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Reviewed and published by trentmaziarz, March 22, 2026. Discovered and drafted by our automated research pipeline.
Seeing AI is a free Microsoft app for people who are blind or have low vision. It uses the phone's camera and AI to narrate the world around the user — reading text out loud, identifying products by barcode, describing scenes, and recognizing faces. It launched on iOS in 2017 and became available on Android in December 2023, supporting 18 languages.
Details
Seeing AI originated from a 2015 Microsoft Hackathon project led by Saqib Shaikh, a software engineer who is blind. The app uses Azure Cognitive Services (Microsoft's cloud AI platform for vision, speech, and language tasks) to power its features: reading printed and handwritten text, scanning documents, identifying products via barcode, recognizing faces and emotions, describing scenes, identifying currency, and detecting colors. By the time of its Android launch, the app had helped users with over 10 million tasks. The app is part of Microsoft's broader AI for Accessibility grant program, which provides funding and technology to organizations building AI tools for people with disabilities. Seeing AI has received broad praise as a practical, beneficial use of AI with no significant controversies reported.
Products affected
Seeing AI (iOSAndroid)Azure Cognitive ServicesMicrosoft AI for Accessibility program
Sources & Evidence
Company Disclosure
Cite this record
Trace Foundation. (2026). Microsoft: Seeing AI is a free Microsoft app for people who are blind or have low vision. It uses the phone's camera and AI to narrate the world around the user — reading text out loud, identifying products by barcode, describing scenes, and recognizing faces. It launched on iOS in 2017 and became available on Android in December 2023, supporting 18 languages (data as of 2026-03-22) [Data set record]. AI Trace. https://www.aitrace.org/r/practice/1643fa2a-f637-49da-ad18-58331a5a4d81. Accessed October 14, 2026.
- Stable link
- https://www.aitrace.org/r/practice/1643fa2a-f637-49da-ad18-58331a5a4d81
- Data as of
- March 22, 2026
- Last verified
- March 22, 2026
Other practices by Microsoft
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