Captio AI
🦻 Accessibility + 💻 Productivity App

Kazakh live captions and productivity tool for everyday conversations

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.

🏪Counter conversations

Pharmacy counter, supermarket checkout, pochta window, bank teller. Staff speak in Kazakh or Russian and move on quickly. Captio AI shows what they said before the moment passes.

🍽️Group conversations

Family dastarkhan dinner, Nauryz gathering, wedding celebration with extended family. Multiple generations, Kazakh mixing with Russian mid-conversation. Captio AI captions whoever is speaking.

👋Talking to strangers

Getting a price at the bazaar, asking for directions in a new district, chatting with a neighbour. People who speak at full pace. Captio AI captions anyone near you.

Informal work moments

Çai break in the office, a quick question across the floor, chat before the meeting starts. The moments Kazakhstani workplaces run on. Captio AI keeps you in those conversations.

📋Appointments and admin

Poliklinka reception, TSOn service centre, bank branch, akimat office. Fast Kazakh or Russian, sometimes formal vocabulary, no repeat expected. Captio AI transcribes everything said.

🚉Getting around

Bus conductor calling stops, asking at a vokzal, taxi driver conversation. Situations where you need to understand fast. Captio AI covers you anywhere on the move.

Performance

Most accurate and fastest models

Kazakh
91%

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 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.

Kazakh

Why Kazakh is hard to understand

Kazakh-Russian code-switching

  • Everyday urban Kazakh speech mixes Kazakh and Russian throughout every sentence
  • In Almaty, Astana, and most Kazakh cities, daily conversation moves between Kazakh and Russian continuously — often mid-sentence, without pause or signal. For a deaf or hard of hearing person lip-reading, tracking two completely different phoneme systems in an unpredictable pattern simultaneously is near-impossible. The code-switching happens at the bazaar, on the bus, in offices, and at family tables.

Vowel harmony

  • Kazakh vowel harmony makes grammatical suffixes visually identical on the lips
  • Kazakh's vowel harmony system means that grammatical suffixes — which carry tense, case, negation, and person — harmonise with the root vowel. On the lips, this creates long chains of near-identical open vowel shapes. Critical information like 'I went' versus 'I didn't go' becomes invisible to a lip-reader because the distinguishing sounds sit at the back of the vowel, not the front.

Rural and nomadic settings

  • Traditional Kazakh gatherings are outdoor, informal, and completely without accessibility
  • Kazakh culture prizes the dastarkhan — the spread feast table where guests gather for extended conversation. These gatherings are central to family and community life but take place in settings — outdoor yards, felt tent-style interiors, rural homes — with no captioning, no acoustic accommodation, and a cultural norm of extended elder monologue that a deaf guest must sit through in silence.

Script transition

  • Kazakhstan is shifting from Cyrillic to Latin script — written materials are inconsistently rendered
  • Kazakhstan is in the middle of a script transition from Cyrillic to Latin alphabet. Signs, subtitles, and written materials appear in both scripts or in transitional versions. For deaf Kazakhstanis who rely on written communication, this creates an additional layer of confusion and inconsistency in what they can read.

Interpreter shortage outside Almaty

  • Kazakh Sign Language has almost no certified interpreters outside the two main cities
  • The state funds sign language interpretation through Kazakhstan's Social Code, but certified Kazakh Sign Language (KSL) interpreters are almost exclusively located in Almaty and Astana. A deaf person in Shymkent, Oral, or any rural aul navigating a government counter, a bazaar, or a family gathering has no access to any formal support whatsoever.

Download for free

Download on theApp Store
The Challenge

Up to 250,000 Kazakhstanis with hearing impairment. Sign language recognition still pending. No captions at the bazaar, the dastarkhan, or the government counter.

Kazakhstan has an estimated 150,000 to 250,000 people living with hearing impairment — official figures register around 150,000, but experts note that the true number is substantially higher due to underdiagnosis and limited national surveillance. A 2026 study published in Frontiers in Public Health found Kazakhstan's age-standardized hearing loss prevalence at 17,212 per 100,000 population, with mild hearing loss accounting for 72% of cases and the highest burden falling on working-age adults aged 18 to 59. For deaf and hard of hearing Kazakhstanis, daily life involves the bazaar bargain, the dastarkhan gathering, the marshrutka conversation, and the government counter — settings built on oral exchange with no captioning or signing infrastructure.

Cabar.Asia's longform investigation documented that deaf and hard of hearing Kazakhstanis face daily problems across employment, education, health access, and basic information exchange — challenges that compound in a country where the dominant language itself code-switches constantly with Russian. The state Social Code theoretically provides free sign language interpretation, but the pool of certified Kazakh Sign Language (KSL) interpreters is concentrated in Almaty and Astana. A deaf person in Shymkent, Oral, or a rural district is essentially without any formal support for any everyday conversation.

Kazakhstan is preparing to officially recognise Kazakh Sign Language as part of a national accessibility initiative announced in 2025, according to the Dictionary Project. A Kazakh scientist developed an AI-based sign-to-Kazakh translation system in the same year, reflecting growing recognition of the gap. But recognition and technology development precede the everyday infrastructure changes needed — and until those arrive, informal daily settings remain the most inaccessible part of a deaf Kazakhstani's life. Captio AI captions Kazakh speech in real time — including Kazakh-Russian code-switching and fast bazaar exchanges — so the dastarkhan, the market, and the neighbourhood conversation are no longer settings you have to navigate alone.

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

"Almaty bazaar conversations switch between Kazakh and Russian every few words. Captio AI follows both. I go to the bazaar on my own now without needing anyone to translate."

Aizat N. 🇰🇿
aizat.n***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Almaty

"Government offices were impossible — fast Russian or Kazakh at a counter with no patience for repetition. Captio AI transcribes it instantly. I navigate them alone now."

Daulet S. 🇰🇿
daulet.s***@gmail.com
Deaf since birth, Astana

"Outside Almaty there are no sign language interpreters. Captio AI fills that gap. The dastarkhan at family gatherings is a place I actually participate in now."

Zarina K. 🇰🇿
zarina.k***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Shymkent

"Marshrutka conversations go fast in Karaganda Kazakh. Captio AI captions them. Public transport is something I navigate independently for the first time."

Marat B. 🇰🇿
marat.b***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Karaganda

"Almaty bazaar conversations switch between Kazakh and Russian every few words. Captio AI follows both. I go to the bazaar on my own now without needing anyone to translate."

Aizat N. 🇰🇿
aizat.n***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Almaty

"Government offices were impossible — fast Russian or Kazakh at a counter with no patience for repetition. Captio AI transcribes it instantly. I navigate them alone now."

Daulet S. 🇰🇿
daulet.s***@gmail.com
Deaf since birth, Astana

"Outside Almaty there are no sign language interpreters. Captio AI fills that gap. The dastarkhan at family gatherings is a place I actually participate in now."

Zarina K. 🇰🇿
zarina.k***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Shymkent

"Marshrutka conversations go fast in Karaganda Kazakh. Captio AI captions them. Public transport is something I navigate independently for the first time."

Marat B. 🇰🇿
marat.b***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Karaganda

Download for free

Download on theApp Store
FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Follow any conversation in Kazakh.

Captio AI is free to start

Download for free

Download on theApp Store