There are over one billion folks on the planet dwelling with disabilities, and plenty of face boundaries to employment, schooling, and societal inclusion. In 2021, Microsoft launched a brand new five-year initiative to handle these challenges by specializing in three priorities: growing extra accessible expertise, utilizing this expertise to create alternatives for folks with disabilities to enter the workforce, and constructing a extra inclusive office for folks with disabilities. The aim is to bridge the incapacity divide and faucet into the untapped expertise pool of individuals with disabilities. Digital expertise can play a vital position in bettering communication, interplay, and entry to data for this group.
Background
As expertise continues to advance, it turns into more and more essential for firms to think about the accessibility of their services, to verify folks with disabilities aren’t left behind. Accessibility can be nice for enterprise. With not less than one in 5 adults within the U.S. figuring out as having a incapacity in response to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the price of ignoring this rising market section is big. Designing inclusive services with folks with disabilities in thoughts additionally improves the expertise for all customers. Features like video captioning and voice management are essential accessibility instruments for some people however make the expertise higher for everybody. During the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for Microsoft accessibility options corresponding to Teams captioning elevated by 30 occasions the earlier use, and Immersive Reader utilization elevated by 560 %. A 2018 research by Accenture in partnership with Disability: In and the American Association of People with Disabilities discovered that inclusive firms had, over a four-year interval, 28 % increased income, double the web earnings, and 30 % increased financial revenue margins than their friends.
Solution
Microsoft and Azure AI supply a spread of accessibility options to assist organizations create extra inclusive experiences for his or her customers. These options embrace speech transcription and captioning, content material readers, translation providers, voice assistants, facial recognition, and laptop imaginative and prescient. These AI-powered instruments may help people with disabilities higher entry and have interaction with digital content material, whether or not it is by means of speech-to-text transcription, picture captioning, or text-to-speech translation.
Six use circumstances
Azure AI powers lots of the accessible experiences discovered inside Microsoft at this time. Here are a few of our favorites:
- Conversation, conferences, and stay broadcasting: Microsoft Teams helps speech-to-text transcription and captioning for conferences and calls, powered by Azure Cognitive Services, making it simpler for people who find themselves Deaf or Hard of Hearing to take part in on-line communication. These options additionally profit folks with ADHD, people who find themselves multi-tasking, or these in noisy or low-bandwidth environments.
- Content studying: Microsoft merchandise corresponding to Outlook, Edge, and PowerPoint embrace a read-aloud characteristic, powered by Azure Cognitive Services, that makes use of text-to-speech expertise to learn internet pages, paperwork, and emails aloud. This makes it simpler for people who find themselves blind or have low imaginative and prescient, along with folks with Dyslexia, ADHD, or Autism to entry and devour digital content material. It additionally permits all customers to multi-task and take heed to content material on the go.
- Communication: Microsoft Translator is a translation service that helps speech-to-speech, text-to-speech, and optical character recognition (OCR) to allow communication throughout totally different languages and codecs in Teams or Outlook.
- Device entry: Windows Hello makes use of facial recognition expertise, powered by Azure Face API, to permit customers to log in to their gadgets with their face, making it simpler for folks with mobility disabilities to entry their gadgets, and offering a hands-free, environment friendly login expertise for everybody.
- Device management: Microsoft merchandise corresponding to Windows and Xbox embrace voice assistants powered by speech-to-text expertise, which can be utilized by customers of all talents to regulate the system and entry data and providers by means of voice instructions.
- Images and environment: Microsoft Edge, PowerPoint, and Seeing AI are merchandise that embrace Azure Computer Vision capabilities corresponding to picture captioning, which may present descriptive textual content for photographs to make them extra accessible to people who find themselves blind or who’ve low imaginative and prescient. Image descriptions additionally enhance search engine marketing (website positioning) and supply alternate options for folks listening to content material, or in low-bandwidth environments.
In addition to the six use circumstances above, we’re excited to see how prospects leverage the Azure OpenAI Service to enhance accessible experiences. Natural language interactions may help folks of all talents interact with expertise in simpler methods. For instance, GitHub CoPilot is a generative coding assistant powered by Azure OpenAI to assist builders construct sooner and extra effectively.
Customer proof
Some prime prospects utilizing Azure AI for accessibility embrace Swedish TV, which makes use of Azure AI to transcribe their video content material and generate closed captioning; Peloton, which makes use of speech-to-text and translation expertise for stay subtitles in its stay lessons, bettering accessibility for members who’re Deaf or Hard of Hearing; and Gameloft, which makes use of Azure Translator to allow communication in numerous languages.
2023 Ability Summit
Microsoft is internet hosting its thirteenth annual Ability Summit on March 8, 2023, to showcase firm and buyer innovation on the planet of accessibility and inclusive design. Leading as much as the free occasion we’re additionally broadcasting an AI Show on February 27, 2023, devoted to accessible expertise, and on March 6, 2023, to deep dive right into a buyer undertaking to generate natural-sounding audiobooks at scale. We encourage you to register for these occasions, which can allow you to develop a plan to enhance inclusion and accessibility inside your group.
Looking forward
Microsoft and Azure AI are dedicated to serving to organizations create extra inclusive experiences for his or her customers by means of a spread of accessibility use circumstances. By leveraging these options, firms could make a optimistic influence on the lives of individuals with disabilities and assist create a extra accessible world. We stay up for seeing what you construct on behalf of your prospects and finish customers with Azure AI.