Automatic speech recognition (ASR) is a cornerstone technology that transforms spoken language into text, enabling a wide range of applications from virtual assistants to real-time transcription services. This chapter explores how reinforcement learning (RL) is revolutionizing ASR systems, addressing long-standing challenges and opening new possibilities. We’ll examine innovative RL techniques enhancing ASR capabilities, including speech enhancement in noisy environments, batch-wise model adaptation, and leveraging unlabeled data. Through a series of case studies, we’ll demonstrate how RL is making ASR systems more accurate, adaptable, and capable of handling the complexities of real-world speech. As we explore these advancements, we’ll see how improvements in ASR ripple through other areas of speech and language technology, setting the stage for the innovations discussed in subsequent chapters. Prepare to discover how RL is making machines better listeners and maybe even a little more human-like in their understanding.