Captio AI
🦻 Accessibility + 💻 Productivity App

Punjabi live captions and productivity tool for traveling

For deaf and hard of hearing people.

Download for free

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Captio AI app showing live captions

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Use Cases

Every situation covered

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

✈️Airports and boarding

Boarding calls and gate changes at Amritsar's Guru Ram Dass Jee International or Lahore's Allama Iqbal International come in fast Punjabi. Captio AI captions every PA and ground agent exchange so you never miss your gate or boarding time.

🚂Train stations and public transport

Announcing platforms and coaches in Punjabi at Amritsar Junction or Ludhiana railway station. Captio AI captions the ticket window conversation and station PA so you find the right train and the right carriage.

🏨Hotels and check-in

A hotel receptionist in Amritsar or Lahore explaining room details and breakfast times in Punjabi. Place Captio AI on the counter and follow the full conversation without needing anything repeated.

🗺️Navigating and asking for help

Asking for directions near the Golden Temple in Amritsar or navigating Old Lahore near the Badshahi Mosque. Fast Punjabi from locals and shopkeepers — Captio AI captions their replies so you find your way.

🛃Customs and immigration

Land border crossings at Wagah-Attari or Hussainiwala involve formal fast Punjabi from border agents on both sides. Captio AI captions every question so you respond accurately and confidently.

🎭Tours and activities

A guide at the Golden Temple, Qila Mubarak in Patiala, or Lahore Fort delivering Punjabi commentary on Sikh and Mughal history. Captio AI captions in real time so you follow the full story.

Performance

Most accurate and fastest models

Punjabi
90%

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 a world that announces everything by sound

Captions any spoken exchange in real time

Airport staff, hotel receptionists, taxi drivers, tour guides. Hold the phone toward whoever is speaking and read the captions — in any setting, in any country.

60+ languages — no language barrier

Live Translator captions and translates in real time. They speak their language — you read in yours. For every country, every language, no manual setup between interactions.

Works anywhere with a data connection

Wi-Fi or mobile data. A local SIM or roaming plan keeps Captio AI running in any country — airports, hotels, rural areas, and everywhere in between.

Handles travel environments

Noisy airports, busy stations, echoing hotel lobbies. Captio AI is built for real environments — not quiet controlled rooms. It captions through the ambient noise of travel.

Discreet in any public setting

Hold the phone or place it near the speaker. Captio AI runs quietly and draws no attention — useful in customs, immigration, and any formal travel interaction where discretion matters.

Private by default

Travel conversations — customs declarations, hotel bookings, personal exchanges — are never stored or shared. Audio is processed in real time and discarded immediately.

Punjabi

Why Punjabi is hard to understand

Tonal plosives

  • Punjabi's three-tone system is carried by the vocal cords — not the lips
  • Punjabi has three contrastive tones (level, rising, falling) primarily realized through voice onset time and laryngeal modification — not through pitch movement visible on the face. At Amritsar's Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport or at the Wagah border crossing, two words that differ only in tone are completely indistinguishable on the speaker's lips. A deaf traveler watching a counter agent or border officer gets no visual cue for the tonal distinctions that determine word meaning in Punjabi.

Aspirated-unaspirated pairs

  • Plosive pairs differ only by a burst of air — invisible on the face
  • Punjabi has aspirated and unaspirated pairs at every plosive position: p/ph, b/bh, t/th, d/dh, k/kh, g/gh. The two members of each pair produce identical lip and jaw movements — only the burst of air that follows differs. A hotel clerk in Lahore explaining check-in procedures or a train station agent in Chandigarh announcing a platform uses these contrasts constantly, and a deaf traveler sees none of them.

India-Pakistan dialect divide

  • Indian Punjabi and Pakistani Punjabi differ at the airport counter
  • Indian Punjabi (written in Gurmukhi, heard in Amritsar, Ludhiana, Chandigarh) and Pakistani Punjabi (written in Shahmukhi, heard in Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan) differ in vowel realization, certain consonants, and prosody. A deaf traveler calibrated to Indian Punjabi travels through Lahore Allama Iqbal International Airport and encounters subtle phonological differences at every counter interaction — without warning.

Code-switching with Hindi and Urdu

  • Natural Punjabi conversation mixes languages mid-sentence
  • Everyday Punjabi in India mixes Punjabi with Hindi words; everyday Punjabi in Pakistan mixes Punjabi with Urdu. A guide at the Golden Temple in Amritsar or a taxi driver near Lahore Fort switches mid-sentence from Punjabi to Hindi or Urdu. A deaf traveler calibrated to Punjabi alone follows half the conversation; the other half arrives in a different phonological system without any visual signal.

Retroflex reduction in casual speech

  • Fast casual Punjabi compresses consonants beyond recognition
  • In natural Punjabi conversation — at a Chandigarh bus terminus, a Lahori bazaar, or a Ludhiana train window — consonant clusters and retroflex consonants reduce in fast speech. The trained phonemic knowledge a deaf traveler brings from slower Punjabi resources does not map onto the rapid, elided forms that arrive at a busy travel counter.

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The Challenge

Hearing loss and travel accessibility in Punjab

Punjab in Pakistan has one of the highest documented rates of genetic deafness in the world, linked to high rates of consanguineous marriage. A study on causes of deafness in the Punjab region found consanguinity rates as high as 80% among parents of deaf children in Punjab province, driving a disproportionately high burden of congenital and early-onset deafness. A national disability survey recorded 144,418 deaf persons in Punjab province alone — 0.202% of the province's population — and the Pakistan Express Tribune reported that the prevalence of hearing loss was 7 to 8 per 1,000 live births nationally, with the rate rising annually.

India's Punjab state adds to the regional burden: hearing disability is the second most common disability nationally, affecting approximately 63 million people (6.3% of India's population), with South Asian projections from GBD 2021 showing significant increases through 2030. For deaf and hard of hearing people traveling through the Punjab region — across Amritsar, Chandigarh, Lahore, and Faisalabad — travel infrastructure relies on spoken Punjabi announcements at railway stations, airports, and bus terminals with no standardised real-time captioning. The Wagah-Attari border crossing, one of the most heavily trafficked land crossings in South Asia, involves formal verbal questioning by uniformed officers on both sides without communication alternatives.

Captio AI captions Punjabi in real time — whether a counter agent at Lahore's Allama Iqbal International, a platform announcement at Amritsar Junction, or a guide at the Golden Temple — so a deaf traveler in Punjab follows every instruction and question without depending on audio infrastructure built without them in mind.

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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

"Platform announcements at Amritsar Junction come in fast Punjabi over a loud PA. I pointed Captio AI at the speaker and the platform number appeared on screen. I caught the train I would have asked three people about."

Harpreet S. 🇮🇳
harpreet.s***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Amritsar — frequent traveler

"Pakistani Punjabi at the Lahore airport counter is fast and the agent doesn't slow down for anyone. I held Captio AI toward her and every word — seat number, gate, boarding time — appeared on screen. No confusion."

Zara A. 🇵🇰
zara.a***@gmail.com
Deaf, Lahore — domestic traveler

"Wagah border crossing means a long queue and a border agent asking questions in fast formal Punjabi. With Captio AI on my phone, I read every question and answered correctly. First time I've crossed that border without anxiety."

Gurjit K. 🇮🇳
gurjit.k***@gmail.com
Severely deaf, Chandigarh — solo traveler

"The guide at the Golden Temple in Amritsar explained the history of the complex in Punjabi mixed with Hindi. Captio AI handled both languages. I understood the full significance of each building — not just the visual spectacle."

Sukhbir T. 🇮🇳
sukhbir.t***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Ludhiana — pilgrim

"Platform announcements at Amritsar Junction come in fast Punjabi over a loud PA. I pointed Captio AI at the speaker and the platform number appeared on screen. I caught the train I would have asked three people about."

Harpreet S. 🇮🇳
harpreet.s***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Amritsar — frequent traveler

"Pakistani Punjabi at the Lahore airport counter is fast and the agent doesn't slow down for anyone. I held Captio AI toward her and every word — seat number, gate, boarding time — appeared on screen. No confusion."

Zara A. 🇵🇰
zara.a***@gmail.com
Deaf, Lahore — domestic traveler

"Wagah border crossing means a long queue and a border agent asking questions in fast formal Punjabi. With Captio AI on my phone, I read every question and answered correctly. First time I've crossed that border without anxiety."

Gurjit K. 🇮🇳
gurjit.k***@gmail.com
Severely deaf, Chandigarh — solo traveler

"The guide at the Golden Temple in Amritsar explained the history of the complex in Punjabi mixed with Hindi. Captio AI handled both languages. I understood the full significance of each building — not just the visual spectacle."

Sukhbir T. 🇮🇳
sukhbir.t***@gmail.com
Hard of hearing, Ludhiana — pilgrim

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FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Navigate confidently in Punjabi.

Captio AI is free to start

Download for free

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