InnoCaption Recognized for Artificial Intelligence Innovation in 2026 AI Breakthrough Awards Program

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 25, 2026--

InnoCaption, a leader in accessible telecommunications since 2016, today announced that it has been selected as winner of the “Text to Speech Solution of the Year” award in the ninth annual AI Breakthrough Awards program conducted by AI Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence organization that recognizes the top companies, technologies and products in the global Artificial Intelligence (AI) market today.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260625142707/en/

InnoCaption is an FCC-certified mobile app that makes phone calls easy and accessible for people with hearing loss or speech disabilities. InnoCaption was the first captioned phone service provider to offer fully automated AI captioning, and with the recent integration of text-to-speech (TTS) to better serve users who prefer typing to communicate, they discovered another powerful use case for AI: a groundbreaking TTS feature called AI Refine.

Typing full sentences during phone calls can be difficult, making it hard to stay in the moment. With AI Refine, users can type a few words and get complete, polished responses with a tap. (For example, the word “reschedule” might become “I need to reschedule my appointment.”) Responses are tailored to the context of the conversation, and they can be voiced aloud right away or edited by the user first. This predictive capability significantly improves the flow of calls.

Other TTS features released by InnoCaption last year include:

Together, these features solve for the inefficiency of traditional TTS options, empowering InnoCaption users who have difficulty speaking or being understood on calls to communicate with greater ease and confidence.

“We are pleased to accept this award from AI Breakthrough,” said Joseph Lee, Founder and co-CEO of InnoCaption. “We are committed to breaking down communication barriers, and these new AI-powered text-to-speech features are the latest step in making every conversation more authentic and accessible for our users.”

For nearly a decade, the AI Breakthrough Awards have researched, analyzed and recognized the most important advances in artificial intelligence, and this year's field is the strongest yet. Thousands of nominations from over 20 countries poured in across categories including Agentic AI, Generative AI, Computer Vision, AIOps, Robotics, Natural Language Processing and industry-specific AI applications — underscoring the explosive global growth of AI and its importance as the defining technology of our time.

“Everyone has the right to be heard and understood, and InnoCaption’s TTS solution gives individuals with speech disabilities the power to communicate seamlessly on phone calls,” said Steve Johansson, managing director, AI Breakthrough. “It’s an inspiring example of the role that artificial intelligence can play in making everyday life easier.”

InnoCaption is available on iOS, Android, and the web.

About AI Breakthrough

Part of Tech Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence and recognition platform for global technology innovation and leadership, the AI Breakthrough Awards program is devoted to honoring excellence in Artificial Intelligence technologies, services, companies and products. The AI Breakthrough Awards provide public recognition for the achievements of AI companies and products in categories including Agentic AI, Machine Learning, Generative AI, Robotics, AI Hardware, Computer Vision and more.

For more information, visit AIBreakthroughAwards.com.

About InnoCaption

InnoCaption is an accessibility technology company dedicated to helping people break down barriers to telecommunication in their everyday lives. Available on iOS, Android, and the web, our apps provide best-in-class call captioning to Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals, as well as advanced text-to-speech features for those who don’t voice for themselves. Because we are FCC-certified and funded through the Telecommunications Relay Service fund, our service is free for eligible users.

Founded in 2007, InnoCaption is based in Irvine, California. Visit www.innocaption.com to learn more.

InnoCaption has been named the winner of the 2026 AI Breakthrough Award for Text-to-Speech Solution of the Year, recognizing its AI-powered text-to-speech innovations that make phone calls more accessible for people with hearing loss and speech disabilities.

A search continued Sunday off the Massachusetts coast for an air ambulance carrying six people that disappeared during a flight from Bermuda to Boston as authorities planned to comb the seabed floor, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

The Federal Aviation Administration contacted the Coast Guard at 2 a.m. Saturday that it had lost contact with the Gulfstream G100 carrying four Canadians and two Bermudian nationals over the Atlantic Ocean. Searchers later Saturday found a “debris field” off the coast of Nantucket, Coast Guard Northeast District Rear Adm. Matt Lake said at a news conference Sunday.

Coast Guard crews along with the New York National Guard’s Air Rescue Wing and Massachusetts authorities have since searched an area encompassing 2,840 square miles (7,356 square kilometers) using fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, boats and cutters.

“This is a large and demanding search area,” Lake said.

The depth of the water around the debris field was 80 to 90 feet (about 24 to 27 meters). The Coast Guard was in the process of deploying sonar to search the seabed floor, he said.

The Coast Guard has been updating the next of kin of those aboard the Canadian-registered air ambulance jet with the progress of the search, Lake said.

Weather has not been a factor in the search efforts, said Coast Guard Capt. John McTamney, chief of response for the northeast district.

“We’ll continue to search and saturate the area until we’re at the point where we are confident that if there were any survivors remaining on the surface of the water, we would have found them,” McTamney said.

The plane had four crew members and two passengers aboard when it departed Bermuda’s L.F. Wade International Airport for the nighttime flight to Massachusetts, according to a statement from the Bermuda airport’s operator, Skyport.

Air traffic audio indicates that the plane may have been “coming in blind” when a storm loomed ahead shortly before it vanished.

The pilot reported electrical problems and declared an emergency as the jet approached the coast, according to air traffic control audio posted by LiveATC.net. “Roger, you said you’re coming in blind. Is that what you said?” a controller can be heard asking the pilot.

That makes Mary Schiavo, who is a former Inspector General of the Transportation Department, think the plane may have lost its navigational instruments just as a storm moved across its path on radar. The plane also descended sharply from its cruising altitude of around 24,000 feet to around 10,000 feet, according to preliminary data from flight tracking site FlightRadar24.

“Something bad happened with this big drop, and they flew into this big storm. It’s a terrible place to have a loss of your instruments and be flying blind,” said Schiavo, who is an aviation attorney. “It’s very easy to get disoriented and not know if you’re turning, climbing, descending, etc.”

Transport Canada was closely monitoring and working with authorities on search and rescue efforts, the country’s Minister of Transport Steven MacKinnon said on the social platform X.

AP Transportation Writer Josh Funk and Associated Press reporter Laura Turbay in Little Rock, Arkansas, a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative, contributed to this report. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

In this photo released by U.S. Coast Guard, crew members search by air and on the water for a Boston-bound air ambulance that vanished off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, on Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026. (U.S. Coast Guard via AP)