Remote and hybrid work has a sound problem. Barking dogs, keyboard clatter, lawnmowers, neighbours, air conditioning, open offices — the range of background noise that bleeds into calls has made audio quality a genuine operational concern for distributed teams. AI noise cancellation has become the practical solution, and the current generation of tools is good enough that the problem is largely solvable for most remote workers.
Here’s an honest overview of what’s available, what actually works, and how to choose the right level of solution for your situation.
What AI Noise Cancellation Actually Does
Traditional noise cancellation uses physical acoustic techniques. AI-based noise cancellation works differently — it analyses the audio stream in real time, learns to distinguish speech from non-speech sounds using a trained model, and suppresses everything it classifies as noise before the audio reaches the listener or is transmitted to a call. The result is a cleaner audio signal without requiring any special hardware beyond a standard microphone.
The technology handles different noise types with varying effectiveness. Consistent, steady-state noise — HVAC fans, air conditioning, white noise — is suppressed very reliably. Intermittent or complex noise — barking dogs, traffic, a child talking nearby, keyboard clicks — is handled well by the better tools but may partially bleed through on less capable ones. Music is the hardest category, as the model must classify something that rhythmically resembles speech.
Built-In Platform Tools: Good Enough for Most Situations
Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Webex all include AI-based noise suppression built into their audio settings. For the majority of home office environments with moderate background noise, these built-in tools perform well enough that there’s no compelling reason to add a separate tool. They’re zero-cost, zero-setup, and work automatically without any additional software running on the machine.
Teams’ built-in suppression is particularly capable and has improved significantly with recent updates. Zoom handles the common home office noise profile — keyboard, ambient room sound, HVAC — reliably. The limitation is scope: these tools only work within their respective platform. If you use multiple meeting tools, or need noise cancellation on recorded audio rather than a live call, platform tools don’t help.
Krisp: The System-Wide Option
Krisp installs as a software layer between your microphone and any application — it creates a virtual audio device that your meeting apps use, with noise cancellation applied before the audio reaches the application. This system-wide approach means it works regardless of which meeting platform you’re on, and it also processes inbound audio from other participants, making everyone on the call sound cleaner from your end.
Krisp’s suppression is strong, particularly on complex noise sources that platform tools struggle with. The trade-off is CPU usage — real-time AI processing is computationally intensive, and on older laptops, Krisp can noticeably affect performance during calls. On modern hardware this typically isn’t a concern, but it’s worth testing on your actual machine before committing to a subscription.
🔊 Getting the Most From AI Noise Cancellation
NVIDIA RTX Voice: The GPU-Accelerated Option
For users with compatible NVIDIA RTX graphics cards, RTX Voice (included in NVIDIA Broadcast) offloads noise cancellation processing to the GPU rather than the CPU. The result is very effective noise suppression with minimal CPU overhead — the GPU handles the workload that would otherwise tax the processor. On the right hardware, this is the most capable and lowest-system-impact option available.
The obvious limitation is hardware dependency. RTX Voice requires a compatible NVIDIA GPU, which rules it out for most laptop users and anyone without recent dedicated graphics hardware. For desktop users or those with gaming or professional laptops with RTX graphics, it’s worth installing for the performance characteristics alone.
For Recorded Content: Post-Processing Tools
Adobe Audition, Audacity with plugins, and cloud tools like Auphonic serve the post-processing use case — cleaning up already-recorded audio rather than processing it live. For podcast recordings, training video narration, or any audio that will be distributed rather than just heard in a call, these tools offer more aggressive noise reduction than real-time solutions, at the cost of requiring manual processing after the fact.
Auphonic is worth highlighting for teams producing audio content regularly — it’s a cloud-based tool that handles loudness normalisation, noise reduction, and audio levelling automatically from an upload. For content creators who aren’t audio engineers, it’s a practical way to produce professional-sounding audio without deep technical knowledge of audio processing.
🎯 Built-In vs Dedicated Noise Cancellation
The Inbound Audio Problem
Most noise cancellation conversations focus on outbound audio — cleaning up your microphone so others hear you clearly. But for anyone who regularly has calls with participants in noisy environments, inbound audio quality is equally affecting the experience. Krisp and similar system-wide tools can apply noise cancellation to all audio received through your system, not just what you transmit — so a colleague calling from a busy open office sounds cleaner on your end even if they haven’t installed any noise cancellation themselves.
This inbound cleaning is one of the clearest differentiators between system-wide dedicated tools and platform-built suppression. Zoom and Teams’ built-in tools only clean audio before it’s transmitted from your microphone — they don’t affect what you hear from others. If a significant portion of your call quality problem comes from noisy participants rather than your own environment, this is the capability gap worth addressing with a dedicated tool.
Noise Cancellation for Recorded Audio Content
For podcasters, trainers, and anyone producing audio content rather than just taking calls, the post-processing tools are worth knowing about separately from real-time solutions. Adobe Audition’s noise reduction, Audacity’s noise profile filter, and cloud services like Auphonic all handle already-recorded audio — removing background hum, air conditioning noise, and room reverb after the fact. The quality achievable in post-processing is often better than real-time cancellation because the algorithm can analyse the full clip rather than predicting noise in real time. For content that will be distributed and listened to carefully, the extra step of audio post-processing is worth the effort.
Audio quality is one of those things that listeners notice most when it’s bad and take for granted when it’s good. Remote teams that invest in getting outbound and inbound audio right — whether through built-in tools, dedicated software, or a combination — remove a source of friction from every call that accumulates meaningfully across a full working week. The investment is small relative to the recurring benefit.
The Right Level of Tool for Your Situation
For most remote workers in typical home office environments, the built-in suppression in Zoom or Teams is sufficient and free. The upgrade to Krisp or a similar dedicated tool makes sense when you’re regularly on calls in genuinely noisy environments — open offices, cafes, homes with significant ambient noise — and platform tools are inadequate. The hardware-accelerated options are worth considering if you have compatible GPU hardware and want the best possible performance without CPU overhead.
The practical test is straightforward: enable your platform’s built-in noise suppression and get honest feedback from colleagues over a week of calls. If they notice your audio quality is still an issue, that’s the signal to try a dedicated tool. If the built-in suppression handles it adequately, there’s no need to add complexity and cost.