Assistive technology specialist Envision has publicly launched Ally, a “groundbreaking” AI assistant that is designed to provide hands-free, intelligent support to people with sight loss across multiple platforms.

Ally is officially available on the App Store; Play Store; desktop PCs; and Envision’s smart glasses that enable people who are blind or have vision impairments to read, identify people and objects, and make hands-free video calls to people they trust, the Envision Glasses.

Ally is an intuitive AI companion that understands context, adapts to user preferences, and provides relevant and meaningful responses.

After an extensive beta testing phase that began in September 2024, Ally has been refined with the help of thousands of testers who are blind or have sight loss. These early users helped shape its capabilities, ensuring the AI delivers real-world value across diverse use cases and a seamless, voice-activated experience.

Ally is designed to be conversational and context aware. It works by processing user queries through a three-step intelligent system.

The first step is intent recognition. Ally first determines what the user wants, whether it is checking the weather, identifying an object, reading text, or managing schedules. Envision says it has developed a fine-tuned reasoning model that ensures high accuracy in understanding user intent.

The second step is tool selection. Once Ally understands the request, it selects the most suitable tool to generate a response. This includes a language learning model for answering general knowledge questions and complex reasoning tasks; a camera for recognising objects, scenes, and text; optical character recognition for reading and interpreting documents, signs, and menus; weather API for real-time updates; calendar integration to provide schedule reminders; and web search to pull in additional information beyond its built-in knowledge.

The third step is personalised responses. Ally tailors responses based on user preferences, location, language settings, and past interactions. Over time, Ally builds a dynamic profile to enhance its responses, ensuring a personalised experience.

Envision CTO Karthik Kannan highlighted why Ally is a game-changer: “Intent recognition is the game-changer here. Ally doesn’t just process commands – it understands context, selects the right tools, and delivers personalised, meaningful responses. This makes it far more intuitive and effective than traditional AI assistants.”

Envision says that future updates will include enhanced intent recognition, integration with more third-party services, and deeper personalisation features to make interactions more intuitive.