026, regarding a comment added and given by the director of the DSC.
