MONTREAL – When Anne-Marie Poirier speaks at family gatherings, her nieces and nephews hear a familiar voice — one they thought they might never hear again.
Poirier has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a progressive neurological disease that has robbed her of her ability to speak and affected her ability to swallow.
But a new artificial intelligence tool has brought a simulated version of her voice back into the lives of her loved ones, reinvigorating her family conversations and interactions.
“They are so happy. It’s as though they forget that my life is slowly coming to an end,” she said, using the AI tool during an interview with The Canadian Press.
Poirier first experienced symptoms in August 2024 and was diagnosed with ALS a year later. She began losing her voice in October 2025 and has relied on communication applications since January.
In May, she started using Vocality, an application developed by two young Montreal entrepreneurs that allows her to turn a few keywords into complete sentences, spoken aloud in a voice resembling her own.
Users can download the tool and use it after getting a paid subscription.
Eligible users may also qualify for financial assistance through ALS Québec, a non-profit organization that supports people living with the disease and their families.
“It gives me energy, a feeling of being alive,” she said.
ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is an incurable neurological disease that progressively destroys nerve cells controlling voluntary movement.
As it advances, patients can lose their ability to walk, speak, swallow and eventually breathe, even as their ability to think and understand others often remains intact.
Nearly 4,000 Canadians live with ALS, and about 1,000 are diagnosed each year, according to the ALS Society of Canada.
For those who lose their ability to speak, even a simple exchange can become a painstaking process, with conversations moving faster than they can write or type.
Thomas Houlachi saw that frustration firsthand. In 2021, two members of his family were diagnosed with ALS. By 2023, both had lost their ability to speak.
They tried using communication applications on an iPad, but typing messages letter by letter was slow and increasingly difficult as their motor skills deteriorated. At times, they found it easier to write on paper.
“Speech is something so fundamental to the human experience. If you lose it, you lose half of that experience,” Houlachi said.
Houlachi, then beginning his biomedical engineering studies at Polytechnique Montréal, wondered whether he could make communicating less of a struggle.
He teamed up with David Ruiz, who studied software engineering at Concordia University, and the two founded Vocality in 2023.
Houlachi’s relatives died before the pair finalized the application, so they never got to use the finished product.
After more than two years of development and testing with people living with ALS, Vocality launched on iPhones and iPads in June, with an Android version expected next week, according to Houlachi.
Instead of typing out entire sentences, users can enter a few keywords and have the application fill in the rest. It can also listen to conversations and suggest responses based on what others are saying.
Houlachi said Vocality uses AI technology designed specifically for people with speech impairments, allowing the application to learn their vocabulary and expressions over time.
Houlachi acknowledged the tool is being introduced at a time of growing public concerns about artificial intelligence and its use in health care. But he said his firm was working with leading experts to ensure the AI was being introduced in a safe and ethical way.
“We often talk about AI replacing what humans do, but Vocality is the exact opposite,” he said. “It’s a tool that gives people control, allowing them to continue expressing themselves authentically, while helping them communicate faster and more smoothly.”
Some of the AI processing takes place directly on users’ devices, reducing the need to send personal information to external servers.
More than 100 people across North America now use the application daily, according to Houlachi.
Vocality is also compatible with eye-tracking equipment, allowing people with limited mobility to select words and phrases using their eyes rather than their fingers.
The application also allows users to communicate in a digital recreation of their own voice. Using recordings of their speech, technology developed by AI company ElevenLabs can create a synthetic voice that Vocality uses to read messages aloud.
For Poirier, the voice combines recordings of her actual speech with digitally generated words.
Poirier, who had previously used other communication applications, said Vocality is easier to use.
“It’s so much simpler, more intuitive,” she said. “The application allows you to correct mistakes, and with just a few words, it generates sentences.”
Poirier learned about the project through ALS Québec, which helped recruit users to test the application.
She has since regularly shared feedback with Houlachi. For example, when someone asked her to repeat a sentence, she sometimes had to type it again because the application had erased it after reading it aloud.
The current version of Vocality allows users to save frequently used phrases in their library. It also has a feature that allows users to repeat sentences when needed.
That close relationship with users is part of what makes Vocality stand out, according to Paul Shenouda, a partnerships manager at Propolys, Polytechnique Montréal’s technology incubator.
Vocality has received business training, coaching, and $16,000 in financial support from Propolys, Polytechnique Montréal’s technology incubator. Houlachi said the firm also earned an additional $150,000 through fundraising and prize money from two contests.
Shenouda said the founders’ willingness to involve patients early in the development process caught his attention.
He said entrepreneurs sometimes become so focused on developing their technology that they lose sight of the people who will eventually use it.
“It’s rather rare to have a story that’s so sincere,” Shenouda said.
Vocality is now available in six languages and is being used by people with other conditions affecting speech, including cerebral palsy and some forms of aphasia.
For Poirier, the technology has opened up another unexpected possibility: communicating with her partner in Italian.
Although she understands the language, she doesn’t normally speak it. Vocality allows her to generate sentences in Italian and have them read aloud to her partner, who speaks the language fluently.
Despite the progression of her disease, Poirier says she wants to make the most of the time she has.
“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.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 11, 2026.
