Kannada live captions and productivity tool for phone & video calls
For deaf and hard of hearing people.
coming soon
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Everything you need to follow Kannada phone & video calls
Four tools built for deaf and hard of hearing Kannada speakers.
Follow the call in real time
- Captions appear word by word as the other person speaks
- Works on any call — no app integration required
- Put the call on speaker and point the microphone toward it
- Handles compressed call audio accurately
International and foreign-language calls
- They speak their language — you read in yours
- Translates in real time as they speak
- 60+ languages, no setup
- For family abroad, international business, or travel
Transcribe any call recording
- Record the call and upload for a complete written transcript
- Review instructions, information, and decisions after
- Organised by speaker
- Works on any call recording
Key information extracted from any call
- Important points pulled from any call transcript
- Useful for medical calls, customer service, and work calls
- Organised into clear sections
- Works on any saved recording
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreEvery situation covered
Designed for the real moments that matter — not just quiet controlled environments.
A call with family in Bengaluru, Mysuru, or Hubballi where colloquial Kannada moves quickly and speakers slip in local expressions.
A work call with Kannada-speaking colleagues at a tech firm or government office in Bengaluru where formal Kannada mixes with English.
A callback from a hospital in Bengaluru where a doctor delivers test results and follow-up instructions in Standard Kannada.
A call to a BESCOM helpline or Canara Bank service line where the automated system uses Standard Kannada and the agent speaks in Bengaluru colloquial.
A call from a Kannada-speaking family member working in the US or UAE who mixes Kannada with English in every other sentence.
A WhatsApp video call with family across Karnataka — from Mangaluru on the coast to Dharwad in the north — where dialect and accent shift noticeably.
Most accurate and fastest models
word accuracy
independent benchmark, 2025
real-time captions
first word appears as you speak
Download for free
Download on theApp Store
Built for the calls you have been avoiding
Captions as they speak
Words appear on screen word by word while the other person is still talking. You read what they say at the same pace everyone else hears it — no delay, no reconstruction.
Works on any call app
Captio AI does not need to integrate with any platform. Put the call on speaker, point the microphone toward the audio, and read the captions. It works the same way for any app on any device.
No more asking for repeats
Every word is on screen as it is said. If you missed something, glance at the caption rather than interrupting the call — the full sentence is there.
Handles call audio accurately
Compressed phone audio is less clean than in-person speech. Captio AI is built for real-world audio conditions, including the reduced quality of standard phone and VoIP calls.
Any language
For calls with family abroad, international colleagues, or foreign-language customer service. Live Translator captions and translates in real time with no manual setup.
Record and review after
Record any call and upload it to Audio Transcription. Get a full written record of everything said — useful for medical instructions, work decisions, and anything worth having in writing.
Why Kannada is hard to understand
Four-series stop system
- Eight stop contrasts produce four lip shapes
- Kannada maintains a four-way contrast among stops — unaspirated, aspirated, voiced, and breathy-voiced — at both dental and retroflex positions. On a video call, all four produce near-identical lip closures. A deaf caller loses three out of four phonemic distinctions simultaneously and must guess between words that a hearing caller separates without effort.
Kannada diglossia
- Formal and spoken Kannada are phonologically distinct
- Formal written Kannada (shishthabhasha) is phonologically distinct from colloquial spoken Kannada. A phone call from a government office uses vocabulary and pronunciation patterns that differ dramatically from Bengaluru colloquial. The two registers share a script but not the same phone shapes — a deaf caller who has calibrated to one encounters different lip configurations in the other.
Regional dialect breadth
- Dharwad, Mysuru, and Mangaluru Kannada each sound different
- Kannada has approximately 20 spoken dialects grouped into Northern, Central, and Southern varieties. Each has different vowel systems and consonant treatments. A family video call connecting Mangaluru and Hubballi involves different prosodic shapes — visible in the speaker's rhythm but absent as useful information on the screen.
Retroflex lateral and nasal
- Retroflex sounds look identical to dental counterparts on screen
- Like other Dravidian languages, Kannada has distinct retroflex lateral and nasal consonants. On a video call these look identical to their dental counterparts. The distinction collapses visually even though hearing people track it effortlessly through the auditory channel. Many word pairs are distinguished only by this invisible contrast.
Fast speech compression
- Bengaluru colloquial Kannada compresses unstressed syllables
- In Bengaluru colloquial Kannada, unstressed vowels — particularly in particles and suffixes — reduce heavily in fast speech. A word pronounced with four visible syllables in careful reading becomes three at conversational pace. A deaf caller's expectations are misaligned from the first syllable of every word.
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreSixty-three million Indians with hearing loss — Kannada speakers in Karnataka face the national burden and a significant rural service gap
Approximately 63 million people in India live with significant auditory impairment — 6.3% of the national population — and hearing disability is the second most common cause of disability in the country. Rural communities bear a disproportionate share: the number of persons with hearing disability per 100,000 is 310 in rural India versus 236 in urban areas. Karnataka, which includes both India's major tech city Bengaluru and large rural populations in its northern and coastal districts, reflects this divide directly. Audiological services in Bengaluru are concentrated in private hospitals and specialist clinics; for Kannada-speaking communities in Dharwad, Bidar, or Mangaluru, access is significantly more limited.
The estimated prevalence of adult-onset hearing loss in India is 7.6% and childhood-onset hearing loss is 2%. India's National Programme for Prevention and Control of Deafness targets early detection and intervention, but Karnataka's implementation mirrors the national pattern — services concentrated in urban centres, with district-level access remaining thin. For Kannada-speaking deaf and hard-of-hearing adults in rural Karnataka, the practical consequence is disproportionate dependence on family members to make phone calls with banks, government offices, and medical providers. The diglossia between formal and colloquial Kannada — already a challenge for hearing listeners crossing registers — is a compounded barrier for someone who cannot hear the difference.
Captio AI captions every Kannada call in real time — so a deaf family member in Bengaluru, Mysuru, or Mangaluru can follow the conversation without asking the caller to slow down.
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreWhat 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.
Private by default
Download on theApp StoreCaptio AI supports 60+ languages
People love Captio AI
"My parents in Mysuru speak formal Kannada. I grew up in Bengaluru and speak colloquial. The register difference always confused me on calls. Captio AI handles both and shows me what they actually said."
"Work calls in Bengaluru are Kannada-English mixed at full speed. The retroflex consonants look the same to me. Captio AI shows the correct character. I follow technical discussions now."
"The BESCOM helpline called about a billing issue in Standard Kannada — very fast, scripted. Captio AI showed the full transcript. I resolved the issue myself without asking my brother to handle it for me."
"I call family in Karnataka every week. Their Dharwad Kannada is different from the Bengaluru Kannada I grew up with. Captio AI captions both accurately. I catch every word my parents say."
"My parents in Mysuru speak formal Kannada. I grew up in Bengaluru and speak colloquial. The register difference always confused me on calls. Captio AI handles both and shows me what they actually said."
"Work calls in Bengaluru are Kannada-English mixed at full speed. The retroflex consonants look the same to me. Captio AI shows the correct character. I follow technical discussions now."
"The BESCOM helpline called about a billing issue in Standard Kannada — very fast, scripted. Captio AI showed the full transcript. I resolved the issue myself without asking my brother to handle it for me."
"I call family in Karnataka every week. Their Dharwad Kannada is different from the Bengaluru Kannada I grew up with. Captio AI captions both accurately. I catch every word my parents say."
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreFrequently asked questions
Follow every call in Kannada.
Captio AI is free to start
coming soon
Download for free
Download on theApp Store