Key topics
Artificial Intelligence and Digital Inclusion
As the workplace moves faster into the digital future, the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and disability inclusion has become a new frontier for global business. AI can be a double-edged sword - capable of breaking down long-standing barriers or inadvertently building new ones. At the same time, the digital skilling of jobseekers and employees with disabilities and the digital dimension of companies’ accessibility work remain priorities.
AI and the Employment of Persons with Disabilities – Opportunities, Risks and Recommendations
This policy brief by the ILO Global Business and Disability Network aims to equip companies with an understanding of the implications of AI use when it comes to the employment of persons with disabilities – highlighting opportunities to harness, critical risks to mitigate, and actionable recommendations to foster an inclusive and equitable future of work.
Tech for All? Harnessing AI & Digital Innovation for Disability Inclusion
This session at the ILO Global Business and Disability Network's (GBDN) 1st Regional Conference for Europe "Unlocking Potential: Disability Inclusion in Business" on 17 February 2026 at the United Nations Office at Vienna, addressed the double-edged role of digital technologies, including AI, in creating barriers or unlocking opportunities for people with disabilities. Key topics include accessible design, algorithmic bias, inclusive innovation, and co-creation with users with disabilities.
Inclusiveness in a digital economy: Avatars, accessibility, and Artificial Intelligence
The session "Inclusiveness in a digital economy: Avatars, accessibility, and Artificial Intelligence" at the ILO Global Business and Disability Network (GBDN) 11th global conference “From Margin to Mainstream: Disability in Business” on 27th and 28th November 2024, explored the pace at which the digital realm of the world economy is developing needs to be accompanied by appropriate measure to protect the labour rights of persons with disabilities and to promote their inclusion in the workforce. The session also looked at the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and latest legislation like the European Accessibility Act offer opportunities for promoting inclusiveness.
Artificial Intelligence and the future of technologies: Impact and opportunities
The session "Artificial Intelligence and the future of technologies: Impact and opportunities" at the ILO Global Business and Disability Network (GBDN) 10th annual conference on “Disability in sustainability efforts: Businesses leading the way” on 14th and 15th November 2023, looked at the tremendous potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in improving work productivity and individual quality of life, but also the concerns of its unintended consequences such as built-in AI bias against diversity. Session speakers discussed the latest AI trends, its usefulness and how to address the challenges regarding bias, especially on people with disabilities in the world of work.
AI for All? Inclusion, bias, and opportunity for persons with disabilities, WSIS+20 session
The WSIS+20 High-Level Event 2025 session "AI for All? Inclusion, bias, and opportunity for persons with disabilities", on 8 July 2025, included a presentation by the ILO, represented by Disability Inclusion Specialist Jürgen Menze, on the risks and opportunities of the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the employment of persons with disabilities.
How do you lip-read a robot? AI-powered HR technology has a disability problem
This ILO Global Business and Disability Network webinar, Webinar "How do you lip-read a robot? AI-powered HR technology has a disability problem", explored the unacknowledged risks to the world’s more than 1.3 billion persons with disabilities triggered by the fast-growing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered technology in the world of work.
Reaping the business benefits of accessibility
Companies increasingly recognise the benefits of accessibility, including physical and digital, as part of their efforts to create more inclusive workplaces in which all employees can thrive. Five multinational enterprise members of the ILO Global Business and Disability Network – Accenture, Atos, GSK, Repsol and Standard Chartered Bank – presented their latest key accessibility practices and policies.
Leave no one offline: A primer on engaging your company on digital accessibility
This webinar by the ILO Global Business and Disability Network (GBDN) presented the Network's publication "Leave no one offline: A primer on engaging your company on digital accessibility" and its recommendations. Input by ILO GBDN company members Merck/MSD and IBM complemented the webinar.
Leave no one offline: A primer on engaging your company on digital accessibility
Digital accessibility, not as a compliance measure, but as a “human-first” based digital inclusion transformation initiative, is at the beginning of its journey. If companies can establish digital accessibility as a foundational pillar to their overall digital transformation strategy and engage employees with disabilities at the product and service and workplace design phase, then we can begin to move digital impact measurement of digital accessibility away from compliance and over to innovation and business differentiation.
Accessibility of Online Job Application and Recruitment Systems
Accessibility of Online Job Application and Recruitment Systems is an ITU-ILO project that intends to create awareness on the solutions and tools available to remove accessibility barriers and create equal opportunities for inclusive talent attraction and retention by exposing the accessibility barriers in e-recruitment that prevent qualified applicants, including persons with disabilities, to connect with job opportunities. The project launched a guidebook and an e-learning course on the topic.
Leave on one offline: Youth with disabilities in the digital world of work
The technological revolution is remarkably transforming society. From the way we communicate, socialize, shop to the way we learn and work. These changes, which have been accentuated by the COVID-19 pandemic, deeply impact the world of work. With opportunities also come challenges like the imperative to leave no one behind in the digitalization process, including the more than one billion persons with disabilities across the globe.
An inclusive digital economy for people with disabilities
Co-published by Fundación ONCE and the ILO Global Business and Disability Network, the report takes a closer look at the digital transformation of the world of work and how it affects opportunities and challenges for the inclusion of persons with disabilities.
