Rhetoric vs Responsibility: How Tech Companies Shape AI for Accessibility

Paper Title

Rhetoric vs Responsibility: How Tech Companies Shape AI for Accessibility

Publication Info

• Topic area: Corporate narratives on AI and accessibility.
• Keywords: AI, accessibility, disability, corporate discourse, critical disability studies, technology ethics, participation, agency, equity, responsibility.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Technology companies increasingly frame AI as a transformative solution for accessibility, but this framing often sidesteps deeper structural issues of equity, agency, and responsibility. Disabled people’s participation in AI development is often limited or extractive, and the risks and limitations of AI technologies are downplayed.
• Significance: Understanding how corporate narratives shape the development and perception of AI for accessibility is critical for ensuring equitable and just technological futures for disabled communities.
• Motivation and related work: Prior research highlights harms from AI technologies, including algorithmic bias, privacy risks, and exclusion. Studies have examined corporate media to reveal how companies shape values and norms, but little work has systematically analyzed corporate narratives on AI and accessibility.

Solution

• Proposed approach: A critical discourse analysis of 126 public-facing blog posts and news articles from 11 leading U.S.-based AI companies to examine how they frame AI for accessibility.
• Novelty:
  1. First systematic analysis of corporate narratives on AI and accessibility.
  2. Identification of recurring themes in how companies render disabled participation, bestow agency upon AI, and legitimize their development efforts.
  3. Integration of critical disability studies to critique corporate framings and propose more just approaches.
  4. Exploration of how corporate narratives align with market imperatives and ethical claims.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Corpus creation: Articles were collected from corporate blogs and news sections of 11 U.S.-based AI companies using systematic search criteria.
  • Data analysis: Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was employed to examine language use, roles assigned to actors, and broader power relations. The analysis focused on four themes: modes of disabled participation, agency attributed to AI, corporate roles in shaping AI futures, and strategies for legitimizing AI development.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Disabled people are framed as beneficiaries, sources of inspiration, product testers, co-creators, and data generators, with varying levels of agency.
  • AI is portrayed as a digital accessibility remediator, augmenter of abilities, willing assistant, and enabler of autonomy and independence.
  • Companies position themselves as global ambassadors, moral stewards, and principled leaders in AI for accessibility.
  • Discursive strategies include co-opting disability advocacy language, downplaying risks, and aligning accessibility with market imperatives.
• Advantage over baselines: This study uniquely combines critical disability studies with discourse analysis to reveal how corporate narratives shape the social and ethical dimensions of AI for accessibility.
• Experiments / evaluation: The analysis is based on a qualitative review of 126 articles published between 2016 and 2025, focusing on language patterns, thematic roles, and rhetorical strategies.
• Limitations and future work:
  • U.S.-centric analysis excludes perspectives from non-U.S. companies and Global Majority countries.
  • Focus on for-profit companies may not capture narratives from non-profits or smaller startups.
  • Limited exploration of intersectional identities and broader dimensions of accessibility.
  • Future work should include disabled researchers and expand the scope to global and intersectional contexts.

Summary

This paper critically examines how U.S.-based AI companies frame their efforts in AI for accessibility through public-facing media. It reveals that corporate narratives often position disabled people in limited roles, attribute transformative agency to AI, and align accessibility with market and ethical imperatives. While these narratives highlight AI’s potential, they frequently sidestep structural issues of equity and accountability. The study calls for more democratic AI futures, emphasizing the need for genuine co-creation with disabled communities, redistribution of agency, and structural accountability to ensure just and inclusive technological development.