Accessibility is not only a technical challenge, but a way of seeing, communicating, and designing shared futures.
About the Activity
Accessible Aging AI is an experience-first Diversity & Inclusion activity at IJCAI-ECAI 2026.
It aims to build a welcoming community around accessibility, aging, and diverse human abilities.
This activity is not designed as a conventional technical workshop, nor is it limited to discussing the latest AI methods for accessibility and aging. Instead, it begins from a more fundamental question:
What assumptions about human ability are built into the way we design, evaluate, communicate, and deploy AI?
Through hands-on accessibility experiences, participants will be invited to briefly step outside the perspective of the "typical" user and engage with interaction realities that many disabled people and older adults face in everyday life. These experiences are intended not as simulations of another person's full lived experience, but as starting points for empathy, reflection, and more responsible design thinking.
The goal is to encourage deeper reflection across the AI community. We hope participants will increase awareness of accessibility & aging and start with several insights they can bring to their research, teaching, paper writing, figure design, interface development, public communication, and daily life.
Accessible Aging AI starts from hands-on interaction, not from technology. By encountering barriers first, participants are encouraged to rethink what inclusive AI should mean from the perspective of research questions, datasets, evaluation, visualization, communication, and everyday design choices.
Why Accessibility and Aging Matter for AI
Accessibility and aging are already central challenges for inclusive and human-centered AI.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 1.3 billion people worldwide live with significant disabilities [1], and more than 2.5 billion people need one or more assistive products [2]. With an ageing global population and a rise in noncommunicable diseases, an estimated 3.5 billion people will need assistive technology by 2050. A substantial proportion of older adults experience disability, sensory change, cognitive change, or interaction barriers. As AI becomes embedded into everyday infrastructure, the AI community must design systems that work across diverse human abilities.
Accessibility-related research is often distributed across assistive technology, healthcare AI, human-computer interaction, multimodal AI, robotics, inclusive design, and responsible AI. Accessible Aging AI brings these perspectives together in IJCAI-ECAI 2026 Diversity & Inclusion Activity.
Societal Relevance
AI systems are increasingly playing a bigger role in services, communication, healthcare, education, and public participation.
Diverse Abilities
Human interaction varies across vision, hearing, speech, cognition, motor control, age, culture, and lived experience.
Community Building
Inclusive AI requires interdisciplinary collaboration between AI researchers, accessibility experts, designers, and users.
What to Expect
The activity combines accessibility experiences, collaborative discussions and community reflection.
Embodied Accessibility Experiences
Participants will engage in hands-on, low-tech interaction challenges that uncover how accessibility barriers emerge across vision, hearing, mobility, communication, aging, and neurodiverse experiences.
Navigating limited or distorted visual conditions
Communicating without speech or reliable audio
Experiencing cognitive overload and fragmented attention
Interacting under mobility and fine-motor constraints
Inclusive AI Futures Lab
Building on their experiences, participants will work in small groups to imagine more inclusive AI systems, interfaces, and interaction futures. The activity encourages imaginative thinking beyond technical constraints, inviting participants to design unconventional or impossible ideas that rethink accessibility from scratch.
Reimagining accessibility-first AI systems
Designing future interactions for aging societies
Challenging assumptions about "normal" users
Developing "impossible but meaningful" ideas
Accessibility Futures Showcase
Each group will share their reflections, adventurous concepts, and future visions with the community. The showcase creates a space for collective discussion, creative exchange, and critical reflection on how AI systems can better support diverse human experiences.
Sharing experiential reflections and insights
Discussing inclusive interaction futures
Reflecting on ethical and societal implications
Building imagination around accessible and aging-aware AI
Who Is This For?
Accessible Aging AI welcomes participants interested in accessibility, aging, interaction design, AI systems, and inclusive futures. Prior expertise in accessibility research is not required.
Academic and Research Communities
Researchers exploring inclusive and human-centered AI
Students interested in accessibility, aging, and interaction design
Scholars working on multimodal AI, robotics, or digital health
People curious about embodied and participatory design approaches
Designers, Practitioners, and Advocates
Designers and developers interested in inclusive interaction
Accessibility advocates, rehabilitation therapists, and assistive technology practitioners
Industry practitioners building AI products and platforms
Attendees interested in responsible and inclusive AI futures
People curious about accessibility and diverse human experiences
Whether you are deeply involved in accessibility research or encountering these questions for the first time, the activity invites curiosity, creativity, and shared reflection.
Diversity & Inclusion Activity Journey
The activity is designed as a three-hour interactive journey combining embodied accessibility experiences, inclusive design activities, and collective reflection on inclusive AI futures.
Duration
Session
Description
10 min
Welcome & Community Framing
Introduction to the goals of Accessible Aging AI and an overview of accessibility, aging, and inclusive AI futures.
70 min
Embodied Accessibility Experiences
Participants engage in hands-on, low-tech interaction challenges exploring visual, auditory, motor, cognitive, neurodiverse, and aging-related accessibility conditions.
20 min
Coffee Break & Informal Conversations
Open discussion, informal exchange, and time for participants to reflect on their experiences and observations.
40 min
Inclusive AI Futures Lab
Small-group design activities exploring inclusive AI systems, multimodal interactions, accessibility-first interfaces, and aging-aware technological futures.
30 min
Accessibility Futures Showcase
Each group shares reflections, design ideas, and possible future directions.
10 min
Closing Remarks & Community Photo
Summary of key takeaways and discussion of future opportunities for collaboration and community-building around accessible and aging-aware AI.
Community Goals
Accessible Aging AI aims to establish a sustainable community for rethinking how AI systems can support diverse bodies, minds, abilities, and aging experiences.
Grow an Inclusive Community
Build a welcoming space where researchers, practitioners, students, and community members can connect across disciplines and lived experiences.
Make Accessibility Visible
Help the AI community recognize accessibility not as a minority concern, but as a central question in how people encounter, use, trust, and participate in AI-mediated systems.
Prioritize Human Experiences
Bring attention to aging, disability, cognitive and neurodiversity, communication differences, sensory experiences, mobility needs, and situational barriers in AI design and deployment.
Inspire Accessibility-First Design
Encourage AI systems, interfaces, datasets, evaluations, and deployment practices that treat accessibility as a starting point.
Promote Interdisciplinary Exchange
Connect perspectives from AI, HCI, accessibility research, assistive technology, robotics, healthcare, design, ethics, policy, and community practice.
Explore Future Collaborations
Identify opportunities for future workshops, tutorials, mentorship, shared resources, research collaborations, and long-term inclusive AI initiatives.
Join the Experience
Accessible Aging AI welcomes IJCAI-ECAI 2026 attendees interested in accessibility, aging, inclusive interaction, and future-facing AI communities.
DateAugust 16, 2026Expected AttendanceSmall-group interactive participation (Expected 40-60 attendees)Participation Form❗❗ Registration details will be shared soon
Participation will be organized to support meaningful interaction, small-group collaboration, and a welcoming interdisciplinary environment.
If interest exceeds available capacity, registration may be managed to maintain balanced participation across research areas, career stages, and backgrounds.
Meet the Organizer
Dr. Yutong Zhou
Postdoctoral Researcher Multimodal & Human-Centered AI
Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research, Germany
Yutong Zhou is a postdoctoral researcher working at the intersection of multimodal AI, human-centered interaction, and inclusive AI systems.
Her research explores how AI technologies can better support diverse human experiences across communication, accessibility, reasoning, and real-world interaction contexts.
Through her research, teaching, and community activities, she has become increasingly interested in how accessibility, aging, and interaction diversity are addressed within AI research communities.
Accessible Aging AI is created to support more inclusive, interdisciplinary, and community-centered conversations around the future of AI systems and human participation.
Her broader interests include accessible and inclusive AI systems, multimodal interaction, empathic AI, trustworthy AI, human-centered design, and interdisciplinary AI community building.
Join the Community
Accessible Aging AI invites people who want to reimagine how AI systems can support diverse bodies, minds, abilities, and aging experiences.
Let's build a more accessible, inclusive, and human-centered future for AI.
Date: 16 August, 2026
Time: TBC
Location: TBC
Join the Activity
Explore the Experience
Academic and Research Communities 
Designers, Practitioners, and Advocates