Microsoft Commits $25 Million to AI Accessibility Initiative
Microsoft launches a new five-year, $25 million program called AI for Accessibility to help developers create intelligent solutions for over one billion people with disabilities worldwide.
Microsoft announces a new five-year, $25 million program called AI for Accessibility at its Build conference in Seattle. Led by Chief Accessibility Officer Jenny Lay-Flurrie, this initiative aims to put artificial intelligence tools directly into the hands of developers to create intelligent solutions for the more than one billion people with disabilities around the world.
The company emphasizes that AI acts as a game changer by helping individuals hear, see, and reason with impressive accuracy. Technologies like real-time speech-to-text transcription, visual recognition services, and predictive text functionality already show enormous potential to assist people with vision, hearing, cognitive, learning, and mobility disabilities in employment, modern life, and human connection.
Because only one in ten people with disabilities currently has access to assistive technologies, this program seeks to close that gap. The AI for Accessibility initiative provides seed grants of technology to developers, universities, non-governmental organizations, and inventors who take an AI-first approach to building new opportunities for this important community.