Natural language AI assistants tend to be fluent in English and can speak other languages reasonably well, which can be confusing for millions of people who switch seamlessly between the two languages instantly. But a new AI helper called Silvia has no trouble understanding a mix of Spanish and English, and more language combinations to come.
The app isn't some kind of funded startup; it was created last month by Mansidak Singh, who is a founding product engineer at re:collect AI by day.
“I met an Argentinian girl at a bar last month, and she told me that her iPhone goes haywire when she uses English words while speaking Spanish,” Shin said. These assistants just aren't as flexible as the human brain.
“For example, if I said, 'Hey, where are you going tonight? See you then!', iOS would typically ignore the Spanish part if the English keyboard was enabled, and vice versa. This wasn't ideal for someone who speaks a mix of Spanish and English. After speaking with many people in the LATAM community, I realized this issue was much more prevalent than I realized. So I solved it.”
Silvia is a small app that pops up from the left side of your keyboard; just tap it instead of the native dictation icon. Then, speak your preferred language combination and Silvia will type it for you. It only supports Spanish and English to start with, but French, Romanian, Ukrainian, German and Dutch are coming soon. There will also be a custom keyboard version, so you can use it with non-Apple apps.
I asked whether a version in Hindi and English, another common hybrid language, would emerge, but Singh said that for now, this approach only works for Germanic languages that use the Roman alphabet.
I'm curious how he built it so quickly. Of course, he's an engineer who's already worked in this field, but the fact is, the API here is very powerful, and he deployed it expertly.
“Right now we're using the new translation API in iOS 18 to create two mono channels, one for Spanish and one for English, and then using OpenAI Whisper in parallel to do the cleanup, so it works really fast,” he explained.
By the way, this doesn't store any data, so you don't have to worry about doing anything shady – it's Apple certified.
Unlike other AI products out there, this one doesn't claim to change the world, just reflect it a bit more accurately. You can download Silvia here later this month, or if you're forgetful like me, sign up to be notified when it's released.