Global Insights Summary report

Executive Summary

Smartphones now contain screen readers, magnification tools, live captions, real-time transcription, and navigation features that can perform many of the functions of traditional assistive products. Across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), people with disabilities are using these built-in features as their primary assistive technology, often because specialist AT is unavailable, unaffordable, or absent.

This report examines that reality: the use of mainstream smartphones as assistive technology — mobile-as-AT — and the system conditions that determine whether it works reliably in practice. Despite their growing role, smartphones are rarely recognised or governed as assistive infrastructure. National AT policies typically exclude them. Telecommunications regulation and disability policy operate separately. Digital inclusion strategies seldom account for the structural requirements that make accessibility sustainable rather than temporary.

Between 2023 and 2025, GDI Hub conducted structured interventions across Kenya, India, and Brazil with more than 750 people with visual and hearing impairments. Across contexts, five consistent findings emerged:

• Mobile-as-AT functions as a layered system, not a single device. Outcomes depend on hardware performance, operating systems, connectivity, service accessibility, and structured human support.

• Training is infrastructure. Sustained capability develops over time and requires reinforcement beyond initial activation.
• Data affordability determines whether accessibility is reliable or conditional.
• Mainstream technology decisions — from language support to hardware specifications — directly shape assistive outcomes.

• Community organisations are essential delivery infrastructure, not peripheral partners.

These findings point to four minimum system conditions for mobile-as-AT to function at scale: sustained training ecosystems; affordable connectivity; accessibility standards across devices and platforms; and formal policy recognition of smartphones as AT. Without these conditions, assistive use remains fragile. Independence may increase in the short term, but without structural alignment it remains dependent on temporary supports.

Smartphones are already being used as assistive infrastructure. The question is whether the systems around them will adapt accordingly.

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