The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has served a critical role in advancing accessible and equitable communications for deaf and hard of hearing individuals. But as companies race to automate their customer service operations in recent years, many are inadvertently creating new barriers for deaf and hard of hearing people. Leaders can lean on the vision and spirit of the ADA to create more inclusive and accessible customer service programs in this era of AI. First, they should design customer experiences to be inclusive from the start by considering the requirements of deaf and hard of hearing individuals at every stage of service delivery. Second, they can repurpose a portion of the efficiencies gained from automation to support more complex customer service needs. Third, they should use an expansive mindset when engineering customer experiences by offering multiple channels of communication. Fourth, they must demonstrate socially responsible practices and highlight them in marketing and customer communications. Finally, leaders should involve individuals with lived experience as a person with a disability in the development of any AI-powered application.
