Always leave a human door open.
AI can make services far more accessible, or quietly lock people out. Which one depends on how you design it.
Where AI helps
Opening Doors
- Live captions and transcripts
- Read-aloud and plain-language rewrites
- Translation across South African languages
- Help available at any hour
Where AI shuts people out
Closing Doors
- Voice bots that struggle with some accents
- Chatbots that don't work with screen readers
- Digital-only channels with no alternative
- Loops with no way to reach a person
Design for everyone. Keep a person reachable.