How assistive technologies and AI are transforming workplace accessibility

When it comes to making recruitment processes and workplaces more accessible, the use of technology has been nothing short of transformative.

Employees with disabilities that may previously have struggled with some workplace environments, or felt locked out of a recruitment process, can now draw on a range of assistive technologies to support them. These include screen readers, voice assistants and real-time captioning, which can give potential employees the confidence to apply for a role, and enable existing staff to carry out their working day more effectively.

For employers and recruiters, using technology to improve accessibility for staff with disabilities or neurodivergence can unlock a wealth of untapped talent, bringing numerous benefits including increased loyalty, new perspectives on creativity and improved diversity.

Newer assistive technologies based on advances in AI are changing the game even further. Many AI tools are becoming the assistive technology that everyone uses, including those without disabilities.

The positive impact of summarisation tools

This is particularly true when it comes to summarisation tools, which includes platforms such as ChatGPT, CoPilot or Gemini. While many of us use them to summarise large amounts of information to save time, for those with accessibility needs, they can have a significant and positive impact on their working lives.

Summarisation tools can be particularly useful for those with neurodiverse conditions, such as dyslexia or ADHD, where reading large portions of text can be a challenge. Those who have sight problems may also value them, so they don’t have to focus for long periods of time to read content. Some tools can simplify the reading level, change the tone, and help define or explain complex language.

Similarly, where there is a transcript available for a long-form video, such as a webinar or the recording of a meeting, training or onboarding session, summarisation tools can be used to extract and highlight the main points.

Protecting privacy and ensuring accuracy

However, it is essential that HR teams have defined parameters about how and when these tools are used.

For example, a potential employee with a sight impairment could use summarisation tools to distil the main points of a recruitment brief, or a company handbook and employment policies. These are fine – as long as the documents don’t include sensitive data. A dyslexic HR professional who might have used an assistive technology in the past to aid their understanding of documents about staff performance, would need to be mindful of privacy settings when using more recent AI summarisation tools today.

There are certain situations where particular care needs to be taken when using AI summarisation tools:

Data privacy

Many AI technologies are not always clear about the privacy of data entered, how it is processed, and how private the output is. AI is currently unable to recognise what data should be private, so it’s up to the human user to do this in advance of using the tool. HR teams should update their data protection and AI policies to assure the appropriate use of privacy settings in AI tools used in the workplace, to ensure that only the necessary data is collected and the confidentiality of sensitive information is protected throughout the use of AI processing.

Accuracy

Another common issue with AI is accuracy. For example, speech to text mistranslations often occur in AI-generated transcripts, and hallucinations may happen in summarisation. So human quality assurance is a necessity to check the accuracy of summarisations delivered. As a result, HR teams may need to consider additional support for those employees with accessibility needs.

A considered approach to using AI can pay dividends

Despite these concerns, the use of AI summarisers can be a huge support for employees, and potential employees, with accessibility requirements.

However, HR and recruitment teams, together with their IT colleagues, need to carefully consider which AI platforms are the most appropriate to use, and ensure their policies and procedures reflect the growing use of AI in workplace adjustments.

With new digital products coming onto the market all the time that claim to ‘do’ accessibility, it’s also important that managers don’t default to the least expensive option, as this may not be the best – or most secure - choice.

In short, AI and broader assistive technologies can be a force for good when it comes to workplace accessibility. HR teams just need to understand both their strengths and limitations to ensure they work well for every need and every situation.