English live captions and productivity tool for meetings

In the United States, only 54% of deaf adults are employed compared to 70% of hearing adults, according to the National Deaf Center's analysis of 2022 Census data. In the United Kingdom, only 37% of BSL users are working, compared to 77% of non-disabled people. But employment figures mask what happens once inside the workplace. A survey by RNID found that 50% of deaf employees found face-to-face meetings difficult, 83% reported being excluded from conversations with colleagues, and 69% reported loneliness at work. Employed does not mean included — it means present while excluded.

The ADA in the United States and the Equality Act in the United Kingdom mandate reasonable adjustments for deaf employees, but these legal frameworks apply to formal accommodation requests, not to the informal texture of working life. The three-minute pre-meeting chat, the corridor decision, the conference call where someone turns away from the camera — none of these trigger an accommodation. RNID found in 2024 that only 1 in 5 UK employers had heard of the Access to Work scheme, and 57% of deaf employees cited employer ignorance as a barrier to accessing support. Legal protection and practical inclusion are not the same thing.

Remote and hybrid work, which has become the default in English-speaking professional environments since 2020, added a new layer. Video call audio compression, unstable connections, and cameras that do not show faces clearly have made the meeting environment harder for deaf and hard of hearing people, not easier. The meeting gap — the daily, low-visibility exclusion from professional decision-making — is growing, and no existing policy has systematically closed it. Captio AI captions English speech in real time across accents, meeting platforms, and informal office settings, so the standup, the client call, and the pre-meeting chat are no longer inaccessible.