Captio AI
🦻 Accessibility + 💻 Productivity App

Punjabi live captions and productivity tool for conferences & events

For deaf and hard of hearing people.

Download for free

Download on theApp Store
Captio AI app showing live captions

Download for free

Download on theApp Store
Use Cases

Every situation covered

Designed for the real moments that matter — not just quiet controlled environments.

🎤Keynotes and main stage talks

From a far seat in a keynote hall in Chandigarh, Amritsar, or Lahore, the speaker is distant and the hall is loud. Point Captio AI toward the nearest PA speaker and read every word of the Punjabi keynote from any seat.

🔬Academic and research conferences

At an academic conference — a research congress at a Chandigarh university or a scientific meeting in Ludhiana — presenters speak fast and mix in terminology. Captio AI captions in real time and transcribes for later review.

💼Industry and professional events

Industry events, agri-business summits, and professional seminars across Punjab carry content that affects your work. Captio AI captions every speaker so you follow the panel.

📋Workshops and breakout sessions

In a workshop or breakout, several voices contribute in a Punjabi–English mix from around the table. Place Captio AI on the table and follow every contribution, including from the back.

🤝Networking and informal sessions

The most useful conversations often happen over chai breaks and at the conference dinner. Captio AI works in these noisy, informal settings the same way it does in the main hall.

🌍International and multilingual events

At an international conference, sessions switch between Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, and English. Live Translator captions foreign-language talks in real time so you follow the full programme.

Performance

Most accurate and fastest models

Punjabi
90%

word accuracy

independent benchmark, 2025

< 200ms
you speak
captions

real-time captions

first word appears as you speak

Download for free

Download on theApp Store
Captio AI in everyday use
Why Captio AI

Built for the room where you cannot ask anyone to repeat

Live captions from any seat

Point the phone toward the nearest PA output or speaker. Captio AI captions whoever is presenting in real time — from the front row or the back of a large conference hall.

Works without venue infrastructure

No hearing loop, no captioning service, no advance booking required. Captio AI works independently via microphone — whether or not the venue has provided any accessibility infrastructure.

Covers what official captioning does not

Official captioning, where it exists, typically covers the main stage only. Q&A sessions, workshops, breakouts, and networking are usually left uncaptioned. Captio AI covers all of it.

Record and review after

Record any session and upload it to Audio Transcription for a full written record. Use AI Summary to extract key takeaways — useful for dense technical content you want to process at your own pace.

60+ languages

For international conferences, foreign-language keynotes, or multilingual panels. Live Translator captions and translates in real time across 60+ languages with no manual switching between speakers.

Works for networking too

The conversations in hallways and at lunch matter as much as the sessions. Captio AI works in any setting — informal, noisy, unstructured — the same way it works in the main hall.

Punjabi

Why Punjabi is hard to understand

Lexical tone

  • The one Indo-Aryan language with tones the lips cannot show
  • Punjabi is unusual among Indo-Aryan languages in having developed lexical tones — level, rising, and falling — that separate otherwise identical words. Tone is carried in pitch, not on the mouth, so a deaf attendee watching a distant keynote speaker gets no visual cue for the tone that fixes the meaning of a term.

Tone from lost aspiration

  • Historic breathy sounds now heard only as pitch
  • Punjabi's tones arose where old voiced-aspirated consonants collapsed, so a distinction that other languages carry as a breathy consonant, Punjabi carries as pitch alone. A deaf attendee has no way to see or infer this from the lips, and it can change a word entirely in a technical talk.

Retroflex and aspirated stops

  • Tongue-curl and puff-of-air sounds with no lip cue
  • Punjabi has retroflex consonants made with the tongue curled back and a set of aspirated stops distinguished by a puff of air. Neither is visible from an audience seat, so a deaf attendee sees one shape for sounds that make different words in a keynote.

Cross-border varieties

  • Indian and Pakistani Punjabi differ on the podium
  • A Punjabi-language event may bring speakers of eastern (Indian, Gurmukhi-writing) and western (Pakistani, Shahmukhi-writing) Punjabi, which differ in vocabulary and some sounds. A deaf attendee calibrated to one variety meets different lip shapes from a speaker of the other.

Punjabi–English/Hindi code-switching

  • Technical terms in another language mid-sentence
  • Punjabi professional and academic speech mixes in English and Hindi/Urdu terms constantly. A deaf attendee lip-reading Punjabi meets a different phonology on the key vocabulary, then returns to Punjabi, with no visual signal of the switch.

Download for free

Download on theApp Store
The Challenge

Hearing loss and professional access in the Punjabi-speaking world

Punjabi is spoken across a border, and both sides carry heavy hearing loss burdens. In India, the World Health Organization estimates 63 million people have significant auditory loss — around 6.3% of the population — and the 2011 Census recorded hearing impairment as roughly a fifth of all reported disability. In Pakistan, an estimated 14.5 million people live with hearing loss, much of it congenital and linked to high rates of consanguineous marriage. Diagnostic and rehabilitation services across the region remain stretched.

Punjab, on both sides of the border, has a substantial professional and academic conference culture — the university congresses of Chandigarh and Lahore, the agri-business and industry summits of one of South Asia's most productive regions. These run on spoken Punjabi, Hindi or Urdu, and English delivered over PA systems, and real-time Punjabi captioning of keynotes, panels, and Q&A is essentially never provided. A deaf professional pays the same registration and receives a fraction of the content.

Captio AI closes that gap. Point the phone toward the PA and read every Punjabi keynote and Q&A answer from any seat, record a dense session for the full transcript, and follow the conversations over the chai break — so a deaf professional in Chandigarh or Lahore gets the same value from the same conference as everyone in the hall.

Download for free

Download on theApp Store
Privacy

What you hear stays with you.

Gone the moment it ends

Captio AI processes your audio in real time and discards it immediately. Nothing is recorded. Nothing is kept.

Not a product

Your conversations are not something Captio AI sells, shares, or monetizes — to anyone, for any reason.

Not used to train anything

What you say in a doctor's appointment or a job interview never ends up in a training dataset. Not ours. Not anyone else's.

100% PRIVATE

Private by default

Download on theApp Store
Reviews

People love Captio AI

"The keynote was fast Punjabi and the tones decide the word, which I cannot see at all. Captio AI captioned it from my seat and I recorded the session for the transcript. I followed a full congress talk for the first time."

Harpreet S. 🇮🇳
harpreet.s***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Chandigarh — academic researcher

"Speakers mix Punjabi, Hindi, and English on every technical point. Captio AI captioned all of it from my seat without me switching anything. I read the whole session and knew exactly what the outlook meant for my business."

Simran K. 🇮🇳
simran.k***@gmail.com
Deaf, Ludhiana — industry conference attendee

"Indian and Pakistani Punjabi differ on the lips and the panel had both. Captio AI captioned every speaker and the audience questions. As a panellist I answered what was actually asked instead of guessing at it."

Bilal A. 🇵🇰
bilal.a***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Lahore — panellist

"Networking over chai is where the useful conversations happen, and it used to be the part I skipped. Captio AI captioned the informal chats at the reception so I could take part. That is where I found my first collaborator."

Gurpreet D. 🇮🇳
gurpreet.d***@gmail.com
Deaf, Amritsar — startup founder

"The keynote was fast Punjabi and the tones decide the word, which I cannot see at all. Captio AI captioned it from my seat and I recorded the session for the transcript. I followed a full congress talk for the first time."

Harpreet S. 🇮🇳
harpreet.s***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Chandigarh — academic researcher

"Speakers mix Punjabi, Hindi, and English on every technical point. Captio AI captioned all of it from my seat without me switching anything. I read the whole session and knew exactly what the outlook meant for my business."

Simran K. 🇮🇳
simran.k***@gmail.com
Deaf, Ludhiana — industry conference attendee

"Indian and Pakistani Punjabi differ on the lips and the panel had both. Captio AI captioned every speaker and the audience questions. As a panellist I answered what was actually asked instead of guessing at it."

Bilal A. 🇵🇰
bilal.a***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Lahore — panellist

"Networking over chai is where the useful conversations happen, and it used to be the part I skipped. Captio AI captioned the informal chats at the reception so I could take part. That is where I found my first collaborator."

Gurpreet D. 🇮🇳
gurpreet.d***@gmail.com
Deaf, Amritsar — startup founder

Download for free

Download on theApp Store
FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Follow every speaker in Punjabi.

Captio AI is free to start

Download for free

Download on theApp Store