It's Complicated: On the Design and Evaluation of AI-Powered AAC Interfaces

Blade Frisch, Will Wade, Dylan Gaines, Michelle Kinsella, Betts Peters, Tamara Broderick, Keith Vertanen

CHI '26 Workshop on Speech AI for All: The What, How, and Who of Measurement, 2026.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance what people who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) are able to do with their systems. However, evaluating AI-powered AAC interfaces can be difficult. People are intersectional beings and current evaluation metrics can struggle to capture the multifaceted and nuanced desires people may have for their AAC. We explore the complicated nature of six AAC problem spaces, explore how AI might be used in these spaces, and suggest more robust methods of evaluation that take the intersectional nuances of people into account. We also discuss broader issues that arise across these problem spaces and how they could be addressed using our proposed evaluation methods.