Anne-Marie Poirier, who has ALS, says a new app called Vocality is letting her generate and hear sentences in a voice resembling her own.
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Anne-Marie Poirier of Montreal says a new artificial intelligence communication tool is helping restore her voice for family conversations, using a digital version that resembles her own speech. Poirier has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a progressive neurological disease that affects her ability to speak and swallow.
Poirier first experienced ALS symptoms in August 2024 and was diagnosed a year later. She began losing her ability to speak in October 2025 and has relied on communication apps since January. She started using Vocality in May, which lets users enter a few keywords to produce complete sentences that are spoken aloud in a voice resembling theirs.
“They are so happy. It's as though they forget that my life is slowly coming to an end,” Poirier said, describing how the tool has changed interactions with her nieces and nephews.
Vocality is the work of two Montreal entrepreneurs, Thomas Houlachi and David Ruiz, who founded the company in 2023. Houlachi said he saw the frustration of communication challenges firsthand after two family members were diagnosed with ALS; by 2023, both had lost their ability to speak.
Houlachi said Vocality is designed for people with speech impairments, using AI to learn a user’s vocabulary and expressions over time. He said some of the AI processing takes place directly on users’ devices to reduce the need to send personal information to external servers.
According to Houlachi, the app can also listen to conversations and suggest responses based on what others are saying, aiming to make exchanges faster for users who can’t type easily. He said more than 100 people across North America use Vocality daily.
Poirier said Vocality is easier to use than other communication applications she has tried. “It's so much simpler, more intuitive,” she said. She added that the application allows users to correct mistakes and, with a few words, generate sentences.
The tool is compatible with eye-tracking equipment, allowing people with limited mobility to select words and phrases using their eyes rather than fingers. Vocality also supports communication in a synthetic recreation of a user’s voice: recordings of a person’s speech can be used, through technology developed by AI company ElevenLabs, to create a synthetic voice that Vocality reads messages aloud.
Poirier said the voice she hears combines recordings of her actual speech with digitally generated words. She also said Vocality has helped her communicate with her partner in Italian, even though she understands the language but does not normally speak it, by generating Italian sentences for her partner to read aloud to her.
Houlachi said Vocality is available after downloading the app and requires a paid subscription. He said eligible users may qualify for financial assistance through ALS Québec, a non-profit that supports people living with the disease and their families.
Beyond the app, Vocality has received support from Propolys, Polytechnique Montréal’s technology incubator, including business training, coaching, and $16,000 in financial support. Houlachi said the founders also earned an additional $150,000 through fundraising and prize money from two contests.
Paul Shenouda, a partnerships manager at Propolys, said the founders’ decision to involve patients early in development stood out. Shenouda said Vocality has been trained and tested with people living with ALS and is available in six languages, with use also reported for other conditions affecting speech, including cerebral palsy and some forms of aphasia. The app is available on iPhones and iPads, with an Android version expected next week.
ALS is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The ALS Society of Canada estimates nearly 4,000 Canadians live with ALS and about 1,000 are diagnosed each year. As the disease progresses, patients can lose the ability to walk, speak, swallow and eventually breathe, even as their ability to think and understand others often remains intact.
Poirier said she wants to make the most of the time she has despite the progression of her disease. “No one can guarantee they will live a long time,” she said. “You have to enjoy every moment of life and be as happy as possible.”
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