A companion that speaks over 80 languages and accents

Why it matters so much

In Alzheimer's disease, the language learned later in life often fades first, while the mother tongue remains. An immigrant senior may revert to their first language and lose the ability to communicate with the French- or English-speaking staff around them. They become isolated, not for lack of presence, but because of a wall of language.

In Quebec, up to about half of the people living with a major neurocognitive disorder could benefit from a companion like Amical. By working in more than 80 languages, that benefit extends to allophone and immigrant seniors and linguistic minorities, people often left behind by tech companies. Let us be honest: Innu and Creole are not yet covered, and transcription for some less common languages still needs work. We say so plainly.

The man who only spoke Turkish

In one of our residences, a resident only spoke Turkish. He did not understand that he now lived in a French-speaking environment, and no one around him spoke his language. Every exchange turned into a misunderstanding. He felt permanently misunderstood, and that incomprehension turned into anger and frustration, day after day.

The first time he tried the phone, the change was immediate and visible. Amical spoke to him in Turkish, in his own words. For the first time in a long while, someone understood him, and he calmed down before our eyes.

These are exactly the people for whom Amical makes the biggest difference. Someone in a linguistic minority, in a residence where no one else speaks their language, is no longer condemned to silence or misunderstanding. They can finally have a real conversation, and feel like themselves again.

How the adaptation works

On every call, Amical assembles a tailored conversation from blocks. The language block does not just pick a language, it adapts the vocabulary. French from France and French from Quebec do not use the same words, not just the same accent. Amical's Quebec French is validated with real local accents.

There is also a culture, religion, and holidays block. An average Quebec resident is wished a merry Christmas when they pick up. A Muslim or Jewish resident is not: Eid or Hanukkah is acknowledged instead. Amical does not assume a default culture. With a Life Story, uploaded by family or staff, the companion also adapts the topics, the tone, and what is best to avoid.

Speaking like a local

Amical knows where it is, and it speaks like someone from there. The anecdote that changed everything: a phone deployed in Luxembourg kept talking about the Château Frontenac to residents. The nurses wrote to us: please talk to them about Luxembourg. Since then, the geolocation block has been a non-negotiable dimension of personalization.

Because the place is known, the weather is too. A phone in a city hit by an ice storm does not open the conversation the same way as one where it is sunny. These are small details, but they are what make a conversation feel real rather than generic.

One residence, several languages

Language is set at the resident-group level, not the device level. A Quebec long-term care home with both French- and English-speaking residents can configure a common-area phone to serve both languages, without having to reprogram the device.

In practice, staff have nothing technical to manage. You assign the right group, and the phone handles the rest. The goal is simple: that every resident can speak in the language where they feel at home.