Captio AI
🦻 Accessibility + 💻 Productivity App

Bulgarian live captions and productivity tool for everyday conversations

For deaf and hard of hearing people.

Download for free

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Captio AI app showing live captions

Download for free

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Use Cases

Every situation covered

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

🏪Counter conversations

Аптека counter, пощенска станция window, supermarket checkout, общинска служба desk. Staff speak fast in Bulgarian and move on. Captio AI shows what they said before the moment passes.

🍽️Group conversations

Sunday family lunch, name day gathering, neighbours round the table. Multiple generations, fast Bulgarian, Sofia versus regional accents. Captio AI captions whoever is speaking.

👋Talking to strangers

Asking for directions in the city, chatting with a neighbour in the блока, meeting someone at the пазар. People who speak at full conversational pace. Captio AI captions anyone near you.

Informal work moments

Coffee break in the office, a quick question in the коридора, catch-up before a meeting. The moments Bulgarian workplaces run on. Captio AI keeps you in those conversations.

📋Appointments and admin

Личен лекар reception, общинска служба counter, bank branch, НАП office. Formal vocabulary, fast delivery, no repeat expected. Captio AI transcribes everything said.

🚉Getting around

Tram and bus announcements, asking at a гара, taxi driver conversation. Situations where you need to understand the first time. Captio AI covers you anywhere.

Performance

Most accurate and fastest models

Bulgarian
94.4%

word accuracy

independent benchmark, 2025

< 200ms
you speak
captions

real-time captions

first word appears as you speak

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Captio AI in everyday use
Why Captio AI

Built for conversations that don't wait

Captions as they speak, not after

Captio AI shows each word as it is spoken. You read what the person is saying while they are still saying it — not after they have finished and moved on.

No lip reading needed

You do not need to face the speaker or position yourself to see their mouth. Captio AI picks up speech from any direction — across a counter, at a table, in a busy street.

Works through background noise

Restaurants, pharmacies, busy streets, crowded waiting rooms. Captio AI separates speech from background noise so captions stay accurate where everyday conversations actually happen.

Follows any conversation

One person or six. Captio AI captions whoever is speaking at any moment — so you follow the thread at a dinner table or keep up with a counter exchange without losing track.

Any accent, any pace

People do not slow down or enunciate for you. Captio AI handles fast talkers, regional accents, and casual speech — the way people actually talk in real life.

Any language, no setup

When someone speaks a language you do not know, switch to Live Translator. They speak their language — you read in yours. No configuration needed. Works in 60+ languages.

Bulgarian

Why Bulgarian is hard to understand

Interpreter shortage

  • 46 sign language interpreters serve 120,000 deaf Bulgarians across the entire country
  • Bulgaria's Sign Language Act was adopted in 2021, but implementation has stalled. The country has only 46 working sign language interpreters — two of whom serve the entire Ruse district. For a deaf Bulgarian, the gap between legal recognition and practical daily access is one of the widest in Europe. Everyday settings — the market, the pharmacy, the neighbourhood — have no interpretation and no obligation to provide one.

Fast colloquial Bulgarian

  • Everyday spoken Bulgarian is faster and more reduced than formal written Bulgarian
  • Bulgarian spoken in daily settings — at the market stall, on the tram, in a café — uses heavy colloquial reduction, dropped syllables, and informal vocabulary that differs substantially from the formal written register. A deaf person who has practiced lip-reading formal Bulgarian finds that everyday street speech is almost a different target.

Regional dialect variation

  • Eastern and western Bulgarian dialects differ enough to disrupt lip-reading
  • Bulgarian has a well-documented east-west dialect divide. Sofian Bulgarian, Plovdiv speech, and regional varieties from the Black Sea coast all differ in vowel quality and consonant reduction. A deaf person calibrated to one regional variety will miss sounds and words when family or acquaintances come from a different part of the country.

School system gaps

  • 75% of teachers in Bulgarian special schools do not use Bulgarian Sign Language
  • A 2023 study found that 75% of teachers in Bulgaria's special schools for deaf children do not use Bulgarian Sign Language — meaning that even the institutions explicitly designed for deaf children are not accessible in sign. Many deaf children attend mainstream schools where no classmate or teacher signs at all. The result is a community that often reaches adulthood without strong access to any consistent language system.

Noisy social settings

  • Bulgarian mehana culture and loud group meals make following conversation nearly impossible
  • Bulgarian social life centres on the mehana (traditional tavern) and extended family meals that are loud, multigenerational, and fast-paced. Overlapping voices, background music, and the cultural norm of speaking simultaneously make these settings acoustically impenetrable for anyone with hearing loss — yet they are exactly the settings where social belonging is established.

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The Challenge

120,000 deaf Bulgarians. 46 interpreters in the entire country. No captions at the пазар, the кафене, or the family table.

Bulgaria has an estimated 120,000 deaf citizens, with approximately 12,000 registered as sign language users. Despite the adoption of the Sign Language Act in 2021, which legally recognised Bulgarian Sign Language, the country has only 46 working sign language interpreters serving the entire population — two of whom cover the Ruse district alone. For deaf Bulgarians navigating everyday life — the outdoor market, the neighbourhood pharmacy, the bus stop, the family table — there is no interpretation and no infrastructure. The gap between legal recognition and practical daily access is one of the widest in Europe.

The Help Alliance's Listen Up Sofia programme documented the systematic exclusion of deaf and hard of hearing children from Bulgarian education: three special schools can accommodate approximately 500 children total, while most deaf children attend mainstream schools where neither teachers nor classmates use sign language. A 2023 study found that 75% of teachers in Bulgaria's special schools for deaf children do not use Bulgarian Sign Language — meaning that even specialist institutions fail to communicate in the language of their students. Deaf young people who reach adulthood in this system often face employment discrimination on top of communication barriers, entering the workforce with no structural support for daily interaction.

The Ruse Chamber of Commerce inquiry into deaf youth employment in Bulgaria documented the compound effect: limited language acquisition in childhood, no workplace support, and no everyday captioning infrastructure create a cycle of exclusion that starts at birth and continues through every daily interaction. A community of 120,000 cannot be served by 46 interpreters — and the informal everyday conversations that constitute social belonging, from the market to the mehana, will never be covered by formal interpretation services regardless of how many interpreters are trained. Captio AI captions Bulgarian speech in real time — including fast colloquial Bulgarian and regional dialect variation — so the market, the café, and the family meal are no longer conversations you have to navigate alone.

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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

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Reviews

People love Captio AI

"Sofia café conversations are fast and colloquial. Captio AI captions them. I meet friends at кафене now and follow the whole conversation."

Teodora V. 🇧🇬
teodora.v***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Sofia

"Plovdiv Bulgarian sounds different from Sofia speech. Captio AI handles both. The пазар and the neighbourhood are places I navigate alone now."

Georgi M. 🇧🇬
georgi.m***@gmail.com
Deaf since childhood, Plovdiv

"The pharmacy was always a guessing game. Captio AI transcribes every word. I manage my medication conversations without needing anyone to come with me."

Milena K. 🇧🇬
milena.k***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Varna

"Family meals are loud and fast in Bulgarian. With Captio AI I read who is saying what in real time. The family table is a place I actually belong now."

Ivan S. 🇧🇬
ivan.s***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Burgas

"Sofia café conversations are fast and colloquial. Captio AI captions them. I meet friends at кафене now and follow the whole conversation."

Teodora V. 🇧🇬
teodora.v***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Sofia

"Plovdiv Bulgarian sounds different from Sofia speech. Captio AI handles both. The пазар and the neighbourhood are places I navigate alone now."

Georgi M. 🇧🇬
georgi.m***@gmail.com
Deaf since childhood, Plovdiv

"The pharmacy was always a guessing game. Captio AI transcribes every word. I manage my medication conversations without needing anyone to come with me."

Milena K. 🇧🇬
milena.k***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Varna

"Family meals are loud and fast in Bulgarian. With Captio AI I read who is saying what in real time. The family table is a place I actually belong now."

Ivan S. 🇧🇬
ivan.s***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Burgas

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FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Follow any conversation in Bulgarian.

Captio AI is free to start

Download for free

Download on theApp Store