In this engaging episode, Dr. Kirk Adams sits down with Elizabeth Whitaker and Rachel Buchanan of Vispero to explore how AI and JAWS' 30-year legacy are converging to expand employment and independence for people who are blind or low vision. After Kirk shares a personal JAWS origin story from 1995, Liz and Rachel trace their own paths through VR and training, then introduce Freedom Scientific's new "Learn AI" series: live, first-Thursday-at-noon ET webinars that begin with fundamentals (terminology, prompting, hands-on practice) and progress to specific tools, ChatGPT in October, then Gemini and Copilot in November. Each session is archived with step-by-step exercises and resources, and early interest is strong with 900+ registrants for the kickoff.

They also preview FS Companion AI, built into JAWS/ZoomText 2025, which delivers up-to-date, task-level answers for JAWS, ZoomText, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and web navigation. The trio candidly addresses AI's fallibility and bias, underscoring the need for accurate, representative training data, while swapping pragmatic tips (e.g., using an iPhone's Action button for instant Voice Mode) and hinting at forthcoming features to streamline interaction with web pages and apps. The conversation closes with a shared commitment to evolve the series and tools so blind users can turn AI into a practical, competitive advantage at work.

TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. I am Doctor Kirk Adams, talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And I don't use the doctor title too often, but I use it sometimes. And it's because I have a PhD in leadership and change from Antioch University and my dissertation is called Journeys Through Rough Country, an ethnographic study of blind adults successfully employed in large American corporations. So I talked to lots of cool blind people working at lots of companies that we all know and found out what their elements of success, were. First I asked them, why do you how do you identify success? What what what do you use as your criteria to say I am successful, employed, and everybody said money in one form or another, to have enough income to have economic independence and freedom and to be able to make decisions about how to spend the money they earned. Looking at the success factors, everyone talked about family and friends support. Many of them, talked about working on a team like a sports team or a choir when they were younger. Many of them talked about having a strong internal locus of control, a real sense that they could overcome obstacles, solve problems.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And many of them attributed that to some experiences when they were young, usually in the teen years, and often to do with outdoor experiences like horseback riding and rock climbing and downhill skiing and things like that. And before I get to the next success factor, I will say that they all expressed disappointment that things were so difficult still, that they were perhaps the only blind person who'd reached their level in their company, that they didn't see role models in the C-suite or on the board who were blind that they continually had to battle for accessibility and accommodations, and many cited instances in which their employers would make changes to systems without considering accessibility, rendering them unable to do their jobs. And another factor everybody talked about was accessibility, the need to master assistive technology and to be able to access systems. Which leads us to today's guests. And we have Rachel Buchanan and Elizabeth Whittaker with us today from Vispero. And say you say hi, Rachel and Elizabeth. Hi.

Elizabeth Whitaker: Hello. And thank you for having us.

Rachel Buchanan: Yeah, we're so happy to be here.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So for those who don't connect Vispero with JAWS. Vispero provides us with Job Access With Speech, JAWS, screen reading software. This is year 30. I am a proud, proud to say that I use JAWS version one.

Rachel Buchanan: Oh, wow.

Elizabeth Whitaker: Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And what would that be? 1995. And.

Rachel Buchanan: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Working for the Seattle Public Library Foundation. And I had a refreshable braille display and JAWS. And I was able to do my job access systems, and and it's been it's been my constant daily companion ever since then. I have a daughter named Rachel who's 35, and she grew up she was born in 1990. So she's she's her, her, her JAWS as she grew up. And she told a story of she moved to the Bay area and she walked in to to connect with a friend of mine who was executive director of the World Institute on Disability. Nita. Aaron. And when she walked into the office, she heard JAWS. She said she went running in and said, I feel like I'm at home. I hear JAWS.

Elizabeth Whitaker: So she knew what that was. She recognized it right off.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's how important it is to our our family.

Rachel Buchanan: But yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm really, really excited today to hear about your AI learning training series. So I'm going to hand the microphone over to the two of you. I will reserve the right as podcast host to pop in with a question or two if you if you what you're most likely to do, say something that's over my head. Technically, I may have to ask for some clarification, but yeah.

Elizabeth Whitaker: As many questions as you want. Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: In any case, the floor is yours.

Elizabeth Whitaker: All right, well, thank you for having us here. And I just wanted to mention something that you said that was really important, talking about success and how people view success. And I think that, you know, what we're able to do in our training department because that's, you know, we we create a lot of training events and training content. And what we're able to do in our training department is provide people with the skills and the tools that they need to be successful. And so it's great to be a part of that.

Rachel Buchanan: It definitely is. And this initiative kind of to look into AI and add to our training webinar series is because we already do our regular monthly training webinar was born because we just wanted to look at the way AI is going to impact the employment space for people who are blind and low vision, negatively or positively. Just because, you know, we all hear like, oh, it's going to take jobs. And in some cases it is, but also in other cases it's just going to change them. Right. So we want to dive into what that means. We've looked at a bunch of research from AFB. Thank goodness. They've they've already, you know, gotten into that space somewhat and turned over a few stones and done some research, but we've looked at a lot of that and landed on. You know, learning skills and embracing AI as a tool as part of that solution.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Before we dive into that, let's let's hear a little bit about the two of you. And how did you come to be involved in accessibility and disability inclusion and doing the work you do?

Elizabeth Whitaker: Sure. Okay. So I wasn't sure who was going to go first. So I'm Liz and I actually after graduating from college, I was looking for ways to learn more about technology because I knew, I mean, I'd been using it for quite some time, but I knew it was going to be very important in my career, whatever I did. And I also knew that it was really important to keep up with technology. So I started out by working in vocational rehabilitation in Arkansas, and after number a number of years working there as the Director of technology, I was able to come to Vispero, where I was able to create training on a more global level. So it was very exciting in that aspect.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And are you are you a at user yourself?

Elizabeth Whitaker: Yes, I sure am. I use JAWS, I use Braille and all different types of technology because, you know, it's all about using the tools that we have available to us, and there are many tools out there. So I am definitely a longtime Jaws user and Braille user.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Cool. Me too.

Rachel Buchanan: And me as well. And I'm older than you are. Rachel by a handful of years and have been using JAWS for a good long time, but got into the blindness rehabilitation space and just love technology. So that was kind of where I fit best and just love to see people kind of rehabilitate after the vision loss process and get back to work. And so that I worked in that space for 15 years, almost before I came to Vispero. And now I'm here. I've been here since 2018.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Great. So we're all JAWS users?

Multiple Speakers: Yes, yes. Good.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Back to you. I just need to know a little bit about you, too.

Rachel Buchanan: Well, that was good. It was good. I kind of forgot that piece. So I said a little bit about background about the series. Liz, do you want to tell a little bit about what it is?

Elizabeth Whitaker: Absolutely. So one of the things that we talked about when creating this AI series, we do a lot of webinars. We do one a month. Well actually now two including this. But you know, since AI is constantly evolving, we wanted to create a series that we were going to be able to evolve with, and it was going to be something that was ongoing. And so when putting together the, you know, thinking about the webinars and the different topics we were going to cover, we thought, well, this is more than just webinars. This is going to be creating tools, creating resources, or showing people where to go get those resources. Because there are many different AI tools out there. There are many ways to use it. So we thought, well, why not build a website and have all of these different resources together in one place? And that's what we did. So if you go to Freedom Scientific Commons AI, there you will find several sections. It's all sectioned off into different headings. So there's a section there for upcoming webinars. And we currently have those listed through December. We're going to be adding more very soon. And so we started out by doing a couple of webinars. We started in August actually doing a couple of webinars to introduce people to AI and introduce them to the different concepts like prompting and the terminology that you need to know. Like, you know, what is a large language model? What are these different things that you hear about all the time in regards to AI. And then starting in October, we're actually moving on to specific AI tools. So in October, our webinar is going to be on ChatGPT.

Elizabeth Whitaker: Then we're going to move on in November to Gemini and Copilot and so forth. And so we hold these webinars the first Thursday of every month at noon eastern. So on that learned AI page, you'll find a heading there for our upcoming webinars. And then once we hold a webinar, we archive it there under a heading called lessons. So this is where you can go to listen to the webinars that we've already done. And in addition to that, we've also added the exercises that contain the tasks that we do in each webinar. So it goes right along with what we're talking about, all the different topics. It's all right there. You can go, you can read about it, you can practice and you can listen to those once again. And we do this because what we really want to do is create learning paths so that people if somebody comes to the site and they think, where, where do I start? I don't even know where to begin. It's going to show them the learning path to, you know, here's the introduction, here are the different tools. And then you have all your jumping off points that you can go to if you just want specific information. So you'll all find also find their resources, for example links to different AI tools, links to terminology. So you know, there's just a lot of different resources there. And we're going to keep building this page out so that it will contain more and more information and just give everyone a path to learn how to use AI.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm a hands on learner. I say. Reading. Reading a book about how to ride a bike is a lot different than actually trying to ride a bike. So I like to learn by doing so I'm intrigued. You mentioned there's hands on practical applications and those can't remember the exact term used, but but those hands on tactical doing steps that are outlined there in their archive there. So a person can sit with that and work with these various AI tools, with the guidance that you provide.

Rachel Buchanan: Yes. Because you're not.

Multiple Speakers: Going to.

Rachel Buchanan: Get the feel for it until you do it. And they all kind of react a little differently depending on depending on your input. And so we just want people to understand that these are a tool that you can have in your toolkit and learn to use. It doesn't have to be anything that you're intimidated by. And yeah, the practice exercises make it really handy. We're trying to make it very hands on so people don't feel that intimidation.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. So Liz and Rachel, do you two lead the webinars? Do you have a certain various people who lead various sections? What's what's the What's the vision there?

Elizabeth Whitaker: So we lead the webinars, but we are also going to be partnering with some people here in the very near future. More information to come on that very soon. And we what we what we do is we introduce the topics and then we talk about different terminology, different terms that people need to know for that particular webinar. And then we delve right into tasks. And these are the things these tasks are what we also create those exercises from. So if somebody listens to a webinar or we also transcribe them. So if somebody reads that transcription, whatever their preference is, and then they want to go back and practice those tasks, they have that those exercises to use. And it's taken right from that webinar.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And do people register in advance. How do people get connected? And for the first Thursday of every month at noon eastern.

Multiple Speakers: Yeah.

Elizabeth Whitaker: So they do they register. In fact, we had over 900 registrants for the first webinar, which was really exciting.

Multiple Speakers: That's awesome.

Elizabeth Whitaker: So it tells us, you know, people are really interested. They're engaged. Yeah. You just go register. In fact, on that page, there is a registration link for each upcoming webinar.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's freedom. I wrote it down. Freelance freedom, scientific comm slash learning.

Elizabeth Whitaker: I learn AI.

Multiple Speakers: Yes, learn. Okay, I'll take AI. I'll.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I just deleted the ING contraction. So. Got it.

Rachel Buchanan: There you go.

Multiple Speakers: Yeah.

Elizabeth Whitaker: So we're very excited. And we get a lot of comments in the chat about things that people during the webinars about things that people want to learn. You know, we've gotten a lot of feedback about where people are in their AI journey. And so this is our opportunity to help someone, no matter where they are in that journey.

Multiple Speakers: And where.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Are you at in your AI journey personally.

Multiple Speakers: Or professionally? I think we.

Elizabeth Whitaker: Both use it every day, right? But there's always a lot to learn. I feel like, you know.

Rachel Buchanan: Yeah, we.

Multiple Speakers: Use it a lot.

Rachel Buchanan: But we also I mean, it's definitely fallible, right? But we. Sure, we we use it a lot for, for different things. Maybe just brainstorming. What do you use it for most?

Elizabeth Whitaker: Liz I would say brainstorming, summarizing, analyzing writing prompts if I need help getting started with something. Yeah, but, you know, we also have other coworkers who taught us some really interesting ways to use it. You know, like getting AI to create prompts for you. If you're not, you know, sure how to create a prompt or things like that. So everyone always has something to bring to the table. I feel like.

Multiple Speakers: Yeah.

Rachel Buchanan: And analyzing data, it's just it's it's unmatched in that area when it comes to just looking at I look at our training page, our web page data on that topic, and it's very helpful to go through all of that. Those strings of numbers?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, I use it. I'd say the most I use it for is to kind of complete do the last organizing and polishing of writing. So I'll open a word document if I, if I need to or want to write something about something, I'll just kind of do a stream of consciousness, write down what I want included not necessarily worry about the order or the flow and then, you know, put put it in a, a tool and say, please, please, please organize this. And then I'll take what they have and go through it again and edit it again. But it really helps with kind of organizing and putting things in logical sequence. If that's the type of writing, the type of academic writing that needs to be done, not not asking it to compose anything necessarily. So that works great. And then you know, putting I'll say Chit chat ChatGPT app on the phone and starting to learn voice mode. That's that's been a wonderful thing.

Multiple Speakers: Oh yeah.

Rachel Buchanan: Yes. My number one tip on that is that if you have one of the newer iPhones with the action button.

Rachel Buchanan: You can set that action button. Default goes straight to voice mode. And I just think that's so cool.

Multiple Speakers: Yeah.

Elizabeth Whitaker: Push a button and talk to it. Right.

Multiple Speakers: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I need to figure out I will figure out how to do that.

Rachel Buchanan: Yeah, it's very neat.

Multiple Speakers: And you know.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And then I do things like my wife needed to buy a new pair of shoes so fast. She wants to go to an outlet mall. What are what what's within an hour drive where she can get a good deal on some shoes.

Multiple Speakers: That's great for that deal.

Elizabeth Whitaker: They'll tell.

Multiple Speakers: You. It'll tell.

Elizabeth Whitaker: You. When you said something kind of that was really important that we talked about in our last webinar, which is you know, revising that you go back through and you look at what it did for, for writing, as far as, you know, you run it through, you tell it to ask it to organize, and then you go back through and revise. And we just did a complete webinar on creating prompts and then going back and reviewing and revising. So I like that you hit on that there.

Multiple Speakers: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well I have seen it say some outrageous things that I would never say.

Multiple Speakers: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Give some examples that are that I don't know that they actually really happened. So we'll, we'll make stuff up if it needs to fill in blanks.

Multiple Speakers: It can, but it's a.

Dr. Kirk Adams: It's an amazing tool as far as work goes. And for people who are blind and visually impaired, in particular, I think you mentioned there's kind of this fear that AI is going to take people's jobs away. I, I read something recently along the lines of it's, it's going to create jobs and enhance jobs for people who know how to use AI as a tool. So I know that's a large part of what you're doing.

Multiple Speakers: Right. Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: But as far as accessibility I just want your thought on this so I know we're either of you at CSUN.

Multiple Speakers: Yes. You're both. Okay.

Rachel Buchanan: Both.

Multiple Speakers: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Me, too. Didn't next year, we'll

Multiple Speakers: Definitely Let's do it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So it was all about images, right? Image description. Smart glasses. Everyone was very, very excited about having things just described to them. Visual, visual information. And you know, I was talking to some people who know a lot more about it than I do, and they basically said, well, it's that that that's very, very exciting. It's very, very cool. But next year it'll all be about AI and how to use AI to actually accomplish work functions as as an agent. So have you experienced admitted with that, or are you going to be talking about that in your learning series?

Elizabeth Whitaker: Yeah, I don't I don't know that we've experimented with that yet, but that is something that is coming and we will definitely be talking about that as as things evolve and we all know how fast AI has evolved just in the last year, year and a half. And it's going to keep evolving.

Multiple Speakers: So right. And so will.

Rachel Buchanan: Be training series. We're going to kind of evolve it based on we kind of have a roadmap for it, but it's going to change a little bit based on what comes out. And then we also have some features in like Jaws, fusion, Zoomtext coming out that are pretty cool, that are related to AI too, that you just made me think of.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So anything you can share or is it still secret?

Multiple Speakers: Well.

Rachel Buchanan: Were you at either of the summer shows?

Dr. Kirk Adams: I was not.

Rachel Buchanan: I think we can.

Multiple Speakers: Share share what.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You.

Multiple Speakers: Shared there.

Elizabeth Whitaker: Let's just say that it's going to enhance how you interact with web pages and.

Multiple Speakers: Apps.

Elizabeth Whitaker: In a way that is really, really interesting and helpful.

Rachel Buchanan: Right?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Fabulous.

Multiple Speakers: Yeah.

Rachel Buchanan: I think you'll.

Multiple Speakers: Really enjoy it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. The other thing that came to mind and just your thoughts on it is, you know, they bias that can be built into large language models because the AI is based on data and the data is gathered through people using technology, people who are blind and people who have disabilities use technology less than people who don't have parents. So our data that represents our lived experience is underrepresented. And, you know, there were some early, early red flags around things like resumes being eliminated from employment processes because of gaps in employment, for instance. Or there was a, an instance where early autonomous vehicles autonomous vehicle did not recognize a woman in a wheelchair as a person. And there was a, you know, there was a death. So those are some pretty stark examples. But have you have you thought about that? Have you had dialogue about that? I'm really interested in perhaps understanding how we, as a community of people with disabilities could ameliorate that by making sure our data is represented proportionately, but any any thoughts?

Elizabeth Whitaker: I would say in terms of data, it's a matter of making sure that AI is trained on the correct data, making sure that all the information out there in whatever, whatever the topics are, that we want to make sure people are getting the right info about are correct. And just continuing to train AI on those topics and making sure that the information is kept up to date, I think is one of the biggest keys, you know, that we talk about. So and this is kind of along the same lines, but, you know, we have our FS companion, which is our AI learning tool for learning Jaws and Zoomtext and other applications. And so we are constantly ingesting the latest, most up to date information into it regarding not only our products, but for example, Microsoft or Google Workspace or other third party products as well, to make sure that when people look up the information, or maybe they want to know how to perform a certain task. They have that most up to date information and it's correct.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Can you tell me more about that learning tool?

Elizabeth Whitaker: Absolutely. So this was a tool that was built into Jaws and Zoomtext 2025. So it's built right into the software. So you can run it from Jaws. You can run it from Zoomtext or fusion, or you can go to Fssw companions II. And there you can just ask it questions. So if you want to ask, you know, what is the keyboard command to read a window title and JAWS? Or how do I magnify my screen in Zoomtext you can ask those questions. You can ask it questions about other applications like navigating web pages or using you know, for example, outlook. How do I create a signature and outlook, things like that. So you just go ask the questions, you can chat with it. It will give you those step by step instructions. And you can save those, you know, copy and paste them And get your information right there.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Just took another note FFS. Companion AI.

Multiple Speakers: Yes, so I.

Rachel Buchanan: Didn't realize this was set from 4 to 430. I have to jump. I have our new CEO calling me and I need to.

Multiple Speakers: Tell you better. You better.

Rachel Buchanan: I know.

Multiple Speakers: Okay, I'll stay on the jump to continue. Rachel. Goodbye, Rachel.

Rachel Buchanan: Yeah. Thank you so much.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I know we got a little bit of a late start, and we'd love to have you.

Multiple Speakers: Back as.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Things unfold with the learning series.

Rachel Buchanan: Yeah. Thank you so much. And, Liz, I know you can rock this. So thank you so much. Thanks to you guys. Later.

Multiple Speakers: Bye. Okay, thanks.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, Liz I've learned a lot. I'm very excited about the learning series. I'm happy to share information about it, which we'll do through this podcast. And and we'll do a blog post about it. Great. But if you could just give a give a closing summary of the learning series and how again re repeat how people can connect and register.

Multiple Speakers: Sure.

Elizabeth Whitaker: So you can get everything you need by going to Freedom Scientific AI. And there you'll find everything that is included in this series, which is based around our monthly webinars, which take place the first Thursday of every month at noon eastern. You can register for those webinars. We archive them there. So those will every time we have a webinar, those will be archived right there on that page. You can go back and listen to them. We include practice exercises taken straight from the tasks that we demonstrate in the webinars. So you'll be able to go back and practice everything that we talked about. And we also provide some helpful resources there for your AI journey. So everything you need to know can be found at Freedom Scientific AI. And if you have any questions or you need help registering. Send an email to training at dot com and Vespera is Victor India Sierra Papa echo Romeo Oscar. It's training at Vispero.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Com terrific. Well thank you. Our guest today have been Liz Whitaker and Rachel Buchanan from Vispero, the makers of JAWS 30th year anniversary. There was a big huge inflatable shark at CSUN in.

Multiple Speakers: Celebration of.

Dr. Kirk Adams: The 30 years.

Multiple Speakers: Yes, which.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Was a lot of fun. Yeah, I've been a 30 year JAWS user. I love what you all are doing and how you work hard to keep up with the times and the evolving technologies. So people such as you and I, Liz and Rachel, who are blind or visually impaired can fully participate in all aspects of society. And I'm just really pleased to have you and want to have you back again?

Elizabeth Whitaker: Thank you. We'd love to come back. And thank you for everything that you do.

Multiple Speakers: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And I'm Doctor Kirk Adams. If you want to get in touch with me, email Kirk Adams at Kirk adams.com. Find me on LinkedIn. Kirk Adams, PhD. Thanks for tuning in to podcast with Doctor Kirk Adams and see you next time.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at WW. Com. Together we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening, keep learning and keep making an impact.