What's New

• Rich Image Descriptions: Seeing AI can now provide far more detail in image descriptions. Take a photo on the Scene channel, select an image in Browse Photos, or share a photo from another app - and then tap "More Info".
• Ask Questions About Documents: On the Document channel, after scanning a page, you can now ask Seeing AI questions about its contents. This can be much more efficient than listening to the document from beginning-to-end. For example, you could scan a menu, and ask for just the vegetarian options; scan a receipt, and find out how much a particular item cost; or scan a calendar, and ask when a particular event is.
• Multi-page document scanning: On the Document channel, you can now scan multiple pages into a single document for reading, or sharing.
• For easier access to image descriptions, the Scene channel has been moved to earlier in the channel switcher. You can customize the order of channels in Settings.
• Plus, various bug fixes under the hood.
• Please remember to use your judgement when reading AI generated content. We appreciate your feedback as the technology continues to evolve.

App Description

Seeing AI is a free app that narrates the world around you. Designed with and for the blind and low vision community, this ongoing research project harnesses the power of AI to open up the visual world by describing nearby people, text and objects.

Seeing AI provides tools to assist with a variety of daily tasks:
• Short Text - Speaks text as soon as it appears in front of the camera.
• Documents - Provides audio guidance to capture a printed page, and recognizes the text, along with its original formatting.
• Products - Scans barcodes, using audio beeps to guide you; hear the name, and package information when available.
• People - Saves people’s faces so you can recognize them, and get an estimate of their age, gender, and expression.
• Currency - Recognizes currency notes.
• Scenes - Hear an overall description of the scene captured. Explore the photo by moving your finger over the screen to hear the location of different objects.
• World - An Audio Augmented Reality experience to explore an unfamiliar environment, including hearing objects announced around you with Spatial Audio (requires a device with a LiDAR, and iOS 14+).
• Indoor Navigation - Available on the World Channel, enables you to create routes through a building, like "entrance to classroom", and navigate by following the sound (requires a device with an A9 or later processor, and iOS 14+).
• Colors - Identifies colors.
• Handwriting - Reads handwritten text like in greeting cards (available in a subset of languages).
• Light - Generates an audible tone corresponding to the brightness in the surroundings.
• Images in other apps - Just tap “Share” and “Recognize with Seeing AI” to describe images from Mail, Photos, Twitter, and more.
• Browse Photos - Hear descriptions of photos saved on your device.

Seeing AI continues to evolve as we hear from the community, and AI research advances.

Check out tutorials with this YouTube playlist: http://aka.ms/SeeingAIPlaylist.

Questions, feedback or feature requests? Email us at [email protected].

iPhone Screenshots

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Seeing AI screenshot 1 Seeing AI screenshot 2 Seeing AI screenshot 3 Seeing AI screenshot 4

iPad Screenshots

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Seeing AI screenshot 5 Seeing AI screenshot 6 Seeing AI screenshot 7 Seeing AI screenshot 8

App Changes

  • June 16, 2019 Initial release
  • August 16, 2019 New version 3.1
  • September 23, 2019 New version 3.2.1
  • October 05, 2019 New version 3.2.2
  • December 10, 2019 New version 3.3.1
  • December 17, 2019 New version 3.3.2
  • July 14, 2020 New version 3.4
  • October 23, 2020 New version 3.7
  • November 12, 2020 New version 3.7.1
  • August 05, 2021 New version 4.1.1
  • September 16, 2023 New version 5.1.1
  • November 15, 2023 New version 5.2