How AI could help Market to visually challenged consumers
As someone who is legally blind, and can only read large print, I struggle to read social media captions, small copy on advertisements, or pretty much any little print, unless I can make it bigger. However, AI might be changing that. Along with screenreaders, apps that utilize artificial intelligence to scan documents, or other items are changing how blind people interact with the world around them.
Unfortunately, these powerful apps, which utilize AI to improve the lives of the disabled, may come at a cost. Many companies and ill willed developers are using AI to trick vulnerable groups of people, as stated below. AI is a double-edged sword, and is unfortunately unable to be charted, due to the speed and abilities of machine learning. I spoke with dr. David Hagenbuch, Professor of Marketing at Messiah University, and author of the blog Mindful Marketing, and Keith Quesenberry, also a Professor of Marketing at Messiah and author of the blog Post Control Marketing, about their thoughts on where AI is headed with regards to marketing and the disabled consumer.
“As often happens, laws and ethical considerations often lag behind new technologies. AI’s rapid pace of development and machine learning have multiplied concerns about this unprecedented tech” “Unfortunately, some individuals and organizations with less-than-pure motives already are using AI to replicate familiar voices and images to gain people’s trust and trick them. Individuals who have vision or hearing impairments are likely to be even more susceptible to such scams. Hopefully, there soon will be new technologies and regulations to protect everyone from illicit uses of AI; however, protections are particularly important for people who have disabilities.” -Hagenbuch
As legally blind individual, I do not utilize screen readers, although I highly appreciate it when an app offers to read me an advertisement, PDF, or any set of text. Apps like these include Speechify, Seeing AI, and others. Microsoft even features a read aloud function, where it will read the document back to you. in the marketing world, however, options like this are scarce for the disabled, which requires us to use a screenreader, or other clunky technologies, which may mess with the way we are used to using our devices. Even though AI is risky, implementing a read aloud function on social media, where someone could click an advertisement or a button near it, and the device would read back the copy within advertisement, along with describing it, it would be highly helpful. It may also increase interactions between disabled consumers and various companies.
“Recently I read about Publicis Groupe, one of the world’s largest marketing communications companies in the world, launching a new product called CoreAI. One of the benefits of the technology is the people creating the ads are able to use AI insights to create personalized content at scale. I envision this as AI tech as being able to customize content to the needs of individuals with various forms of impairments.” -Quesenberry
Professor Quisenberry brings up a very good point: making AI customizable would be a game changer for the blind consumer, and would also put power into employees hands when it comes to making content fully accessible for all abilities.
Allowing AI into the world of marketing has many implications, especially for the disabled employee and consumer. Both ends of the spectrum create a window where AI can either benefit or destroy the experience and productivity of the user.
A prime example of this is the fact that many social medias have added a right with AI button. This might be convenient for the sighted user, but individuals using screen readers could quite often tap this button without wanting to utilize AI. This then creates the issue of the user having to redo the work, which could sometimes be hours worth. Options to improve this experience include using a separate keyboard on iOS devices, and others for AI features within social media, using a voice command to trigger the AI feature for screen, reader, users, and others. Social media companies such as meta-and LinkedIn need to be very careful when placing AI writing tools.
Despite these challenges, AI in the marketing world is truly an incredible tool with unchecked potential for the disabled consumer. From alternate text in photos to a shortcut when replying to a sales email, the possibilities are endless.
As a sight impaired marketer myself, I understand the importance of proper accessibility with each and every campaign, post, commercial, and advertisement. One example of a commercial set which I cannot enjoy is the most recent set of “He Gets Us” commercials. Due to the nonexistent verbal communication, visually challenged individuals like myself cannot enjoy the commercials. There are also social media campaigns that I cannot enjoy because of inaccessibility when it comes to the print on photo advertisements that are attached. Although I don’t use a screen reader, having the text written out as copy alongside the image allows screen readers to pick up what the advertisement is selling. The thing I struggle most with, however, are paper advertisements. Although I can take a picture with my phone, if I am simply walking by, I cannot see them, and don’t have time to snap a picture. I also struggle with the same thing when it comes to fast food restaurant menus. However, thanks to modern technology, I have mostly overcome that problem, and I look forward to seeing how AI will impact the way we interact with menus and advertisements in general.
As time goes on, marketers like myself will have to learn and adapt to the new technology and formats of AI that are thrown our way. As any good marketer knows, you are either ahead of and on top of the trend, or you’re too late. This pressure goes for working with AI as well. I look forward to learning and understanding more about AI as my professional career progresses.
For those asking whether or not our marketing jobs are safe with AI, my answer is yes. Both of the professors quoted above have worked and researched this question, and both have come to a similar conclusion. This doesn’t mean marketers can sit back though…
That said, I have one question for you… How will AI make your marketing more accessible?
Blind Wanderer 
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