Episode Notes
In this episode of the AccessWorld podcast, hosts Tony and Aaron catch up with Ayan Kishore at the recent AFB Leadership Conference. Ayan is president and CEO of Benetech, a leader in accessible media for people with disabilities. Providers for the popular BookShare service, Ayan shares what's new for Benetech in 2026.
Learn more about Ayan and the great work taking place at Benetech HERE.
Be sure to like and subscribe to AccessWorld via your favorite podcast app and feel free to leave us a comment.
AccessWorld Podcast, Episode 25 Transcript
Announcer:
You're listening to AccessWorld, a podcast on digital inclusion and accessibility. AccessWorld is a production of the American Foundation for the Blind. Learn more at www.afb.org/aw.
Tony Stephens:
Happy New Year to you. Hey, welcome back, everybody, to another exciting episode of AccessWorld, a podcast on digital inclusion and accessibility from the American Foundation for the Blind.
I am your co-host, Tony Stevens with the American Foundation for the Blind. And joined with me as always is our fearless editor-in-chief of AccessWorld Magazine. Happy 2026 Aaron Priest. How are you, sir?
Aaron Preece:
I'm good. Same to you. First podcast of the new year.
Tony Stephens:
First podcast of the new year, and it's exciting. We're going to be dropping these every other week now. So two a month you get. We were in a little bit of a hiatus. We had our AFB leadership conference last November, middle of the month. And then thanks for the holidays and everything else.
So we're glad everybody's back with us. There's a lot in store for 2026. Very exciting. Looking back into 2025, any massive, big, exciting things that you ended the year on Access tech-wise? Anything special under the tree?
Aaron Preece:
Oh, well, it's hard to say. I feel like a lot of the developments were just incremental updates to existing tech. I know back in the summer, nothing new recently, but back in the summer, we did that review of Viewpoint, the AI tool. That's gotten new updates and continually being updated.
And I honestly used that way more than I expected to just because of ease of use. And that has become a lot more of a major part of my workflow that I didn't expect. That was pretty cool this year.
Tony Stephens:
It's some exciting things our folks know in the fall maybe or those that maybe took it, thank you so much. Our Public Policy Research Institute conducted a phase two study on artificial intelligence and all things really a deep dive into both disabled and non-disabled groups.
There's going to be a report for that coming out in early spring, if not the end of winter, that we're really excited about. But just talking about some of the preliminary stuff, the findings has been fascinating. So we're going to be excited to bring a lot of that in terms of tech and accessibility intersection. I'm trying to think myself, big takeaways.
Aaron Preece:
Anything specific that you stood out to you or that you cut your hands on this year?
Tony Stephens:
We've been excited. You, sir, have been quoted quite a bit around the Ray-Ban glasses and in some other spaces. So it's been exciting that your voice has been getting out of there with some of the news media. But I'm still excited to where things are going to be going.
Looking ahead to 2026, the more that we get AI built into wearable devices or just things that aren't having to hold our phone out in front of us is cool. I think there's some other big stuff coming up in '26 as well in that sort of space, isn't there? I think Ray-
Aaron Preece:
There's a lot more glasses coming out. There's EchoVision glasses that are a blindness-specific AI-powered glasses came out, I think back in October, an initial beta release is what it was looking like to me potentially.
Tony Stephens:
Yeah, I've been hearing some buzz.
Aaron Preece:
Pioneer release.
Tony Stephens:
As we're recording, the CES is wrapping up. I'd be curious if there was anything about that.
Aaron Preece:
Anything about that there.
Tony Stephens:
When we get an update coming out of CES, again, another one or maybe you can get a blog post or check our social media. We'll probably be sharing some stuff that was exciting news from CES this year.
Aaron Preece:
For sure. And I always try to think of things because we talk so much about AI, but it really has dominated just the way the smartphone... Thinking back to when the iPhone first came out and how often there were just an explosion of accessibility features and accessibility apps. I remember money identifiers and then OCR and all kinds of various things.
It dominates the landscape in some ways and just the speed of acceleration. And one thing we were talking about before we started was I was thinking about what's going to happen in... What am I looking forward to technology-wise in 2026? Or where do I see the next step forward in accessibility?
And who knows, because nowadays, the more AI coding improves, anybody with a passion can go and code something and make... And I see this a lot in the gaming space where people are just going and making modifications to existing games because they themselves want to play them and they're the only blind guy that wants to do it or one of three guys that wants to play it. But now they have that AI tool and they can go do that. So what else will that generate? I'll be curious.
Tony Stephens:
Yeah. It is going to be interesting the crowdsourced approach people are going to take by DIYing stuff and really innovating. The same way you mentioned the apps, and I never really thought of it like that. But when the first iPhones started to become accessible, was it 2010, the 3Gs, 3GS?
Aaron Preece:
Yeah.
Tony Stephens:
Are we at a point where there's already been stuff like the BeMyAI and IRA, but hopefully, there's going to be a lot more people thinking out of the box and really pushing forward some cool stuff this year.
So we'll look forward to talking about it here on the pod. But yeah, well, there are some updates exciting that with our guests that we're going to be talking to today as well. We had a chance to speak with Ayan Kishore, the new, well, he's not new now. He's been a couple of years now, but filled the big, big shoes of Jim Fucterman from folks that are Blind & Low Vision, may know Bookshare, the service that's run through what's called Benetech, a company that runs it.
It's accessible media, accessible books, talking books, print, braille, all things in that space. They are a huge giant in that accessible digital media content space, which is exciting. So we had a chance to catch up with Ayan at our annual leadership conference last November that we were talking about earlier.
So, Aaron and I had a chance to talk with them. And so yeah, we're going to be catching up with them. You made me think a second ago about accessible gaming. We got a shout-out too for the folks that are going to be going to CSUN. You, my friend, you're going to get to go hang out in Anaheim when it's probably going to be snowing here if some late winter snowstorm.
Aaron Preece:
That's true.
Tony Stephens:
So yeah. But you're also giving a presentation at CSUN this year. So folks that are going to be hitting CSUN up in March, the major accessibility tech conference in California run through Cal State Northridge, or no, University of California, Northridge, I think. No, CSUN. Yeah, C Cal State, CS, UN.
Aaron Preece:
University of Northridge.
Tony Stephens:
Something like that. But you're out there too talking about-
Aaron Preece:
Yeah, we're going to be-
Tony Stephens:
What is it?
Aaron Preece:
Yeah, basically demonstrating because a lot of the... Making a game accessible just because of how different essentially every single game is not as straightforward as making an app or a website accessible. But a lot of those techniques have been pioneered and exist already made by blind people in audio-based games.
So I'll be demoing games to inspire people that might be looking to make video games accessible in the mainstream, but also in the blindness industry as well. And if you are blind, a lot of maybe games you might be interested and get some demos of those.
Tony Stephens:
Yeah. Cool. So come check Aaron out at CSUN. We'll be plugging in again, I'm sure in other episodes. But yeah, so fun conference. Ours was fun as well. So let's jump in now and have a chance to catch up with Ayan, the CEO with Benetech.
So be sure to check us out like us online. You can get all the back issues of AccessWorld Magazine at afb.org/aw and check out the latest issue from November. The next one's dropping in February.
But for now everybody, enjoy the podcast as Aaron and I sit down to talk with Ayan Kishore from Benetech. And we are back again to the AccessWorld Podcast, a podcast on digital inclusion and accessibility for the American Foundation for the Blind here with my co-host, Mr. Aaron Priest at the AFBLC Leadership Conference 2025. Aaron?
Aaron Preece:
How's it going, Tony?
Tony Stephens:
It is going well, sir. It is doing well. We are surviving the conference. It is finally here after a year of preparation and it's been going excellent. So the cold snap broke, which was nice, and we are just enjoying ourselves outside our nation's capital, which opened today. It's open for business again, which is good.
We're recording this on the day that they voted and the government's back open. So we are here getting a chance to talk to everybody at the leadership conference that's here this year. We are very excited to have Ayan Kishore, the president and CEO of Benetech. Folks mainly know that as Bookshare.
For anybody that's a Bookshare subscriber, we've been writing around, I think going way back in the archives, Aaron, I was finding stuff all the way back.
Aaron Preece:
Yeah. So I've always been a massive fan of Bookshare, I'll just say.
Tony Stephens:
We try not to nerd out too much.
Aaron Preece:
Yeah. I was thinking I've got a lot. And it was actually my very first AccessWorld article that I wrote on my own when I was in college was of the Read to Go app on iOS. And that's also how I learned how to use an iPhone was to... And that's why I learned because I was like, oh, I'm going to use that. I want to use this app. I've got to read all my Bookshare books on the-
Tony Stephens:
That's amazing.
Aaron Preece:
But yeah, has it been a year now? How long? Two years?
Ayan Kishore:
It's actually been four years.
Tony Stephens:
Why do we live in pandemic time? The pandemic seems like it's yesterday, but everything has been stretched. All right. So it's four years now that you took the helm after Jim Fruchterman, who in his own right, has been an amazing visionary icon in the space.
How has it been over these four years coming on board and really trying to fill some big shoes, which you're doing, which is fantastic. And it's exciting. We'll talk a little bit about what's going on now with a lot of the stuff that's going to be rolling out next year, but how's it been then stepping into the role of president, CEO, and taking the helm of Benetech.
Ayan Kishore:
Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you for having me guys. It's exciting to be here at the conference, and congratulations on 25 years of AccessWorld. I just heard the last episode, and I think you all were talking about Arkanstone, which was one of the things that actually led to Benetech coming about and Jim Burking on Bookshare and all of that.
So we just celebrated our 25 years as well. So it's exciting. But going back to your point, it's been a thrilling journey. I mean, honestly, look, after the pandemic, all of us had to take stock, figure out how we do things in different ways. And for Bookshare, there was definitely on the plus side when the pandemic began, there was a spike because people were at home, they were reading a lot.
But then after that, really the fact that particularly Bookshare is heavily integrated into the school system, but with the schools being closed and not having access for those who are blind with disabilities into the school supports, we saw a dramatic drop in Bookshare usage. So a lot of it has been picking back up. It's been trying to bring things back to the figure that Bookshare had, and that's been exciting.
As for Jim, he's amazing. I was actually at a session earlier on this year. I think Brian Vashin was asked, name one person who you think has impacted the community, inspired you, and he chose Jim. So it is big shoes to fill, but Jim has been amazing. He's on our board and I'm glad to continue the journey.
Tony Stephens:
Very cool. It's exciting where you're taking it. Tell us a little bit about what's on the horizon. What are you most excited about today?
Ayan Kishore:
I think what I'm most excited about, and I'm a tech geek, I've been always focused on my life and using tech to use it for ways that matter for communities. And I'm so glad to be adopted into this community. Hopefully, you'll feel that way I definitely feel after four years.
But I think the stuff that's really exciting for me is seeing that we're sort of on a precipice of really thinking differently about accessibility and changing with AI particularly, rethinking what these barriers are in ways that they don't exist. So for example, I think that the interface between how we use digital content is going to quite dramatically change.
And I think that things that just couldn't be accessible in the past when we talk about digital content, I think is going to be also changed very rapidly. So that's very exciting for me and hopefully, to see that Benetech plays a role in accelerating that.
Tony Stephens:
Cool. Mr. Aaron?
Aaron Preece:
So if you can speak about it, you mentioned Bookshare Plus was a potential upcoming... Can you talk about that? Is that something we can-
Ayan Kishore:
Yes. All right. All right. So, Bookshare Plus, this is sort of our... I think we call it Bookshare Plus internally, but now it is external.
Aaron Preece:
We didn't let the cat out of the bag.
Ayan Kishore:
We won't change the name in the future, but it is effective.
Aaron Preece:
You reserve the right.
Ayan Kishore:
We reserve the right, yes. But the idea here is, look, Benetech with Bookshare has been really focused on making content accessible, particularly books. We did that through Bookshare. We now have, I believe, the world's largest accessible digital library, about a million and a half books in each and all sorts of formats.
And we add about 100,000 titles every year now. So that's an engine that has really taken on and I'm really... A student or someone who wants to find a book, it's there. It's there generally, the chances are like, I think it's 97% chance a book is already in Bookshare.
So we feel very confident. Josh was signing books out there and he was like, "Make sure you read my book on Bookshare." So all of this to say that we're really happy and we'll continue to make sure that the book ecosystem is accessible, but the truth is we are living at a time where information access and learning is not just books.
If you think of yourself as a student, you are interacting with all sorts of content, new digital content, interactive content, you still have teachers giving you handouts sometimes to those with disabilities. You have worksheets and all these things that are just very inaccessible.
And we are seeing actually in a classroom setting, the use of books is dramatically dropping. Unfortunately, all of that content is inaccessible. And us as an organization focused on making reading and accessible and working so heavily in education, we obviously work outside that too.
We think that Bookshare Plus is the solution, at least a solution to this, and really the concept here is given all the advances in AI that we are living through, can we apply that to take all sorts of other content, like I mentioned, math, worksheets, handouts, et cetera, stuff you pull in from your learning management system or stuff that you can just upload or just take a picture on your phone or whatever the right way is to bring it in and make it accessible on the fly.
So that's the goal of Bookshare Plus, is really taking anything. Think of it as your teacher assigned you a book to read, but they also pull in something from Google Drive that they have assigned other students and that instantly becomes accessible and applies some of the things that we've been building over the years, particularly to make STEM content accessible, diagrams, complex, diagrams, math.
Bookshare has all math, ML now integrated and everything, but how can we actually take all these inaccessible things and make the experience of reading just like it is to read a book in an accessible way? So that's the main sort of thrust for Bookshare Plus. Obviously, I think we see this having application beyond the education setting. We talk to people in the regular lives and workforce, so that could be something there.
And then the other part of this is, when we thought of accessibility in the past, it was often like, "Hey, can this be heard in audio? Can this be on a refreshable braille device? Can this be all sorts of other things?" But I think that that where we're beginning to do research on is really, what is that modality? What if you have a companion that if you are not able to get the sort of content that you're not able to get the gist of what you're reading, can you inquire with it? Can you help use a companion to be to navigate more easily?
All sorts of things that really make it really difficult and shouldn't be for the community, how do we actually add those affordances? So, all right, I'll stop.
Aaron Preece:
Yeah, that makes total sense to me too, especially what you're talking about with a companion that you can... Because at least if I remember correctly, in addition to blindness, that's like a main thing is making books available to people that are blind that they wouldn't otherwise be able to access.
But also, it's really print disabilities that is I think how it was worded the last time I saw it. So that makes total sense along with, I remember the highlighting for people with dyslexia, the different colors you could do in the app. So that seems like a perfect direction to take things.
Ayan Kishore:
Thank you.
Aaron Preece:
In general, I just wanted to say for people listening, the collection is amazing. And I know for me, what I really appreciate about it is that because I'm a big, huge reader, I read all the multiple books, sometimes a week.
Ayan Kishore:
Amazing.
Aaron Preece:
And so often you'll find like I read a lot of like old sci-fi and fantasy and that kind of thing that's from the 70s and 60s and whatever, but a lot of that stuff's out of print now, especially the more obscure things. So it's great to...
So often, it's on Bookshare and otherwise you're... So it's not available anywhere else. I know I read a book on Bookshare and didn't think anything of it, went to, "Oh, I'm going to give someone this as a gift." And it was like impossible to find. You couldn't find a print copy and the only place you could get it was on Bookshare.
So I would definitely tell people that I'm personally a major fan and I really appreciate that aspect that you can... There's so much stuff that's a great resource to access.
Tony Stephens:
It's exciting to think how you're adapting it because I didn't even think, I've got two kids in school. I don't know the last time I saw a textbook, especially since the pandemic, because everything-
Aaron Preece:
Everything's on there.
Tony Stephens:
That's when teachers discovered Google Classroom.
Aaron Preece:
Yeah. They just uploaded [inaudible 00:19:48].
Tony Stephens:
I never even really thought of that because I haven't been in school in a while, but yeah, just that. Brilliant, not too soon, not too late, like perfect timing in terms of really for y'all trying to solve what is a major problem that we're not really a book culture like we used to be.
Ayan Kishore:
Right, right.
Tony Stephens:
I love books too, but it's not-
Ayan Kishore:
Aaron's an exception here.
Tony Stephens:
Yeah.
Ayan Kishore:
No, no, but it is actually, it's funny, but we have ... Obviously Bookshare is used outside the school too. We have several blind adults who subscribe to Bookshare, Aaron, you're an example. And they read like 10 times more than I think any average human being does. It's amazing. They're like all our super users.
But you are right. I think for younger kids, yes, you're going to read the supplementary books that happens in class, but learning is now a lot more than books and the information ecosystem is much more complicated.
Tony Stephens:
That's exciting. When will there be ways... Will you all be out at the consumer conferences next year, like an FBACB or when will folks get a chance or how can folks get a chance to see it in action, listen to it?
Ayan Kishore:
Absolutely, yeah. We'll be at many of the conferences next year and trying to get feedback from people. We also encourage folks to subscribe to Bookshare because we'll be rolling this out first with Bookshare users to see what they think about some of these capabilities. But we're in the conference circuit and we would very much welcome getting feedback on this so that this is useful for the community.
Tony Stephens:
And if folks are not already subscribed to Bookshare, where can they go?
Ayan Kishore:
Great. Well, head on to bookshare.org. If you're a student, you have free access, but if you're not a student, there's a subscription fee, it's less than $7 a month, but you can go on and subscribe over there and get access to these books instantaneously. You don't have to... No due dates, nothing like that.
You have access to all of this content and that would be a great way for us to roll out some of these new capabilities and go from there. But we highly encourage folks to check out Bookshare. It is a deal that, in my opinion, that I wish I had. I'm like-
Tony Stephens:
A million and a half books.
Ayan Kishore:
... for less than $7 a month, get access to so many books. And this is obviously the obscure stuff like you, I love science fiction too. The obscure stuff that you might not find anyone also-
Tony Stephens:
How to print Isaac Asimov.
Ayan Kishore:
Exactly. But also the bestseller.
Tony Stephens:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Ayan, for taking time out during the conference. It's a busy time. We're glad Benetech and Bookshare, we're glad you all are here. And yeah, we're excited to be checking out more with Sun Store for 2026. So thanks so much.
Ayan Kishore:
Thank you. Thanks guys for what you all do. And yeah, it's a great time for digital accessibility. So thank you for having me.
Tony Stephens:
Yeah, and happy belated 25th anniversary as well.
Ayan Kishore:
Yeah, you guys too.
Tony Stephens:
Awesome. Thanks.
You've been listening to AccessWorld, a podcast on digital inclusion and accessibility. AccessWorld is a production of the American Foundation for the Blind, produced at the Pickle Factory in Baltimore, Maryland.
Our theme music is by CosMonkey, compliments of Artlist.io. To email our hosts, Aaron and Tony, email communications@afb.org. To learn more about the American Foundation for the Blind or even help support our work, go to www.afb.org.
