Captio AI
🦻 Accessibility + 💻 Productivity App

Telugu live captions and productivity tool for phone & video calls

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.

👨‍👩‍👧Calls with family and friends

A call with parents or grandparents in Vijayawada or Hyderabad. Family conversations carry regional accents, fast casual Telugu, and the shorthand of close relationships. Captio AI captions everything said.

💼Work calls and conference calls

A project discussion in Telugu with colleagues from a Hyderabad tech company or a video call with a Vizag team. Business Telugu with English code-switching for technical terms. Captio AI keeps pace with both.

🏥Medical and healthcare calls

A callback from AIIMS Mangalagiri or a specialist in Nellore. Medical Telugu uses formal vocabulary and clinical terms. Captio AI shows the full message — instructions, prescriptions, follow-up — in text.

🏦Banks, utilities, and customer service

An Andhra Pradesh government automated call or a bank IVR menu in Telugu. Automated systems give you one chance. Captio AI captions each option before the timeout.

🌍International calls

A call from the Telugu diaspora in the US, UK, or Gulf. Diaspora Telugu carries foreign-language influence on rhythm and vocabulary. Captio AI handles it accurately.

📹Video calls — FaceTime, WhatsApp, Zoom

A Google Meet with a Telangana team or a WhatsApp video call with family in Visakhapatnam. All video call apps work the same way — put the call on speaker, open Captio AI, read the captions.

Performance

Most accurate and fastest models

Telugu
91.8%

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 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.

Telugu

Why Telugu is hard to understand

Geminate consonant invisibility

  • Doubled consonants are entirely internal
  • Telugu distinguishes single from geminate (doubled) consonants and the distinction changes word meaning: కల (kala — dream) vs. కళ్ళ (kalla — eyes). The difference is entirely in the duration of the consonant closure, which is internal and invisible on lips. On a phone call without hearing, all geminate pairs collapse into their single-consonant counterparts.

Four-series stop collapse

  • Aspiration contrast is purely acoustic
  • Telugu has aspirated, unaspirated, voiced, and voiced-aspirated stop series. The aspiration that distinguishes pairs is entirely in the burst of air — lips form the same closure for all four. On a phone call without hearing, these four series merge into one, collapsing a large portion of the consonant inventory.

Andhra vs. Telangana dialect gap

  • Coastal Andhra and Hyderabad Telugu sound different
  • Coastal Andhra Telugu (Vijayawada, Vizag) and Telangana Telugu (Hyderabad) differ significantly in vowel quality, verb endings, and prosodic rhythm. A deaf caller familiar with Vizag Telugu may not recognize fast Hyderabadi Telugu on a call — and vice versa. Regional calls carry the heaviest accent variation.

Retroflex series

  • Retroflex consonants produce no visible lip change
  • Telugu has a full retroflex consonant series (ట, ఠ, డ, ఢ, ణ, ళ) distinguished from dentals (త, థ, ద, ధ, న, ల). The retroflex sounds require the tongue curled back against the palate — no lip movement difference. These phonemically important contrasts are completely invisible and available only in the acoustic signal.

Vowel length compression

  • Fast speech merges short and long vowel pairs
  • Telugu short and long vowel pairs (a/ā, i/ī, u/ū, e/ē, o/ō) change word meaning but are compressed and merged in fast casual phone speech, especially in the Telangana variety spoken in Hyderabad. A deaf caller without acoustic access loses the duration signal that separates these pairs.

Download for free

Download on theApp Store
The Challenge

Sixty-three million deaf and hard of hearing people in India — and phone calls remain inaccessible

India is home to approximately 63 million deaf and hard of hearing people, with hearing disability the second most common disability in the country. NFHS-5 (2019–21) data shows that southern states including Telangana record higher disability rates than the national average. Of hearing-disabled Indians of working age, 73.9% are classified as marginal workers, meaning telephone-based systems — banking, government benefits, medical callbacks — are a primary exclusion frontier for Telugu-speaking deaf people.

State cochlear implant programs have been established in Andhra Pradesh for newly diagnosed children, but the large adult population with hearing loss navigates daily telephone communication without formal support. There is no mobile relay telephone service available through Jio, Airtel, or BSNL for deaf callers in Andhra Pradesh or Telangana. Indian Sign Language (ISL) interpreters remain scarce outside Hyderabad.

Captio AI means a deaf Telugu speaker in Warangal can follow a hospital callback in Telangana Telugu, navigate a bank IVR menu, or join a Google Meet with a team in Hyderabad — reading real-time captions on any phone, without relay infrastructure.

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

"My team speaks Telangana Telugu and I'm from Vizag — the accent difference was already hard, then add a phone call and I was completely lost. With Captio AI I follow every Google Meet in Hyderabadi Telugu. First time I've felt part of the meeting."

Sravanthi K. 🇮🇳
sravanthi.k***@gmail.com
Moderate hearing loss, Hyderabad

"Andhra Bank's phone banking IVR runs in Telugu and I couldn't navigate it independently. Captio AI shows the menu options in text as they're spoken. I handle my own banking calls now."

Venkat R. 🇮🇳
venkat.r***@gmail.com
Sensorineural hearing loss since birth, Vijayawada

"The retroflex consonants in Telugu — like ట, ణ — look the same as their dental counterparts on lips. Captio AI gets them right in text. Hospital callbacks from AIIMS Mangalagiri are readable for the first time."

Lakshmi P. 🇮🇳
lakshmi.p***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Tirupati

"WhatsApp calls with my son's family in the Gulf — they switch between Telugu and English constantly. Captio AI follows the code-switching accurately. I understand the full call instead of just the Telugu parts."

Srinivas G. 🇮🇳
srinivas.g***@gmail.com
Age-related hearing loss, Visakhapatnam

"My team speaks Telangana Telugu and I'm from Vizag — the accent difference was already hard, then add a phone call and I was completely lost. With Captio AI I follow every Google Meet in Hyderabadi Telugu. First time I've felt part of the meeting."

Sravanthi K. 🇮🇳
sravanthi.k***@gmail.com
Moderate hearing loss, Hyderabad

"Andhra Bank's phone banking IVR runs in Telugu and I couldn't navigate it independently. Captio AI shows the menu options in text as they're spoken. I handle my own banking calls now."

Venkat R. 🇮🇳
venkat.r***@gmail.com
Sensorineural hearing loss since birth, Vijayawada

"The retroflex consonants in Telugu — like ట, ణ — look the same as their dental counterparts on lips. Captio AI gets them right in text. Hospital callbacks from AIIMS Mangalagiri are readable for the first time."

Lakshmi P. 🇮🇳
lakshmi.p***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Tirupati

"WhatsApp calls with my son's family in the Gulf — they switch between Telugu and English constantly. Captio AI follows the code-switching accurately. I understand the full call instead of just the Telugu parts."

Srinivas G. 🇮🇳
srinivas.g***@gmail.com
Age-related hearing loss, Visakhapatnam

Download for free

Download on theApp Store
FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Follow every call in Telugu.

Captio AI is free to start

Download for free

Download on theApp Store