Designed for Everyone: Accessibility and AI in the Australia Release

[VickiChrea]

Designed for Everyone: Accessibility and AI in the Australia Release

Thank you to everyone who joined our Platform Academy session on accessibility and the ServiceNow AI Platform. Whether you are an accessibility expert or brand new to the topic, this recap walks through everything we covered, plus a few bonus features worth knowing about.

What Accessibility Actually Means

Digital accessibility is the practice of designing websites, tools, and digital interfaces so everyone can use them equally, including people with disabilities. It is easy to think of accessibility as something built for a small group, but the truth is we all rely on some form of support. Glasses are a good example. So is a cast or a cane in the physical world. At ServiceNow, we build that same kind of support into the digital world, because the world of work works best when it works for everyone.

Accessibility at ServiceNow

Accessibility starts with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the international standard that most accessibility legislation aligns to. We recently leveled up from WCAG 2.1 AA to 2.2 AA, and we are proud of that work. If you were already aligned to 2.1 AA on our platform, moving up to 2.2 is quick and easy. WCAG 2.2 AA is also embedded in our Product Development Lifecycle as part of our Definition of Done, from design through delivery. Accessibility is a global effort, and standards around the world are largely modeled after WCAG. Wherever you use our platform, we align to your local accessibility standards too.

Our work has been recognized with several international awards over the past two years, including five gold, one silver, and one bronze, with particular recognition for Voice Input for Now Assist.

AI Features in the Australia Release

Voice Input for Now Assist

Voice Input lets users interact with the platform hands-free. Click the microphone in the Now Assist panel, speak naturally, and Now Assist generates the response right in the chat.

To use it, your administrator turns on the setting, then you enable it under Preferences > Accessibility > Enable Voice Input for the Now Assist panel. Your instance needs at least one Now Assist application with a skill that uses the Now Assist panel. In the demo, we used simple spoken requests like "summarize this incident," "summarize work notes," and "generate resolution notes," and Now Assist returned clean summaries and next steps every time.

Screen Summarization

Screen Summarization helps visually impaired and cognitively impaired users understand complex interfaces quickly. The flow is simple. Press Command+U (Control+U on a PC) to trigger the AI summary. Option P summarizes the whole page, and Option S summarizes a selected section. Your screen reader then reads the summary aloud. In the demo, selecting a chart returned a plain-language breakdown of the asset counts it displayed.

AI Smart Docs Voice

If you have ever been handed a pages-long PDF or Word file, this one is for you. AI Smart Docs Voice removes the need to read lengthy documents manually. It offers:

• Intelligent summarization for PDFs, Word files, and Excel documents
• Natural language Q&A, so you can ask specific questions like "What are the termination clauses?" and get precise answers
• Visual recognition, so the AI can read charts and images and reference them in its answers

In our example, the assistant walked through a supply chain case study, answered follow-up questions about waste reduction percentages, and even calculated a dollar figure directly from a pie chart.

Dynamic Guidance

Dynamic Guidance is a voice-powered AI assistant embedded natively in ServiceNow that gives real-time, step-by-step help without leaving your workflow. Ask a question like "How do I export an update set?" and it walks you through the steps. Answers are grounded in official ServiceNow product documentation, so you can trust what you get back. Sessions run up to 30 minutes, support pause and resume, and include live transcripts. It is also admin-configurable, including which documentation sources it draws from.

Bonus Features from Australia

A few of these are not AI, but they are genuinely useful and worth your time.

Text Adjust (Free Chrome Extension)

Text Adjust is a free tool that controls how text appears on any website, including fonts, letter and word spacing, line height, and paragraph spacing, all from a draggable panel. It is especially helpful for people with dyslexia, ADHD, autism, or screen fatigue.

New with Australia, it now supports 21 languages, and it is available in the Chrome Web Store. No account, no tracking, no personal information required. Just install and adjust. Find it at bit.ly/textadjust-chrome or search "TextAdjust" in the Chrome Web Store.

Guided Tour for Accessibility Preferences

This curated tour shows users where accessibility preferences live and how to configure them. It is a quick way to discover options like keyboard shortcuts, tooltips, reduce motion, and themes. Admins and developers will find it handy too. The tour is available in the Help Center on any page.

Theming and Dark Mode

Theme Builder includes a dark mode option as a friendly alternative to the default light mode. Enable it by selecting the Choose theme icon in the application header and picking the dark theme.

Join the Accessibility Community

We would love to have you in the ServiceNow Accessibility Community on Now Community. We post regularly, share webinars and podcast appearances, and cover accessibility across every part of the platform.

• A11y Community: bit.ly/a11ycommunity
• More Platform Academy sessions: sn.works/academies

Thank you again for joining us. If you attended live, please take a moment to fill out the survey. Your feedback helps us make these sessions better for everyone.